Classical Studies PhD Student

Spiridon-Iosif Capotos is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Classical Studies at Boston University, having graduated cum laude in Italian, Latin, and Greek Literature at the University of Pavia (BA), and cum laude in Classical Philology at the Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna (MA). His main research interests lie in Greek epic poetry and focus on the development of its formulaic diction and style. Other aspects of his research are historical linguistics, Sanskrit epic, comparative Indo-European poetics,  the problem of authorship in oral poetry, the definition of epic and didactic poetry as genres, and the historical and social background of Homeric and Hesiodic poetry. Outside academia he is trying to convert other classicists to “soccer” and blue-bikes, a topic that comes up a little too often.

 

Publications:

2024, “Short Accusatives in Hesiod: A Diachronic Approach to an Un-Homeric Feature”, in GRBS 64, pp. 376-396.

Conference Papers:

  1. January 2025, “As long as it flows: didactic poetry and the deluge in Iliad XII, 16-33” Society for Classical Studies Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
  2. May 2024, (with Kelly Polychroniou) “Modern Greek class transformation through AI”, 10th International Summer University “GREEK LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND MASS MEDIA”, Boston, MA.
  3. March 2024, “Alluding to Homer Through Apollonius: Palinurus’s Epic Models and Their Use by Vergil’, CANE Annual Meeting, Durham, NH.
  4. January 2023 “Penelope in Ogygia, the overturning of a formulaic theme”, Society for Classical Studies Annual Conference New Orleans, LA.
  5. November 2022 “Short Accusatives in Hesiod: A Diachronic Approach to an Un-Homeric Feature”, Harvard Indo-European and Historical Workshop, Cambridge MA.