I am Associate Professor (UHD) of Latin literature at the University of Amsterdam (with ius promovendi). I studied Classics at Leiden University, where I also received my PhD (cum laude) in 2010. I worked as a Niels Stensen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge (2010-2011), and was a NWO VENI laureate in 2011. In 2012 I was appointed as Associate Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Amsterdam and (until 2021) at the VU University Amsterdam. 

Teaching

I teach a wide array of courses in the BA and MA programmes of the Classics and Ancient Studies programmes, I have for instance taught BA courses on Horace, Ovid, Virgil, and Latin language acquisition, and MA courses on Intertextuality, Medea, the Pastoral Tradition, and Roman epic (Lucan's Bellum Civile and Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica).

Research 

My research focuses on Hellenistic Greek and Roman poetry, applying modern literary theory to understand important dynamics of classical poetry. Although I have published on various aspects of a wide array of Greek, Latin poets (Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Catullus, Daniel Heinsius, Horace, Lucan, Ovid, Propertius, Silius Italicus, Statius, Theocritus, Valerius Flaccus and Virgil), I have two main lines of research:

1. Metapoetics in Greek and Roman poetry

I have published numerous articles on self-reflexivity in Hellenistic, Augustan, Flavian and early modern poetry. This research has culminated in my critically acclaimed monograph Echoing Hylas: A Study in Hellenistic and Roman Metapoetics, which was published by University of Wisconsin Pressin 2015.  

I am currently developing a new research project in which I aim to combine metapoetics with ecocritical theory to understand the predominant role played by nature in self-reflexive Greek and Roman poetry.

2. Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica: VENI-project and Loeb Classical Library

In my NWO VENI-project “The Poetics of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica” (2012-2016) I set out to offer a radically new appraisal of this fascinating Flavian Roman epic by combining intertextual and metapoetical interpretation with insights from trauma theory. The project resulted in various lectures all over the world, an international conference, six peer-reviewed articles, three edited volumes, and a spin-off project:

-Brill's Companion to Valerius Flaccus, published by Brill in 2014. With Prof. Gesine Manuwald (UCL) I brought together an international team of experts to produce this seminal work on the poet and his work.

-Ekphrasis, a thematic issue of the Dutch peer-reviewed journal Lampas, published in 2016 and edited together with Niels Koopman (University of Amsterdam).

-Flavian Responses to Nero’s Rome, published (Gold Open Access) in 2022 by Amsterdam University Press, which I edited together with Esther Meijer (University of St Andrews): an interdisciplinary book project with an international team of specialists from classics, ancient history and archaeology. 

-An exciting spin-off of this project was an invitation by Harvard University Press to renew the edition with English translation and notes of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica for the well-known Loeb Classical Library series, which I am currently preparing (under contract).

Administrative duties

I am currenty chairman of the ACASA BA Programme Committee (OC). I am a member of the Education Committee of OIKOS (National Research School in Classical Studies), having previously been chairman en member of the board. I am also a member of the editorial board of the Classics journal Lampas and the Brill book series The Language of Literature. 

2022

• "Metalepsis on the Argo: Debating Hercules in Valerius Flaccus (Arg. 3.598-725)", in Emotions and Narrative in Ancient Literature and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Irene de Jong (eds. M. de Bakker, B. van den Berg, J. Klooster), Leiden: Brill (Mnemosyne Supplements, 451), 582-599.
• "Foaming Cups: A Textual Note on Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 1.815", Classical Philology 117.4: 745-752 [with Pieter van den Broek]. 
• Flavian Responses to Nero's Rome (eds. M. Heerink & E. Meijer), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (Open Access: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/58547).
• "Civil War and Trauma in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica", in Flavian Responses to Nero's Rome (eds. M. Heerink & E. Meijer), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 163-184.

2020

• “A Textual Note on Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2.632”, Latomus 79.3: 790-793.
• “Replaying Dido: Elegy and the Poetics of Inversion in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica”, in Intertextuality in Flavian poetry (eds. N. Coffee, C. Forstall, L. Galli Milic, D.P. Nelis),  Berlin: De Gruyter (Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes, 64), 189-205.

2019

• "Ovidius’ ballingschap als elegische fictie”, Lampas 52.1: 71-86.

2017

• “Goed kijken, goed lezen: James Bond, Ovidius en intertekstualiteit als feest der herkenning”, Lampas 50.3: 242-253.
• “Van Troje naar Rome: Aeneis 3 als metapoëtische reis”, Lampas 50.1: 53-75.
• “Ovidius’ Ars Amatoria: leerdicht of liefdesgedicht?”, in Liefdeslessen: verleidingskunst en erotiek van schepping tot verlichting (eds. P. Gerbrandy, M. Heerink & C.C. de Jonge), Amsterdam: Atlas Contact, 67-81. 
• Liefdeslessen: verleidingskunst en erotiek van schepping tot verlichting (eds. P. Gerbrandy, M. Heerink & C.C. de Jonge), Amsterdam: Atlas Contact. 

2016

• "Valerius Flaccus' tempel van Sol als inversie van de Aeneis", Lampas 49.3: 266-279.
• Ekphrasis (eds. M. Heerink & N. Koopman), Lampas 49.3 (special issue). 
• "Horatius' Oden en de Romeinse liefdeselegie", Lampas 49.2: 110-129.
• "Virgil, Lucan, and the Meaning of Civil War in Valerius Flaccus' Argon​autica", Mnemosyne 69: 511-25.

2015

• Echoing Hylas: A Study in Hellenistic and Roman Metapoetics, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press (Wisconsin Studies in Classics).
• "Hylas, Hercules, and Valerius Flaccus' Metamorphosis of the Aeneid", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 108: 265-308.
• "Merging Paradigms: Translating Pharaonic Ideology in Theocritus’ Idyll 17", in L.J. Trudeau (ed.) Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Vol. 167, Gale, Cengage Learning: Farmington Hills, MI, 310-323 [reprint of Heerink 2010].

2014

• "Heracles en Hylas: metapoëzie in de Hellenistische tijd" [Heracles and Hylas: Metapoetics in the Hellenistic Age], Lampas 47.4: 339-355.
• "Valerius Flaccus, Virgil and the Poetics of Ekphrasis", in Brill's Companion to Valerius Flaccus (eds. M. Heerink & G. Manuwald), Leiden & Boston: Brill, 72-95.
• (with G. Manuwald) "Introduction", in Brill's Companion to Valerius Flaccus (eds. M. Heerink & G. Manuwald), Leiden: Brill, 1-6.
• Brill's Companion to Valerius Flaccus (eds. M. Heerink & G. Manuwald), Leiden: Brill.

2013

• "Silius versus Valerius: Orpheus in the Punica and the  Argonautica", in  Flavian Epic Interactions (eds. G. Manuwald & A. Voigt), Berlin: De Gruyter, 267-77 (Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, 21).

2012

• “Apollonius and Callimachus on Heracles and Theiodamas: A Metapoetical Interpretation”,  Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica101: 43-58.

2011

• “Ovid’s Aeginetan Plague and the Metamorphosis of the Georgics”, Hermes. Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie 139: 464-472.

2010

• “Merging Paradigms: Translating Pharaonic Ideology in Theocritus’  Idyll 17”, in Interkulturalität in  der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts (eds. R. Rollinger, M. Lang, B. Gufler & I. Madreiter), Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 383-408.

2009

• “Van elegie naar epos: Ovidius over zijn  Metamorphosen” [From Elegy to Epic: Ovid on his Metamorphoses], Lampas 42.4: 299-322.

• “Misconceptions about the Art of Ancient Publishing: Catullus’ Book of Poetry Reconsidered”, International Journal of the Book 6.1: 95-100.

• Review of V. Hunink, Lucilius. Alles holt nu achteruit! Satiren, verzamelde fragmenten, ’s-Hertogenbosch: Voltaire, 2008. Hermeneus 81.5: 249.

2008

• “Basileus en farao: Egyptische invloeden in Idylle 17 van Theocritus” [Basileus and Pharaoh: Egyptian Influences in Idyll  17 of Theocritus], Phoenix 54.2: 13-35.
• “Heinsius’ Hylas als Echo der Antike”, in Daniel Heinsius: neulateinischer Dichter und klassischer Philologe (eds. E. Lefèvre & E. Schäfer), Tübingen: Günther Narr Verlag, 145-170 (NeoLatina, 13) (with Jan Bloemendal) .

2007

• “Going a Step Further: Valerius Flaccus’ Metapoetical Reading of Propertius 1.20”,  Classical Quarterly 57.2: 606-620.

• “Niet minder in uiterlijk, niet ongelijk in naam: de Hylas van Cornelius Gallus” [No Less in Looks, No Different in Name: The Hylas of Cornelius Gallus], Lampas 40.1: 53-72.

2006

• Review of K. Mauerhofer, Der Hylas-mythos in der antiken Literatur, Munich & Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2004. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2006.11.29.