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Michael Trapp

Professor Michael Trapp

Emeritus Professor of Greek Literature & Thought

Research interests

  • Literature

Biography

I read Classics at Oxford (Corpus Christi College) and wrote my doctoral dissertation there on the second-century Platonizing orator (and representer of Socrates) Maximus of Tyre. I came to the University of London in 1984, teaching first at Birkbeck College, and moving to King’s in 1989.”

Research interests

My main areas of research are Greek literature and thought of the first two centuries CE, and the reception of the ancient world, with special reference to the figure of Socrates, and to the local history of classical studies at King's College London. I am fascinated both by the world of Greek writers and intellectuals in the first centuries of the Roman Empire, in particular the uses made of the ideas and practices they called philosophia, and by the ways in which particular numinous figures from antiquity – Socrates is the richest and most provocative of all examples of this – have been re-imagined, appropriated and represented since their own day.

  • Greek literature and thought of the first two centuries CE
  • Philosophy as an institution in the ancient world
  • The depiction and use of  Socrates in antiquity and since
  • Classical survivals, real and imagined the history of Classics at King's College London

For more details, please see my full research profile. 

Expertise and public engagement

Selected publications

Just some notes for my own use: Arrian’s (‘Arrian’s’?) letter to Lucius Gellius, in J. Soldo and C.R. Jackson (ed.)Res vera, res ficta: fictionality in ancient epistolography (De Gruyter 2023) 85-102

Aelius Aristides I (Orations 1-2) and II: Orations 3-4 (ed. and tr.), Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library) 2017, 2021

‘With all due respect to Plato: the Platonic Orations of Aelius Aristides’ TAPA 150 (2020) 85-113

‘“A fine specimen of Neronian brickwork” in Victorian London: how the Strand Lane Cold Bath became Roman’, in International Journal of the Classical Tradition 24 (2016) 147-174

Philosophy in the Roman Empire: Ethics, Politics and Society (Ashgate 2007)

    Research

    Centre for Hellenic Studies 2 Agios Achilleios Lake Prespa, Greece
    Centre for Hellenic Studies

    The Centre for Hellenic Studies is a unique grouping of academics with interests and expertise covering more than three millennia, from Aegean prehistory to the history, language, literature and culture of Greece, Cyprus and the worldwide Greek diaspora today.

    News

    Students explore stories of the Strand-Aldwych

    In the lead up to the pedestrianisation of the Strand-Aldwych, launched this week, students at King’s have contributed to a project, delving into the history...

    Stories of the strand

    Events

    01Febaristotle

    33rd Annual Runciman Lecture: Prof Malcolm Schofield

    Aristotle’s Practicable Idealism

    Please note: this event has passed.

      Research

      Centre for Hellenic Studies 2 Agios Achilleios Lake Prespa, Greece
      Centre for Hellenic Studies

      The Centre for Hellenic Studies is a unique grouping of academics with interests and expertise covering more than three millennia, from Aegean prehistory to the history, language, literature and culture of Greece, Cyprus and the worldwide Greek diaspora today.

      News

      Students explore stories of the Strand-Aldwych

      In the lead up to the pedestrianisation of the Strand-Aldwych, launched this week, students at King’s have contributed to a project, delving into the history...

      Stories of the strand

      Events

      01Febaristotle

      33rd Annual Runciman Lecture: Prof Malcolm Schofield

      Aristotle’s Practicable Idealism

      Please note: this event has passed.