Newcastle University

Introduction

BA (University of King's College), MA Classics (Dalhousie), PhD (Birmingham).

My primary research interests are Greek and Roman music, especially Greek harmonic theory; instruments and their place in the development of Greek musical science; music and Graeco-Roman society; the representation of musical instruments, expertise and performance in non-technical literature; musical learning and cultural memory in the Second Sophistic; and the reception of ancient Greek musical theory in later ages.  I have published articles on musical aspects of Latin poetry and Greek philosophical texts, as well as a book entitled The Monochord in Ancient Greek Harmonic Science (Cambridge, 2010).  I served on the founding executive committee of MOISA, an international society for the study of Greek and Roman music and its cultural heritage.

Academic career

• 2011-  Lecturer in Classics, Newcastle University
• 2010-11  Associate Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, University of British Columbia
• 2003-10  Assistant Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, University of British Columbia
• 2002-3  Lecturer in Classics, University of St Andrews
• 2001-2  Teaching Fellow in Humanity (Latin), University of St Andrews
  

Other professional activities

• 2012- Member of Greek and Roman Musical Studies Editorial Board
• 2011-13  Member of Phoenix Editorial Board.
• 2006-11  Member of Executive Committee, MOISA:  International Society for the Study of Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage
• 2004-  Anonymous peer referee for:  Journal of Hellenic Studies, Mouseion, Phoenix, Routledge
  

2012/13

My office hours in Semester 2 are:

Tuesdays 15.00-16.00
Wednesdays 9.00-11.00

Students may check my availability here.  My office is Armstrong 3.05.

I am unavailable on Mondays (my research day).

UNDERGRADUATE

Module leader

CAC1015: How Should I Live? An Introduction to Ancient Moral Philosophy (Semester 1)

CAC2057/3057: Greek and Roman Music (Semester 2)

CAG1001: Beginners' Greek in Action (Semester 1)

CAG1011: Intermediate Greek Language and Literature (Semester 1)

CAG1012: Intermediate Greek Language and Literature (Semester 2)

CAG3001: Level 3 Greek: Interpretation of Texts (Semesters 1-2)

Contributing lecturer

CAC2001: Researching the Classics (Semester 1)

CAG1002: Beginners' Greek in Action (Semester 2)

CLA2099/3099: Special Study on an Aspect of Classical Influence in English Literature (Semester 1)

POSTGRADUATE

Contributing lecturer

CAC8000: Research Skills and Dissertation Training

CAC8009: Approaches to Classics Research

Areas of specialisation

As a classicist with a consuming interest in music, my research interests centre around the ways in which music was involved in Greek intellectual life and literary culture. This set of interests has led me to pursue questions about the related roles of instruments, diagrams, proofs and experiments in the development of scientific arguments on musical subjects in Greek antiquity; about the sometimes complicated literary reception of Greek musical culture in Latin poetry; about the rhetorical uses of the technical terminology of Greek musical theory in non-technical literature; and about the literary culture of scientific writing more broadly:  its modes of persuasion; its criteria of truth; the literary uses of scientific discovery, proof, fable and anecdote.

Current projects

• an article on the rhetoric of choreia and the institutions surrounding competitive choral song in Demosthenes 21 Against Meidias
• a reassessment of a fragment of Panaetius (possibly the Stoic Panaetius of Rhodes) that concerns musical intervals and musical perception 
• an article on music and the rhetoric of identity in Lucian's dialogues
  
• a book on music and cultural memory in the Second Sophistic

Postgraduate supervision

In addition to the areas mentioned above, topics in ancient philosophy (particularly epistemology and ethics), the sciences (especially the exact sciences) in Greek and Roman antiquity, and Greek poetry (especially Hellenistic).

• Creese D. Rhetorical uses of mathematical harmonics in Philo and Plutarch. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 2012, 43(2), 258-269.
• Creese D. Instruments and empiricism in Aristoxenus' Elementa harmonica. In: Huffman, C.A, ed. Aristoxenus of Tarentum: Discussion. New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA: Transaction Publishers, 2012, pp.29-63.
• Creese D. The Monochord in Ancient Greek Harmonic Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Creese D. Erogenous organs: the metamorphosis of Polyphemus’ syrinx in Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.784. Classical Quarterly 2009, 59(2), 562-577.
• Creese D. Ascoltare i numeri, vedere i suoni: la funzione degli strumenti e dei diagrammi nella scienza armonica greca. In: Daniela Castaldo, Donatella Restani and Cristina Tassi, ed. Il sapere musicale e i suoi contesti da Teofrasto a Claudio Tolemeo. Ravenna: Longo, 2009, pp.67-83.
• Creese D. Entries on harmonics authors ('Aelianus the Platonist'; 'Aristotelian Corpus On Sounds'; 'Dēmētrios (Music)'; 'Didumos the music theorist'; 'Dionusios (of Halikarnassos?)'; 'Euclidean Sectio Canonis'; 'Hērakleidēs of Hērakleia Pontikē, Junior'; 'Kleoneidēs'; 'Panaitios the Younger'; 'Ptolemaïs of Kurēnē'). In: Keyser, PT; Irby-Massie, GL, ed. Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek Tradition and its Many Heirs. London & New York: Routledge, 2008, pp.32-33, 150-151, 230, 244-245, 263, 306-307, 369-370, 481, 607-608, 705-706.
• Creese D. Music. In: Bispham, E., Harrison, T., Sparkes, B, ed. The Edinburgh Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006, pp.413-422.
• Creese D. Jacobsson, M., Aurelius Augustinus: De Musica Liber VI. A Critical Edition with a Translation and an Introduction (Stockholm, 2002). Journal of Roman Studies 2005, 95, 296-297.
• Creese D. 'Macran, H. S.'. In: Todd, R.B, ed. Dictionary of British Classicists, 1500-1960. Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004, pp.617-618.
• Barker A, Creese D. Eratosthenes. In: Ludwig Finscher, ed. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001, pp.399-400.
• Creese D. In manus tuas. . Hildenborough: Encore, 2000.
• Creese D. Music and the alienation of ancient Greece. Ad Familiares 2012, 43, 13-15.