Lynn Fotheringham

Contact

• workRoom B52 Humanities Building
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• work+44 (0)115 95 14809
• lynn.fotheringham@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

I grew up in Glasgow but went to Edinburgh University where I graduated with an MA in Classics in 1991. I have studied and worked in different countries, spending what would now be called my 'gap year' at Iowa State University, teaching English in Xanthi in Northern Greece after graduating, and doing a Masters degree at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania before returning to the UK to do my D.Phil at the University of Oxford. I taught in University College Dublin for a year before coming to Nottingham in 1999. I live in Nottingham with my partner, Matt Brooker, a comics-artist who has collaborated with me on both teaching and research. We continue to travel whenever we can, having spent recent research-leave periods in Vienna, Thessaloniki, and Gijón in Northern Spain.

My next period of research-leave will be in the Spring semester of 2023/24.

Expertise Summary

My main areas of expertise are Ciceronian judicial oratory, the teaching of Latin, and the Reception of the Classical World. My work on Cicero includes a focus on stylistc analysis (facilitated by concordance-work) which is also important in my Latin teaching. Reception areas I am interested in include Greek tragedy on television, and various other aspects of the Classical world in comics/novels/films, as well as the history of Ciceronian scholarship.

Teaching Summary

My teaching is currently focused on Latin language and the linked themes of Reception/creative responses to the ancient world. In the past I have taught a broad range of modules in Greek and Roman… read more

Research Summary

I am currently working on a monograph on Classical Reception, using the idea of 'authenticity' to unite my diverse interests in this field. I plan to cover:

• two very different on-screen versions of Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis;
• Steven Saylor's detective novels and stories featuring Ciceronian trials;
• the cinematic presentation of tourists and travellers visiting the Classical countries;
• the sanitisation of Hercules and other Greek heroes in comics and cinema;
• collaboration between academics and people working in the creative industries, esp. that of my colleague Steve Hodkinson and comics-writer Kieron Gillen on the graphic novel, Three.

The book will explore the different ideas of 'authenticity' held by creators and audiences, and how the discourse around this concept shapes both production and response. There will be an emphasis on the limitations on any possible 'authenticity', and an exploration of the different possible results of a creator's work with the ancient sources. A strong theme will be the opposition between a reverential approach to the Classical world and a more 'gritty', supposedly realistic one.

I will be on research leave in autumn 2019/20.

Recent Publications

• L.S. FOTHERINGHAM, 2019. Doing justice to the past: the representation of violence in a historical comic. In: IAN HAGUE, IAN HORTON and NINA MICKWITZ, eds., Contexts of Violence in Comics Routledge. 17-33
• LYNN S. FOTHERINGHAM, 2018. Don Taylor, the 'old-fashioned populist'? The Theban Plays (1986) and Iphigenia at Aulis (1990): production choices and audience responses. In: F.E. HOBDEN and A. WRIGLEY, eds., Broadcasting Ancient Greece on Television Edinburgh University Press. 123-146
• LYNN FOTHERINGHAM, 2016. Framing Cicero's Lives: production-values and paratext in nineteenth-century biographies. In: GESINE MANUWALD, ed., The Afterlife of Cicero 135. Institute of Classical Studies. 199-216
• LYNN FOTHERINGHAM, 2016. Introduction. In: ROBERT WEST and LYNN FOTHERINGHAM, eds., Cicero Pro Milone: A selection 1. Bloomsbury Academic. 1-40

• View all publications

My teaching is currently focused on Latin language and the linked themes of Reception/creative responses to the ancient world. In the past I have taught a broad range of modules in Greek and Roman literature, Greek and Latin language, and late Roman Republican history. I am particularly enthusiastic about creating opportunities for students to gain understanding of the ancient languages at whatever level is appropriate to them.

Past Research

My past publications cluster in two areas: Cicero's speeches; and various aspects of Reception.

My commentary on Cicero's Pro Milone focuses on the structure of the speech, using insights from Discourse Analysis and a computer-generated concordance of the speech to enhance our appreciation of Cicero's verbal skill. I also exploit this approach in my teaching.

My work on Reception has looked at positive and negative representations of ancient Sparta, the process of adapting epic for the screen, Greek drama on UK television and nineteenth-century biographies of Cicero.

In January 2016 I held a conference to coincide with the "Greek Tragedy on the Small Screen" series of screenings, at which fourteen scholars from five countries - and three creative practitioners - present papers on representations of the sacrifice of Iphigenia through the centuries from the ancient world to the present day. I worked with Nottingham Lakeside Arts to bring the 2012 BFI mini-season, "Classics on TV: Greek Tragedy on the Small Screen", to Nottingham in January-March 2016; this gave me the opportunity to conduct some audience-research.

Future Research

After completing the 'authenticity' monograph, I plan to return to the close study of Ciceronian texts, and to make a contribution to pedagogical research by publishing on the Department's innovative assessment methods.

• L.S. FOTHERINGHAM, 2019. Doing justice to the past: the representation of violence in a historical comic. In: IAN HAGUE, IAN HORTON and NINA MICKWITZ, eds., Contexts of Violence in Comics Routledge. 17-33
• LYNN S. FOTHERINGHAM, 2018. Don Taylor, the 'old-fashioned populist'? The Theban Plays (1986) and Iphigenia at Aulis (1990): production choices and audience responses. In: F.E. HOBDEN and A. WRIGLEY, eds., Broadcasting Ancient Greece on Television Edinburgh University Press. 123-146
• LYNN FOTHERINGHAM, 2016. Framing Cicero's Lives: production-values and paratext in nineteenth-century biographies. In: GESINE MANUWALD, ed., The Afterlife of Cicero 135. Institute of Classical Studies. 199-216
• LYNN FOTHERINGHAM, 2016. Introduction. In: ROBERT WEST and LYNN FOTHERINGHAM, eds., Cicero Pro Milone: A selection 1. Bloomsbury Academic. 1-40
• LYNN FOTHERINGHAM, 2015. Plutarch and Dio on Cicero at the trial of Milo. In: RHIANNON ASH, JUDITH MOSSMAN and FRANCES B. TITCHENER, eds., Fame and Infamy: Essays for Christopher Pelling on Characterization in Greek and Roman Biography and Historiography 1. Oxford University Press. 193-208
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2013. Twentieth/Twenty-first century Cicero(s). In: STEEL, C., ed., The Cambridge companion to Cicero Cambridge University Press. 350-373
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S. and BROOKER, M., 2013. Storyboarding and epic. In: LOVATT, H.V. and VOUT, C., eds., Epic visions: visuality in Greek and Latin epic and its reception Cambridge University Press. 168-190
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2013. Persuasive language in Cicero's Pro Milone: a close reading and commentary Institute of Classical Studies.
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2012. The positive portrayal of Sparta in late-twentieth-century fiction. In: HODKINSON, S. and MORRIS, I.M., eds., Sparta in modern thought: politics, history and culture Classical Press of Wales. 393-428
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2009. An Action Research Approach to Assessment and Learning on a Second Year Classics Module. In: SIDOROVITCH, A., ed., Teaching for Integrative Learning: Innovations in University Practice 2. Nottingham: Centre for Integrative Learning. 48-58
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2007. The numbers in the margins and the structure of Cicero's Pro Murena Greece & Rome. 54(1), 40-60
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2007. Having your cake and eating it: how Cicero combines arguments. In: POWELL, J.G.F. and RUBINSTEIN, L., eds., Logos: rational argument in ancient rhetoric London: Institute of Classical Studies. 69-90 (In Press.)
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2007. Cicero detective? Omnibus. 16-19
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2006. Cicero's fear: multiple readings of Pro Milone 1-4 Materiali e Discussioni per l'Analisi dei Testi Classici. 57, 63-83
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2006. Gliding transitions and the analysis of structure: Cicero's <i>Pro Archia</i>. In: DEROUX, C., ed., Studies in Latin literature and Roman history 13. Brussels: Latomus. 32-52
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2004. Repetition and Unity in a Civil Law Speech: The <i>Pro Caecina</i>. In: POWELL, J.G.F. and PATERSON, J.J., eds., Cicero the Advocate Oxford: Oxford University Press. 253-76
• FOTHERINGHAM, L.S., 2000. Marking the Messenger: Language and Function in Greek Tragedy In: Theatre: Ancient and Modern. Selected Proceedings of a Two-Day International Research Conference.