University of Edinburgh

Faculty Member, School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Professor of Classics

About

A Glaswegian, Douglas Cairns graduated with MA (Hons) in Classics, University of Glasgow, in 1983 and received the PhD in Greek, University of Glasgow, in 1987. He has been Lecturer in Greek, University of St Andrews, 1986; Post-doctoral Fellow, Leverhulme Trust, Georg-August Universität, Göttingen, 1987-8; Lecturer in Classics, University of Otago, 1988-92; Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Leeds, 1992-9; Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Glasgow, 1999-2004; Research Fellow, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, 1993-5 (held at Georg-August Universität, Göttingen).

He was appointed to the Chair of Classics at Edinburgh, 1 September 2004, and has served as Head of Classics 2004/05 and Head of School 2005-8.  He currently holds a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2008-11). In 2008 he was Visiting Professor in Classics, Kyoto University, Japan.  He has been Peter A. Vlachos Lecturer in Classics (Colby College, 2007), Margaret Heavey Lecturer in Classics (NUI Galway, 2009), and Platsis Symposiast (University of Michigan, 2009). From 2003-11 he was Honorary Secretary of the UK’s national subject association, the Classical Association, and from 2007-12 Chair of Council, the Classical Association of Scotland.

Professor Cairns works on Greek society and ethics, especially the emotions, and especially as these are reflected in Greek epic, tragedy, and lyric poetry. He has recently (2010) published a book on the epinician odes of Bacchylides.

For a full list of publications, please see http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/staff/academic/dcairns/publications.html

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