Luuk Huitink is Professor and Chair of Greek and Latin Literature in Context at the Amsterdam Centre for Ancient Studies and Archaeology (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 ranges across linguistic, narratological and cognitive approaches to Greek and Latin literature, in particular historiography (Xenophon and Flavius Josephus have 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's 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, is a senior member of OIKOS, the National Research School in Classical Studies in the Netherlands. He 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.
At ACASA, Huitink is currently the MA Programme Director of the Master's Classics & Ancient Civilizations, Archaeology, and Archaeology and Heritage. He has taught courses on many topics in Greek and Latin languages and cultures, and supervised BA and (R)MA theses on tragedy, historiography, linguistics, ecocriticism, and ancient values. He is (co-)supervisor of PhD theses on the sociocultural history of tears in Ancient Greece (Leonie Henkes, Leiden University), style and communication in Plotinus (Daan Mulder, Utrecht University), Xenophon and Homer (Damon Hatheway, Boston 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. The grammar now also exists in Chinese and Modern Greek translations.
Together with Tim Rood Huitink has published Xenophon: Anabasis Book III (CUP 2019, in the 'Green and Yellow' series). 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.
Huitink 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.
Under the aegis of Anchoring Innovation, Huitink has, together with Vlad Glaveanu and Ineke Sluiter, edited Social Psychology and the Ancient World: Methods and Applications. This volume fosters an interdisciplinary dialogue between classics and social psychology. Classicists use modern social-psychological insights to interpret ancient texts, while social psychologists engage with classical case studies to refine their own conceptual frameworks. This dialogue unfolds through an innovative structure: thematic sections introduced by social psychologists are paired with wide-ranging case studies by classicists, covering topics such as the psychology of tragic characters, comedic group dynamics, and the cognitive processes at play in oracles and deification. The volume offers methodological guidance for reconstructing the social psychology of past societies, addressing questions like: How did ancient Greeks understand character? How did laughter shape social cohesion? What role did emotional contagion play in narratives? How did ancient societies accommodate religious innovation? And above all: how do we know, and how can we properly investigate such questions?