Luuk Huitink is Associate Professor of Ancient Greek and MA Programme Director of ACASA.
Huitink was educated at the University of Amsterdam (MA) and Worcester College, University of Oxford (MSt, DPhil). Before returning to his alma mater in 2020, he served as the Leventis Research Fellow in Ancient Greek at Merton College, University of Oxford (2009-2013), as Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at Heidelberg University (2013-2018) and as Spinoza Visiting Fellow and postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University (2016, 2018-2020).
Huitink's research focuses on linguistic, narratological and cognitive approaches to Greek literature, in particular historiography (Xenophon and Flavius Josephus having his special interest) and the ancient rhetorical tradition, while he has also published on, for instance, Homer, Attic Oratory, and Protagoras. He seeks to combine new theoretical frameworks (such as embodied cognition and socio-psychological research) with time-honoured philological practices such as close-reading.
Huitink is a member of the Amsterdam Centre for Ancient Studies & Archaeology (ACASA), where his his research is currently being pursued under the aegis of Anchoring Innovation, a research programme of the Netherlands National Research School in Classical Studies (OIKOS), which is supported by a 2017 Gravitation Grant of the Ministry of Education of the Netherlands (NWO). He is also involved in various other projects, including one on Conversation Analaysis (Madrid) and one on 'Ancient Indo-European Languages for the 21st Century' (Göttingen) as well as a long-standing collaboration between Dutch and French scholars in the "Groupe Aspect" (Paris).
Huitink sits on the board of Anchoring Innovation, and is also part of the executive committee of the International Xenophon Society. He is furthermore part of the editorial board of Histos, a peer-reviewed online journal for ancient historiography.
Huitink has taught courses on many topics in Greek and Latin languages and cultures, and supervised BA and (R)MA theses on Greek tragedy, Greek historiography and Greek linguistics . He is co-supervisor of a PhD thesis on the sociocultural history of tears in Ancient Greece (Leonie Henkes, Leiden University) and of a PhD thesis on style and communication in Plotinus (Daan Mulder, Utrecht University).
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Luuk Huitink is one of the authors - together with Evert van Emde Boas, Albert Rijksbaron and Mathieu de Bakker - of The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek (CUP 2019) This is the first full-scale reference grammar of Classical Greek in English in a century. The first work of its kind to reflect significant advances in linguistics made in recent decades, it provides students, teachers and academics with a comprehensive yet user-friendly treatment. The chapters on phonology and morphology make full use of insights from comparative and historical linguistics to elucidate complex systems of roots, stems and endings. The syntax offers linguistically up-to-date descriptions of such topics as case usage, tense and aspect, voice, subordinate clauses, infinitives and participles. An innovative section on textual coherence treats particles and word order and discusses several sample passages in detail, demonstrating new ways of approaching Greek texts.
Together with Tim Rood he has published Xenophon: Anabasis Book III (CUP 2019). This is the first comprehensive commentary on a section of Xenophon's Anabasis in English for almost a century. It provides up-to-date guidance on literary, historical and cultural aspects of the Anabasis and will help undergraduate students to read Greek better. It also incorporates recent advances in Xenophontic scholarship and Greek linguistics, showcasing in particular Xenophon's linguistic innovations and varied style. Advanced students and professional scholars will also profit from the sustained attention which this commentary devotes to Xenophon's varied narrative strategies and to the reception of episodes from Anabasis III in antiquity. The introduction and commentary show that Xenophon is just as important (if not more so) to the development of Greek historiography, and of Greek prose in general, as Herodotus and Thucydides.
He is one of the editors, together with Jonas Grethlein and Aldo Tagliabue, of Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories (OUP 2020). This is the first volume to appear in Oxford University Press's series Cognitive Classics. The edited volume contains thirteen papers which pursue cognitive approaches to literary studies, offering new perspectives not only on a wide range of Greek literary genres, but also on other ancient media such as dance and sculpture. It develops new methodological approaches beyond 'classic' narratology, serving as a inventory of current approaches to narrative in classical studies. It integrates the study of ancient criticism with that of literature and intermediality, encouraging interdisciplinary dialogue and forming a basis for future scholarship.