King approves Professor Laura Swift as Oxford's Regius Professor of Greek

The King has approved the appointment of Professor Laura Swift as Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, one of the oldest and most prestigious academic posts in the country.

The Regius Professorship of Greek was established by Henry VIII in 1541. Professor Swift succeeds Professor Gregory Hutchinson in the role, Downing Street announced today.

A Royal appointment

Regius professorships are special academic titles created or approved by the monarch. The oldest, including the Regius chairs at Oxford and Cambridge, date back to the 16th century, and appointments to them are still approved by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister. They are among the highest honours an academic can receive.

Professor Swift is currently Professor of Greek at Oxford and Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Magdalen College. The Regius Professorship is held together with a professorial fellowship at Christ Church.

A career in Greek literature

Professor Swift studied Literae Humaniores, Oxford's classics degree, at Magdalen College, graduating in 2002, and went on to complete her doctorate at Oxford in 2007. She held posts at Oxford and University College London before becoming a lecturer at the Open University in 2012. She returned to Oxford in 2022 and was awarded the title of Professor in 2024.

A literary critic of ancient Greece, she specialises in Greek tragedy and lyric poetry. She is known in particular for her work on the links between Greek tragedy and other forms of choral poetry, including her book The Hidden Chorus, and for her work on fragmentary texts from the ancient world. She wrote the first complete commentary on the seventh-century BC poet Archilochus.

Her doctoral thesis won the Hellenic Foundation Thesis Prize, and her research has received international recognition, including an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship and a Philip Leverhulme Prize.

Classics for everyone

Professor Swift also works with contemporary theatre-makers and other artists, exploring how fragments of ancient texts can inspire new creative work. She is an active advocate for making classics accessible to wider audiences, and has helped develop the Classical Civilisation A level curriculum.

She has also worked across radio, podcasts, theatre and literary festivals, bringing ancient Greek writing to people who might never have studied it at school.

Her work on the A level curriculum is a reminder that classics is not only for universities. Students in Birmingham schools and colleges taking Classical Civilisation study some of the same Greek tragedies and poetry that she has spent her career exploring.