Estella Kessler

Stipendiary Lecturer in Classics

Classics (Literae Humaniores)

BA, MSt, DPhil Oxon

estella.kessler@new.ox.ac.uk

I joined ��ֶ��Ƶ in October 2023 after moving all the way from Brasenose College where I studied Classics & Sanskrit for Greats before focusing back on the Classics for my Master's and DPhil. I have worked as a volunteer in the Coins & Medals Department at the British Museum as well as for 6 months in the German Archaeological Institute in Madrid. Last summer I held a Weimar Fellowship at the Klassikstiftung Weimar, Germany.

Teaching

I teach several Greek Literature options for Mods (Iliad, Greek Texts & Contexts) & Greats (Early Greek Hexameter Poetry, Tragedy, and Hellenistic Poetry) next to the Latin Aeneid option. In the past, I have also taught classes in Greek and Latin language for Mods.

Research interests

My DPhil thesis concerned the writing about the wonders of nature and human hands (paradoxography) by the Hellenistic scholar and poet Callimachus of Cyrene, for which I studied possible influences from historiography, mythography, and Peripatetic scholarship. Next to Callimachus, I keep coming back to the scientific and literary scholarship as well as history of Hellenistic times. I maintain a particular interest in the reception of the Classics in the Weimar Classicism, in particular Christoph Martin Wieland's translation of Cicero's letters & his writings on cosmopolitanism. My summers are spent either excavating or exploring remote parts of the Roman Empire.

Selected publications

Ch. Müller-Kessler with the assistance of E. Kessler (Greek Language) , 'A Palimpsest with the Martyrdom of Proklos and Hilarios (BHG 2374) in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Transmission from the monastery library of Saint Catherine (Sinai, CPA NF Frg. 7, fol. 5/6)', Analecta Bollandiana 141 (2023), pp. 5-15.
E. Kessler, Review: “S. Montanari and B. Pouderon (eds.), Évhémère de Messène. Inscription Sacrée, Paris 2022”, in Gnomon 95 (2023, in print).
E. Kessler, 'Alexander der Große und seine Idee vom Wiederaufbau des Turms von Babylon’, Isimu 20-21 (2017-18), pp. 445-60.
J.Prag, J. Cummings, J. Chartrand, V. Vitale, M. Metcalfe and E. Kessler