Dominic Laverick
Thesis title: The Other Scene: Cosmos and Dream in Aeschylus' Oresteia
PhD supervisors:
Background
I took my MA (Hons) from Edinburgh (2017-21) before venturing over to Glasgow for my MRes (2021-22). I have now returned to Edinburgh for my PhD (2023-) which is generously funded by an HCA Doctoral Scholarship.
Undergraduate teaching
Greek 1C
Greek 2Ha
Greek World 1B
Research summary
My research, 'Cosmos and Dream in Aeschylus' Oresteia', will explore the cultural history and poetics of dreaming in Aeschylean tragedy. I aim to trace the dream's conceptual metaphoric connection to the 'chthonic' (i.e., the earth), the broader externalisation of dreaming in Greek, and the relationship between dreams in the popular experience and their depiction in (tragic) drama. I am especially interested in interdisciplinary approaches - specifically Lakoff and Johnson's Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the history/romance of psychoanalysis and Classics more generally.
Beyond the oneiric, I remain interested in the (controversial) reception of Xenophon in the work of Leo Strauss and the Straussians, the work of George Thomson on Aeschylus and the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the continued value of the Myth-Ritualists.
Papers delivered
March 2023: 'Psychoanalysis and Greek Tragedy' 'Interpreting Greek Tragedy', University of Glasgow.
March 2024: 'Penelope's Tears (Od. 541-3)' Postgraduate Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh.
October 2024: 'DREAMS ARE DOWN: Dream Metaphors in Homer, Tragedy, and Ritual' Winged Words: Comparative and Historical Approaches to Conceptual Metaphors, Universiteit Leiden.
December 2024: 'Aeschylus and the Mysteries' Postgraduate Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh.
March 2025: 'Ψυχαγωγία, ψυχαγωγοί and the ψυχομαντεῖον' Postgraduate Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh.