William Winning

I am a Junior Research Fellow in Classics at Trinity.

Before taking up my current position, I completed a PhD in Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge, during which time I was also a visiting student at Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice and the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. After finishing my PhD in November 2022, I spent six months as a visiting researcher at the Centre Léon Robin (Sorbonne) in Paris and a month at the Freie Universität Berlin with the Dahlem Junior Host Program.

I studied Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge and at New College, Oxford, where I completed a MSt in Greek and/or Latin languages and literature. Between finishing my Master’s degree and beginning my PhD, I did a law conversion course and spent a year working at Phaidon Press in London.

My research focuses on the literary, intellectual and cultural history of the Classical period.

In my PhD thesis, I studied the ways in which Greeks of the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods attempted to make sense of their cultural heritage by interpreting myths, poems, names, iconography and ritual practices as allegorical representations of scientific or ethical ideas. Although frequently considered as part of the history of ancient literary criticism, my thesis argued that allegorical interpretation in these periods is best seen as a kind of ethnographical discourse which sought to translate mythic ideas into a more neutral, ‘rational’ language and as a manifestation of Greek culture’s longstanding fascination with the enigmatic. I am currently revising my thesis for publication as a monograph.

My next project will be a study of literal-mindedness, a complex phenomenon characterised by the rejection of metaphorical language and mythic explanations, disbelief in miraculous or paradoxical stories (especially when reported orally) and the devaluation of symbolism in social, political and religious life. Literal-mindedness has sometimes been viewed as a distinctive feature of the modern Western world, however its earliest manifestations, I suggest, lie in the revolutions of Greek culture between the Archaic and Hellenistic periods.

I have research interests in a wide range of other fields within Classics and the humanities, including the study of Greek prose literature; the history of the emotions (especially shame and embarrassment); Greco-Roman notions of individuality, identity and of the person; rationality/irrationality; myth and mythography; Plato; the anthropology of rumour; and the history of Classical scholarship.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you are interested in discussing any of these topics with me.

See here for more information.