Yasmin Haskell

Though I trained as a classicist my research and writing has been chiefly in early modern literary and intellectual history and Classical Tradition/ Classical Reception Studies. After my doctorate from the University of Sydney (1996) I held a series of research fellowships in Cambridge (UK), before coming to Perth in 2003.

In 2017-18 I served for two years as Chair of Latin and Director of the Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition at The University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Prof. Mary Beard recently praised Bristol’s ‘distinctively radical‘ classics department and wrote that ‘it was instrumental in getting the rest of the classical world in this country to think harder about all kinds of theoretical issues that classicists can sometimes leave to one side... They’ve also got a really interesting institute for the study of reception: the history of the classical world in modern culture. It’s one of the things I’m most interested in.’

I am the Cassamarca Foundation Chair in Latin Humanism. My post was seed-funded by the Cassamarca Foundation (Treviso, Italy) along with those of 14 lecturers in Italian studies throughout Australia. These lectureships are overseen by the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies: http://acis.org.au/.

I was a Foundation Chief Investigator (later, Partner Investigator) in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: Europe 1100-1800, and led research teams and projects working on 'Jesuit Emotions' and 'Passions for Learning': http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/researchers/yasmin-haskell.aspx.

I am the convenor of the 'Languages and Emotion' cluster in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-clusters/languages-and-emotion.aspx.

I am working on several projects in Latin humanism, the Latin Enlightenment, on the literature of the Suppression of the Society of Jesus, and on ‘The Poetry of Nature and the Nature of Poetry in Comparative Perspective’ (the latter growing out of a conference I convened in Bristol in May 2018, with colleagues from Classics, Modern European Languages, Chinese, Linguistics, African Studies, and Environmental and Medical Humanities.

I was CI-1 on two ARC Discovery Projects: 'Mapping the Latin Enlightenment: Centres and Peripheries' (2009-2011) and 'Psychosomatic Illness in Early Modern Italy: Lessons for Modern Psychiatric Theory and Practice' (2007-2009). I have also been invited as visiting research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge (2013-14), Christchurch College, Oxford (2011), and All Souls College, Oxford (2009).

Chair of Latin, Department of Classics and Ancient History, and Director, Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition, University of Bristol (2017-2018)

British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow (1999-2002)

Associates' Research Fellow (Newnham College, Cambridge) 1997-1999

Kathleen Hughes Research Fellow (Newnham College, Cambridge) 1995-1996

At the time of writing I am preparing to revise for publication, among other things, the 39th Erasmus Anniversary Lecture, which I delivered in Amsterdam on 9 November 2018, on Erasmus and the Health of Scholars. I have several talks and papers lined up for January, in Swansea, London and Berlin, on subjects from early modern epic to the poetry of science.