Education: MA (Edinburgh), BA (Oxford), PhD (Toronto)
Areas of Research and Publication:
Greek literature (Homer, lyric poetry and Hellenistic poetry); Greek and Roman moral attitudes; and the history of religions (belief in the Evil Eye, mystery cults, and Greco-Roman magic).
Recent Publications:
Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World. Routledge (2001) 392 pp. "Who practised love-magic in Classical Antiquity and the Late Roman World?" Classical Quarterly 50 (2000), 563-83 "Narrative-patterns in Christian Hagiography," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 40 (1999), 83-98 "Bonds and Headless Demons in Greco-roman Magic," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 40 (1999), 99-104 "Exclusions from the Catechumenate: Continuity or Discontinuity with Pagan Cult," Numen 48, 417-43
Work in Progress:
A book on the Evil Eye in Greece and Rome, as well as a study of the philosophical background to Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana and the influence of that work on Neoplatonism.
