Geoffrey Harmsworth

Graduate Student

gh2511@columbia.edu

606 Hamilton Hall

Spring 2025 Office hours: TBA

Interests

Research Interests:

• Imperial Greek Literature and Epigraphy

• Social and Political History, Greek and Roman

• The Polis and Urban Politics in the Roman Empire

• Greek and Roman History (esp. the Roman-era Polis)

• Post-Classical Greek Literature; Urban Politics and ‘History from Below’

• Greek Epigraphy

• Rhetoric and Oratory
  

Geoff Harmsworth is currently writing a dissertation (under the supervision of Prof. John Ma) on celebrity and urban politics in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire. His research aims to redefine the nature of popular politics and non-elite agency in the political life of the Roman-era polis by addressing the ways in which informal/extra-institutional and formal/institutional politics combined to constrain urban elites and direct their efforts toward the public good. He argues that the key to understanding this dynamic is a new definition of celebrity as a contest over agency between prominent individuals, publics, and "media.” By drawing on a diverse array of disciplinary perspectives and sources, Geoff hopes to open up new avenues in the study of the imperial Greek polis, and the collective power of non-elites in the ancient world more generally.

More broadly, Geoff is interested in the post-classical world and its cultural production, and he is not at all ashamed to admit that his favourite ancient text is Oppian’s Halieutica (in a near-tie with Artemidorus’ Oneirocriticon). His primary goals as a teacher are to spread an interest in and appreciation of the spectacular diversity of Greek and Roman literature ‘beyond the canon’, while promoting new perspectives on the ancient world that allow any student to find their place in it without relying on the eurocentrism and elitism of the past.

Before joining the Ph.D. program at Columbia, Geoff received his BA (2016) and MA (2018) in Classical Studies from the University of Waterloo in Canada. His Master’s thesis was a study of the intertextual dynamics of Colluthus’ late antique epyllion, The Abduction of Helen. In his spare time, Geoff, a former cook, enjoys exploring the culinary world of New York City, along with its many cultural highlights.