Benedek Kruchió

Benedek Kruchió joins the FAS as Assistant Professor of Classics. He specializes in Greek literature from the imperial period and late antiquity, roughly between the first and sixth centuries C.E. His current book project, The Aethiopica of Heliodorus: Multiperspectival Narration and Ancient Reading Communities, seeks to bridge the gap between formal analysis and discursive approaches to literature. Building on an in-depth narratological examination of antiquity’s most virtuosic love novel, Kruchió explores hypothetically—in acts of ‘interpretive roleplay’—how the different reading communities of late antiquity might have approached this text: Platonist philosophers, the rhetorically educated élite, and Christians. Other current projects include a co-edited volume on allegory in the imperial period and an edition, translation, and commentary dedicated to a Christian martyr story that presents itself as the sequel to a pagan work of erotic fiction. In future, Kruchió hopes to shift his focus, at least partially, to less ‘prosaic’ literature: A commissioned piece on imperial Greek poetry and allegory will serve as a first test drill for a next monograph project. 

After studies in Vienna and Berlin, Kruchió received his PhD from the University of Cambridge; before joining Yale, he has held positions in Heidelberg and Cambridge.