Efimia Karakantza

Efimia Karakantza is Professor of Ancient Greek Literature at the University of Patras, Greece. She has been the Chair of the Department of Philology of the same University since 2022. She was trained at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece (BA), University of Reading, UK, and Centre Louis Gernet, Paris (PhD), and she conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Texas at Austin. She was the recipient of the prestigious residential fellowship from the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, Washington DC in 2010-2011, while she served as a Fellow in Hellenic Studies for the same Center for which she directed the international student / early career-oriented project on the Greek Epic Cycle named Kyklos. She is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Myth and Religion in Greek and Roman Antiquity and a member of the Committee of the Institute of Ancient Drama of the University of Patras.

Her recent publications focus on metafeminist and political readings of ancient Greek literature, mainly Homeric poetry and Greek tragedy, as well as their contemporary reception in literature, the performing arts and on screen. Her book on Oedipus titled: ‘Who Am I? (Mis)Identity and the Polis in Oedipus Tyrannus, HSS 86, HUP 2020, explores issues of identity and citizenship in the ancient polis. Her book on Antigone (Routledge 2023) explores the ancient legend in the classical texts, as well as its reception in contemporary critical thinking and the performing arts. She is the co-editor of the volume on Ancient Necropolitics. Maltreating the living, abusing the dead in Ancient Greece, which will appear in 2025 as Mnemosyne Supplement 492 by Brill (Leiden). She enjoys teaching and she promotes interdisciplinary and intergenerational collaborations within the wider framework of the ancient Greek world.