Invited lectures

France

  • 1986: paper at conference in Montpellier organised by the Groupe Interdisciplinaire du Théâtre Antique (Le voile et le silence dans Alceste).
  • 1990: lecture at the Sorbonne at the seminar of Professors F. Jouan and A. Machin.
  • 1990: two invited lectures at the University of Strasbourg.
  • 1991: paper at conference on Initiation in University of Montpellier (Le centaure anglais: l’espace ‘initiatique’ dans Henry IV de Shakespeare) .
  • 1991: paper at conference on Ancient Drama in Toulouse (Iphigénie au bord de la mer).
  • 1991-2: lectures at the Centre Louis Gernet, Paris, and at the Congrès de l’APLAES (Association des Professeurs en Langues Anciennes de l’Enseignement Supérieur) in the Palais de l’Europe, Strasbourg (Psychologie et paysage dans l’Europe de Moschos).
  • 1999: paper at colloquium on Magic in University of Montpellier (Les yeux de Médée: le regard et la magie dans les Argonautiques d’Apollonios de Rhodes).

Germany

  • 1992: participation in colloquium organised jointly by the Universities of Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Strasbourg.
  • 1992: paper at colloquium organised jointly by the Universities of Heidelberg and Strasbourg (Montagnes mythiques, montagnes tragiques).
  • 2015: paper at conference in Göttingen on Nature- Myth- Religion in Ancient Greece (Mount Etna in the Greco-Roman imaginaire)

Greece

  • 1984: paper at symposium on ancient drama, organised by the Centre Européen Culturel at Delphi (The gods in Sophocles).
  • 1985: lectures at University of Ioannina
    • Wolves and werewolves in Greek thought
    • Euripides’ Alkestis: Five Aspects of an Interpretation
  • 1986: lecture at University of Ioannina.
  • 1995: lecture at University of Ioannina.
  • 2000: lecture at Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki.
  • 2003: paper at colloquium on Eros at Delphi (Cretan Love: The Complicated Fates of Ariadne).
  • 2004: paper at Delphi colloquium for 2500th anniversary of birth of Sophocles (Weapons and Day’s White Horses: the Language of Ajax and Macbeth).
  • 2007: paper at conference on Light and Darkness in Greek Myth and Religion at Patras (The significance (or insignificance) of blackness in mythological names).
  • 2010: lecture at Athens Dialogues colloquium, to celebrate opening of Onassis Center in Athens (Lives and Deaths of the Greek Gods, Heroes, and Historical Figures).
  • 2011: paper at colloquium on Human development in sacral landscapes at Delphi (An ogre in three landscapes: Cyclops in Homer, Euripides and Theokritos).
  • October 2018 : opening keynote lecture in Rhodes at conference on Religion and Cult in the Dodecanese (From Helios to Asklepios: contrasting and complementary perceptions of divinity)

Holland

  • 1989: lecture at University of Utrecht (Imaginary Greek mountains).
  • 2001: two days of Masterclasses on Metamorphosis at Leiden for Dutch postgraduate students and their teachers. Also lecture in Faculty of Arts, University of Leiden (Metamorphosis and Greek religion: understanding a ‘strange’ belief).
  • 2003: paper at conference on The Language of Sophocles in University of Amsterdam (Weapons and day’s white horses: the language of Ajax).
  • 2010: lecture in University of Groningen (Lives and Deaths of the Greek Gods and Heroes).
  • 2010: lecture at Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, in connection with exhibition on Capturing Metamorphosis.
  • 2014: lecture at University of Leiden (The Cyclopes: myth, historiography, and the liquid fires of Etna).

Hungary

  • 1987: two invited lectures in Budapest, one in the University, one in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Bafflement in Greek tragedy.
  • 2001: lectures/seminars in universities in Budapest and Pécs
    • Does Athene disappear? The theme of metamorphosis in the Odyssey and elsewhere
    • Self-blinding and suicide: the choices of Oedipus and Aias.

Ireland

  • 1990: lecture at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin (Imaginary Greek mountains).
  • 2012: ‘Inaugural’ at University College Dublin (The ambiguity of metamorphosis).

Russia

  • 2004: invited lectures at Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow
    • Why Study the Ancient Greeks? Greek myths, dinosaurs, and the oracle of the talking oak tree
    • Greek tragic heroes: men or supermen?
    • Weapons and day’s white horses: the language of Sophocles’ Ajax
  • 2004: invited lecture at Moscow State University (Cretan love, or the complicated fates of Ariadne).

Spain

  • 1994: paper at Madrid conference on myth, organised by Prof. J.A. López Férez, Open Univ. of Spain (Time, space and ideology: tragic myths and the Athenian polis).
  • 2004: lectures at Universidad Computense, Madrid
    • Greek tragic heroes: men or supermen?
    • Aeschylus’ Agamemnon
  • 2005: lecture at Universidad Computense, Madrid (Representing humans and animals: some Greek metamorphosis myths).
  • 2006: lecture at Universidad Computense, Madrid (The myth of Medea: art and text).
  • 2008: keynote lecture at Círculo de las Bellas Artes (In the beginning: the origins of human beings in Greek and some other mythologies).
  • 2009: lecture at Univ. Complutense, Madrid (Vidas y muertes de los dioses y los héroes griegos).
  • 2011: lecture at Jornadas on ghosts, Universidad Complutense, Madrid (Fantasmas griegos: contextos y control).
  • 2014: lecture at Universidad Complutense, Madrid (La ambigüedad de la metamorfosis: de Homero y Ovidio a Shakespeare y du Maurier)
  • 2015: lecture at Universidad Complutense, Madrid (Myths of liquid fire: Mount Etna in classical antiquity)
  • 2019: lecture at Universidad Complutense, Madrid (Beginnings and Ends: Some thoughts on the Greek gods and heroes)
  • 2021: lecture at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Myth and the Ambiguity of Metamorphosis: From Classical Literature to William Shakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Daphne du Maurier).
  • 2022: lecture at Universidad del País Vasco (Narciso: el mito y algunas de sus ‘racionalizaciones’). View the lecture (in Spanish) at https://ehutb.ehu.eus/video/62da3776a44131d55e0647d2

Sweden

  • 2013: lecture at Engelsberg Colloquium on Civilisation (What is a ‘classical’ civilization? The case of ancient Greece).

Switzerland

  • 1991-2: lectures at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne.
  • 2008: paper at conference in Geneva, organised jointly by University of Geneva and University of Columbus, Ohio (The (in)significance of names for interpreting Greek myths).
  • 2009: paper at colloquium on Boundaries, organised jointly by University of Basel and the LIMC Foundation (The boundary between male and female in Bacchae: the importance of discrimination).
Poster (featuring vase depicting the myth of Actaeon) for The Ambguity of Metamorphosis: from Homer and Ovid to Shakepeare and du Maurier, a Valedictory Lecure by Prof. Richard Buxton

Lecture poster: The Ambiguity of Metamorphosis: from Homer and Ovid to Shakespeare and du Maurier

United Kingdom

  • 1988: paper at Triennial Conference of the Greek and Roman Societies in Oxford.
  • 1993: lecture at London meeting of Hellenic Society.
  • 1993: respondent to C. Calame at KCL conference on Tragedy and ‘The Tragic’ (What can you rely on in Oedipus Rex?).
  • 1993: paper at literature seminar in Institute of Classical Studies in London.
  • 1994: paper at Ancient Society seminar in Institute of Classical Studies in London .
  • 1996: keynote lecture in British Museum for 1996 London Festival of Greek Drama.
  • 2001: lecture at 2001 Triennial Conference in Oxford (Mythical metamorphoses and the Greek natural world: the past within the present).
  • 2002: read invited papers at Cambridge Classics Faculty Literary Seminar (Minos: the place of Crete in Greek mythology) and at the Cambridge Philological Society (Metamorphosis and Greek religion).
  • 2004: paper in Edinburgh at conference on Reasons of the Heart (Premature obituaries of Greek mythology).
  • 2004: paper at Leeds National Classical Association meeting (Weapons and day’s white horses: the language of Ajax).
  • 2007: lecture at Leventis Colloquium on Greek Gods in honour of J. N. Bremmer, University of Edinburgh (Metamorphoses of gods into animals and humans).
  • 2009: invited discussant at conference in Cambridge on Greek Religion and Archaeology.
  • 2013: paper at conference in Bristol on Myths on the Map (Landscapes of the Cyclops).
  • 2013: Valedictory Lecture at University of Bristol (The ambiguity of metamorphosis: from Homer and Ovid to Shakespeare and du Maurier).
  • 2014: paper at conference at Merton College, Oxford, on Historical Consciousness and Historiography (3000 BC – AD 600) (The Cyclopes: myth and historiography).
  • 2015: paper at the Classical Society of King’s College, Cambridge (Mount Etna in the Greco-Roman imaginaire: culture and liquid fire).
  • 2015: lecture at conference in King’s College, London, on Locating the daimonic: daimones, spaces and places in the Greek World (Where were the Greek gods?)
  • 2015: talk (with Mercedes Aguirre) at Clare Hall Colloquium, University of Cambridge (Cyclops: changing perceptions of an ogre)
  • 2017: lecture to Friends of the British School at Athens (London) (Cyclops: A portrait of an ogre from antiquity until today)
  • 2018: lecture to Scottish Hellenic Society (Edinburgh) (Cyclops: A portrait of an ogre from antiquity until today)

In addition to the above, Richard has lectured on one or more occasions at numerous British universities, including Aberystwyth, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Lampeter, London, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Reading, St Andrews and Swansea, as well as giving papers at several annual Classical Association conferences, and at two conferences at Gregynog. In Bristol, he has given many talks to the Bristol Classical Association, Bristol Association of Classical Teachers, and Bristol Anglo-Hellenic Society. In 1995 he gave a pre-performance talk to the audience of Oedipus the King, played by the Actors of Dionysus (QEH, Bristol) (Oedipus the King, or: thinking the unthinkable). He has given many talks to British school students, for example in Birmingham, Guildford, London (often), Monmouth (several times), Northampton, Southampton, as well as to school students from Bristol and the south west region. For 12 years he was a judge in the Bristol schools reading competition. In 2010 he gave a plenary lecture at Bryanston Greek Summer School (Nobody in the Odyssey).

Richard Buxton with Geoff Benson at the University of Chicago

Richard Buxton with Geoff Benson at the University of Chicago

USA

  • 2007: respondent at panel on Verse and Stone, annual meeting of Archaeological Institute of America, San Diego.
  • 2010: lectures at Northwestern, at the University of Chicago, and at the University of Illinois in Chicago:
    • Lives and Deaths of the Greek Divinities and Hero(in)es
    • Movement and stillness: Greek versions of Medea from Apollonios to iconography
  • 2012: lecture at Smith College, MA (The Ambiguity of Metamorphosis from Homer to du Maurier).
  • 2014: keynote lecture at Penn-Leiden Colloquium on Ancient Values VIII, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (Mount Etna in the Greco-Roman imaginaire: culture and liquid fire).

Other

  • 2015: three lectures on board residential ship The World (Mythical Corfu; Myths of Lefkada; Why are Greek myths still powerful and relevant today?)