Rate My Professor Christos Kremmydas

Christos Kremmydas is Professor and Head of the Department of Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is also associated with the Centre for Oratory and Rhetoric and the Hellenic Institute. His research interests include Greek social, political, and legal history, oratory and rhetoric, historiography, epigraphy, papyrology, and textual criticism. Kremmydas served as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from January to May 2017, during which he held the Elizabeth and J. Richardson Dilworth Fellowship. He was Principal Investigator for a Humboldt Foundation Senior Research Fellowship from 1 July 2018 to 31 July 2020. From 2017 to 2021, he was a Council Member of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. Previously recognized as Reader in Ancient History, his scholarly work welcomes prospective research students in these areas. His current research examines strategies of rhetorical deception in speeches from the law courts of Classical Athens, exploring how speakers manipulated narratives, facts, and logical arguments to prevail in legal disputes.

Kremmydas has authored and edited key publications in classical studies. His monograph, Commentary on Demosthenes Against Leptines, was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. He co-edited Hellenistic Oratory: Continuity and Change with K. Tempest in 2013 and Profession and Performance: Aspects of Oratory in the Greco-Roman World with L. Rubinstein and J. Powell in the same year. Notable articles include 'The Discourse of Deception and Characterization in Attic Oratory' in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies (2013), 'Logical Argumentation in Demosthenes Against Leptines' in the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement (2007), 'Hellenistic Oratory and the Evidence of Rhetorical Exercises' (2013), 'Alexander the Great, Athens and the Rhetoric of the Persian Wars' (2013), 'P. BERL. 9781 and the Early Reception of Demosthenes' (2007), 'Anakrisis and the Framing of Strategies of Argumentation in Athenian Public Trials' (2018), and 'Ethos and Logical Argument in Thucydides’ Assembly Debates' (2017). With 38 research outputs comprising 20 chapters, 5 books, 4 articles, and more, his contributions have influenced studies in Greek oratory and rhetoric. This research directly enhances his teaching, equipping students with skills in critical listening, rhetorical analysis, persuasive argumentation, and engaged citizenship by connecting classical practices to modern democratic contexts.