Staff Profiles
Dr David Creese
Lecturer in Classics
- Email: david.creese@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: +44 (0)191 208 6473
- Address: School of History, Classics and Archaeology
Newcastle University
Armstrong Building
Queen Victoria Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
United Kingdom
Office: Armstrong 1.24A
Leverhulme Research Fellow 2019-20
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
- 2019-20 Leverhulme Research Fellow (Project: 'Scientific Authority in Ptolemy's Harmonics: A Comparative Approach')
- 2015-18 Head of Classics & Ancient History and Deputy Head of School, Newcastle University
- 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
- 2015 Organiser of the 2015 Moisa conference, 'Music and the Body in Greek and Roman Antiquity' (Newcastle, 29-31 July 2015)
- 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
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 Major Project
Scientific Authority in Ptolemy's Harmonics: A Comparative Approach.
Claudius Ptolemy's treatise on harmonics (2nd c. AD) cites very few authorities, and undermines them all. Yet his mathematical approach to the study of Greek musical theory requires some basis for trust, since it is in several respects a revolutionary one. The project aims to elucidate the processes by which Ptolemy builds this basis of trust, investing scientific authority in the reader’s perception and reason through a regulated interaction facilitated by the controlled deployment of purpose-built instruments. The investigation relies on a close comparison, the first of its kind, of Ptolemy’s methods in harmonics and optics.
(This project is supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 2019-20.)
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).
2019-20
- On research leave (Leverhulme Research Fellowship)
- 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: 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. The 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.