Michael D. Konaris

Michael studied Classics and Modern History at Oxford and Cambridge and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Freie Universität, Berlin, the Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton, and EHESS. Since 2023 Michael is a Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens. His research interests lie in the history of classical scholarship and especially in the history of the study of Greek religion in Europe and North America as well as in the history of comparisons between ancient Greece and China.

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Michael is the author of  The Greek Gods in Modern Scholarship (2016),  the editor of Studies on Greek gods and heroes. Interpretations and Appropriations (2026) and a co-editor of 

The Multiple Antiquities of Greek Modernity (2025).

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​​​In 2022/23 Michael organized a series of lectures on Greek mythology  at the Research Center for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens. 

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In 2024 he organized a series of lectures on the history of classical scholarship and classical studies in different parts of the world after WWII.

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In 2025 he organized a series of lectures on representations of nature in Greek, Latin, Chinese and Japanese literature.

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In 2026 he organized a series of lectures on flowers, trees, and forests in Greek, Latin, Chinese and Japanese literature.

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 ​​His current book project, which he pursues in collaboration with the Swedish Institute at Athens, concerns the correspondence and intellectual exchange  between the great  Swedish scholar of Greek religion, Martin P. Nilsson and J.G. Frazer, E.R. Dodds, A.D. Nock and other preeminent classical scholars, concerning major debates in the study of Greek religion and history.

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