Dr Luke Houghton (MA, MPhil, PhD, FHEA, FSA Scot)

Lecturer in Latin

Biography

Background

Following degrees in Classics from Oxford (2000) and Cambridge (2001, 2006), and in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute (2002), I spent two years as Postdoctoral Fellow in Latin and Reception Studies at University College London (2005-2007). From 2007 to 2013 I was Lecturer in Classics at the University of Glasgow, and then taught at the University of Reading (2014-2017) and at UCL (2014-2016) and Birkbeck (2014-2016). I taught in a number of schools before returning to university teaching at Royal Holloway (2021-2022), King's College London (2021-2022), the Courtauld Institute (2023-2024), and Cambridge (2023-2024). I am delighted to be back in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh.

I have held visiting fellowships at the British School at Rome, the Warburg Institute, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies in Innsbruck. In June 2022 I delivered the keynote lecture at a conference on The Return of the Golden Age at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR).

 

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • Scottish Representative, Society for Neo-Latin Studies (2024-)
  • Member of Council, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (2024-)
  • Committee Member, The Horatian Society (2023-)
  • Honorary Research Associate, Department of Classics, Royal Holloway (2023-)
  • Editor, Proceedings of the Virgil Society (2022-)
  • Meetings Secretary, The Virgil Society (2017-)
  • Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Greek and Latin, University College London (2017-)
  • Treasurer, Society for Neo-Latin Studies (2014-2017)
  • Visiting Fellow, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck (2014)
  • President of the Glasgow & West Centre, Classical Association of Scotland (2011-2014)
  • Committee Member, Society for Neo-Latin Studies (2011-2013, 2014-2022, 2024-)
  • Short-term Frances A. Yates Fellow, The Warburg Institute, University of London (2011)
  • Hugh Last Fellow, The British School at Rome (2010)
  • Member of Council, Classical Association of Scotland (2010-2013)
  • Member of Council, The Virgil Society (2007-2010, 2017-)
  • Examiner for PhD theses at University College London (2013, 2019, 2024) and the University of Glasgow (2016)
  • Independent assessor for MSCA-PF research funding applications, and for applications submitted to the NWO Dutch Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust

Undergraduate teaching

  • Latin 1Ha (LATI10017)
  • Latin 1Hb (LAT10018)
  • Classical Literature Seminar 3 (CLTR10036)
  • The Roman World 1B: The Roman Empire (CLGE08004)

Postgraduate teaching

  • Elementary Latin (PG) 1 (PGHC11086)
  • Elementary Latin (PG) 2 (PGHC11087)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I would be delighted to receive expressions of interest in postgraduate research on classical, medieval, and Renaissance Latin literature, and on the reception of classical authors in later art and literature. I am happy to advise on potential research topics in these areas (particularly Neo-Latin literature) and other aspects of intellectual and cultural history.

Research summary

Research summary

Places: 

  • Britain & Ireland
  • Europe
  • Mediterranean
  • Scotland

Themes: 

  • Ancient Civilisations
  • Language & Literature
  • History of Art

Periods: 

  • Antiquity
  • Medieval & Renaissance
  • Early Modern

Research interests

My research concentrates primarily on classical Latin poetry and its reception in later art and literature, especially during the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. I have published extensively on the post-classical fortunes of Virgil and Horace, and on Neo-Latin literature (that is, literature composed in Latin between the time of Petrarch in the fourteenth century and the present day). I am the author of the major study Virgil's Fourth Eclogue in the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge, 2019), and have co-edited four volumes: with Maria Wyke, Perceptions of Horace (Cambridge, 2009); with Gesine Manuwald, Neo-Latin Poetry in the British Isles (London, 2012); with Marco Sgarbi, Virgil and Renaissance Culture (Tempe/Turnhout, 2018); and with Gesine Manuwald and Lucy Nicholas, An Anthology of British Neo-Latin Literature (London, 2020). I am currently finishing a translation of Marco Girolamo Vida's influential sixteenth-century Latin epic, the Christiad, for the Oxford World's Classics series, and working on a book-length study of the uses made of Virgil's fourth Eclogue in pro- and anti-Napoleonic art and literature.

Project activity

I have participated in the activities of the following funded projects:

  • Bridging the Continental Divide: Neo-Latin and its Cultural Role in Jacobean Scotland (Glasgow 2012-2015: AHRC) - International Advisory Board
  • Baroque Latinity (University College London 2019-2022: AHRC) - participant

Past project grants

Award from Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation of New York for study in Venice (2011)

In the press

  • In December 2020 I appeared as a panel member for a programme on Horace: A Life, for Irish radio station NewsTalk
  • I featured in several interviews for the FutureLearn / University of Reading MOOC Rome: A Virtual Tour of the Ancient City

Details of publications can be found in University of Edinburgh Research Explorer:   Luke Houghton — University of Edinburgh Research Explorer

 

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