Our Mythical Childhood...

Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds

Email: o.d.hodkinson@leeds.ac.uk

Owen Hodkinson is a classicist at the University of Leeds, UK, with research interests in Greek and Roman epistolary literature and ancient prose fiction, the Second Sophistic, and Reception in 20^th- and 21^st-century literature. Together with Helen Lovatt, he was the co-organiser of the first international conference on classical receptions in modern children's literature, in July 2009: Asterisks and Obelisks: Classical Receptions in Children's Literature (report in “International Journal of the Classical Tradition” 16, 2009, pp. 508-522). This led to a co-edited volume, Classical Reception and Children's Literature: Greece, Rome and Childhood Transformation, with contributions from several of the OMC project team. He has contributed to all three OMC conferences.

Profile on the Leeds University website.

Publications on classics and children’s literature:

With Helen Lovatt, eds., Classical Reception and Children's Literature: Greece, Rome and Childhood Transformation, London: IB Tauris, 2018, 336 pp., including his contributions:

• “Interview with Michael Cadnum”, pp.50-63
• “Michael Cadnum's Metamorphoses of Ovid”, pp.64-86

“Hercules in Children’s Literature: A ‘Warts and All’ Model of Masculinity?”, in Alastair Blanshard and Emma J. Stafford, eds., Modern Hercules, vol. 1, Leiden: Brill (forthcoming, part of the University of Leeds’ Hercules Project)

OMC cycle:

• His Greek Materials: Philip Pullman’s Use of Classical Mythology”, in Katarzyna Marciniak, ed., Our Mythical Childhood... The Classics and Literature for Children and Young Adults, in the series “Metaforms. Studies in the Reception of Classical Antiquity” 8, Brill, Leiden–Boston 2016, pp. 267–290 (review)
• “She’s not deadly. She’s beautiful.” Reclaiming Medusa for Millennial Tween and Teen Girls?”, in Katarzyna Marciniak, ed., Chasing Mythical Beasts: The Reception of the Ancient Monsters in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture (forthcoming)
• “Orphic Resonances of Love and Loss in David Almond’s A Song for Ella Grey”, in in Katarzyna Marciniak, ed., Our Mythical Hope in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture (forthcoming)