Dr Jane Montgomery Griffiths
- Biography
- Units taught
- Research interests
- Postgraduate Supervision
- Grants and awards
- Committee and Community Service
- Publications
- Contact
Biography
Jane Montgomery Griffiths is a specialist in Greek drama in contemporary performance and has combined academic teaching and research in the UK and Australia with professional performance practice as an award winning actor and director in the UK in over forty professional productions.
She has held university positions in both drama and Classics departments, and has taught at York St John's and Bretton Hall University Colleges (the University of Leeds), La Trobe University and the University of Melbourne. She has also held two visiting Fellowships at Cambridge University as the Judith E. Wilson Visiting Junior Fellow in Drama and the inaugural Leventis Fellow in Greek Drama, during which time she was Director of the Triennial Cambridge Greek Play, directing acclaimed productions of Euripides’ Trojan Women and Sophocles’ Electra. She first came to Monash in 2003 as a Lecturer in Drama in the Centre for Drama and Theatre Studies, but the following year moved to take up convenorship of the Classical Studies Program.
Her research into performance practice and classical scholarship has continued with work on Electra in performance, and, in 2007, with a highly acclaimed one-woman show on Sappho, which she wrote and performed on commission from The Stork Stage, Melbourne (see links below for further details).
Jane recently took over as editor-in-chief of Didaskalia, the international on-line academic journal dedicated Greek and Roman drama and performance practice.
She was convenor of the 2008 conference on Classical Reception Studies, ‘Refashioning the Classics’; was co-convenor of the 2006 conference Close Relations: the spaces of Greek and Roman performance for the University of Melbourne/Monash University; and was joint organiser of the Complex Electras Symposium at the University of Cambridge with Jennifer Wallace (2001).
She holds BA Hons./MA degrees from the University of Cambridge (King's College Scholar) and a PhD from the University of Melbourne (Helen M. Schutt Scholar: most outstanding female postgraduate in Arts).
Units Taught
Cultural Studies:
2nd and 3rd Year Cultural Units: Ancient Greek Theatre (CLA2040/3040); Ancient Greek Epic (CLA2030/3030); Performing Rome (CLA2050/3050).
Language Teaching:
Introductory Ancient Greek (CLA1111/1121; CLA2111/2121; CLA3111/3121);
Introductory Latin (CLA1110/1120; CLA2110/2120; CLA3110/3120).
Research Interests
- Personal voice theory, reflective practice and shifting methodologies in Classical scholarship
- Reception studies (particularly the reception of Greek and Roman performance)
- Psychoanalytic, feminist and phenomenological readings of Greek and Roman 'texts'
- Sophocles’ Electra in performance
- Sappho’s reception and affective voice
- Application of critical and cultural theory to the Classics
- Pedagogy and academic literacy in the teaching of Latin
Post-Graduate Supervision
Main Supervisor:
- Siobhan Privitera, PhD candidate with Classical Studies Program. Research Area: Female shame in Archaic poetry.
- Miriam Riverlea, PhD candidate with Classical Studies and ECPS. Research Area: Classical Reception and Children’s Literature
- Victoria Fritze, PhD candidate with Classical Studies Program. Research Area: The teaching of Classics in Australian schools.
- Helen Slaney, PhD candidate with Classical Studies and Theatre Studies. Research Area: Seneca and performance theory.
- Pamela Hutcheson, MA candidate with Classical Studies. Research Area: Pindar and topography.
Associate supervisor:
- Natalie Miller, PhD candidate with School of Political and Social Inquiry. Research Area: Hannah Arendt and the political actress in Greek tragedy
- Weiwen Fu, PhD candidate with the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. Research area: the dragon in Chinese and comparative cultures
Grants and Awards
2007 - Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence
2007 - School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics Small Grant. Project title: Old Words, New Worlds- Classical Reception Studies in Australasia
2006-7 - Arts Faculty Teaching Led Research Grant: Latin for Academic Literacy
Committee and Community Service; Professional Membership
Deputy Associate Dean (Graduate Research), Faculty of Arts, 2008-2009
Member of VCE Classical Societies and Cultures Review Panel for Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority..
Council Member, Classical Association of Victoria.
School Honours Convenor for LCL, 2007-2008.
Member of LCL ESEC Committee 2008-9; LCL chool Executive 2008.
Publications
Books
Griffiths, J, Monaghan, P & Sear, F (eds) 2009, The Spaces of Greek and Roman Theatre, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Book chapters (forthcoming)
Griffiths, J 2009, 'The space of memory’ in The Spaces of Greek and Roman Theatre, J Griffiths, P Monaghan & F Sear (eds), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (Accepted 2008)
Griffiths, J 2009, ‘Acting Perspectives: the phenomenology of performance as a route to reception’, in E Hall (ed) Theorising Performance: Greek Drama, Cultural History, and Critical Practice, Duckworth, London. (Accepted 2008)
Griffiths, J 2009, ‘The Abject Eidos: embodying trauma in Sophocles’ Electra’, in J Parker and T Mathews (eds), Translation, Trauma and Tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Accepted 2008)
Griffiths, J , ‘Shaming Words: Performing the name in Sophocles’ Electra’ in J Davidson (ed.) Greek Drama IV, Oxbow Books, Oxford. (Accepted 2008)
Refereed journal articles
Griffiths, J 2008, ‘Remembering Derry’ in Didaskalia, Volume 7, no. 2.
Griffiths, J 2007, ‘The Experiential Turn: shifting methodologies in Performance Reception’,
New Voices, Issue 2, pp. 73-90.
Other publications
Griffiths, J 2007, ‘Case Study 2 with Lorna Hardwick: Staging the Cambridge Greek Play 2001’, Practitioners’ Voices in Classical Reception Studies, Issue 1, pp. 16-25.
Griffiths, J 2005, ‘The Cambridge Greek Play’, in N Upton (ed.), In Good Company: A Snapshot of Theatre and The Arts, Cambridge Arts Theatre Publications, Cambridge.
Practice-based Performance Research
- 2007 - Sappho Unravelling, The Stork Stage, Melbourne (script and performance)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/sappho-speaks-to-the-modern-heart/2007/11/13/1194766671309.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22720073-16947,00.html
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/2060238.htm - 2001 - Cambridge Greek Play, Sophocles’ Electra, Cambridge Arts Theatre (director)
(For production details see Open University Classical Reception database @ http://www4.open.ac.uk/csdb/ASP/ViewBook.asp) - 1999 - Sophocles’ Electra, Compass Theatre Company (Actor, playing Electra)
(For production details see Open University Classical Reception database @ http://www4.open.ac.uk/csdb/ASP/ViewBook.asp) - 1998 - Cambridge Greek Play, Euripides’ Trojan Women, Cambridge Arts Theatre (director) (For production details see Open University Classical Reception database @ http://www4.open.ac.uk/csdb/ASP/ViewBook.asp)
Contact
Menzies Building (Building 11), Clayton Campus, Room W319
Phone: (03) 9905 3251 (international: +61 3 9905 3251)
Fax: (03) 9905 5437 (international: +61 3 9905 5437)
Email: Jane.Griffiths@arts.monash.edu.au
Mailing Address:
Dr Jane Griffiths
Classical Studies Program
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Building 11
Monash University VIC 3800
Australia