Overview

Johanna Hanink took her PhD in Classics from the University of Cambridge (Queens' College). Her work in Classics focuses on classical Athens, particularly on the intellectual and political life of the city's fourth century BCE. She is especially interested in the construction and reception (in both antiquity and more modern times) of the idea of the ancient 'Greek miracle'. Some of her work touches on the points of contact between modern politics and ideas about ancient Greece, and antiquity more generally.

She is the author of:

• The Classical Debt: Greek Antiquity in an Era of Austerity (Harvard 2017);
• Lycurgan Athens and the Making of Classical Tragedy (Cambridge 2014).

She is a translator of Modern as well as Ancient Greek. Some of her shorter published literary translations are collected here.  Her book-length translations are:

• The Archeologist and Selected Sea Stories (Penguin 2021; a volume of works by Andreas Karkavitsas, translated from the [Modern] Greek);
• How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy (Princeton 2019; a short volume of speeches from Thucydides, with introductions and notes).

She is co-editor of the volumes:

• (with Demetra Kasimis) In Terms of Athens: New Encounters between Classics and Political Theory (special volume of Ramus; 2021);
• (with Richard Fletcher) Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, Artists, and Biography (Cambridge 2016).

She is active in Brown's Program in Modern Greek Studies and was formerly Arts & Humanities editor of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies. She is a member of the editorial board of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review and a regular collaborator with Greece's ThePressProject.

She has written several public-facing essays and reviews: these are collected on her personal website.

She hosts a biweekly podcast called Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas.

Brown Affiliations

• Classics

Research Areas

On the Web