Richard Fletcher

Richard Fletcher’s main research is focused on Roman Philosophy and Literature. Following his first book – Apuleius’ Platonism: the Impersonation of Philosophy (CUP 2014) – he is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy (with Will Shearin) and working on a book on dogmatism and fiction in Lucretius, Persius and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. He has published and presented on a range of authors and topics including Hesiod, Ion of Chios, Plato, Cicero, Apuleius, Diogenes Laertius and Epicureanism in the Second Sophistic. He is also co-editing the collection of essays Creative Lives: Poets and other Artists in the Ancient Biographical Imagination (with Johanna Hanink).

While he is engaged with a range of issues and debates in reception studies, including the poetry of Charles Olson and the psychoanalytic work of Julia Kristeva, his main ‘postclassicism’ interests are focused on the dynamic between Classics and Contemporary Art. He has delivered papers and organized a conference panel on Cy Twombly’s multifaceted engagement with antiquity and has written essays for exhibition catalogues of Josiah McElheny, William E. Jones and Paul Chan. He has curated an exhibition on the photographer Donald Lokuta and is currently developing an exhibition project about how artists use mechanisms of reference (to antiquity and beyond) in their work. He was recently selected by the Warhol Foundation to participate in their Art Writers’ Workshop to develop his blog: Minus Plato: Classics and Modern/Contemporary Art. The blog acts as an archive for his research and teaching in Classics and Contemporary Art. As a teacher, he brings Contemporary Art into discussions and assignments in classes on Ancient Philosophy, Mythology and Comparative Translation Studies. He was awarded the inaugural Ronald and Deborah Ratner Distinguished Teaching award for teaching innovation in the Division of Arts and Humanities at Ohio State.