Greta Hawes is a lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the Australian National University. She specializes in the study of Greek myth, particularly the examination of ancient contexts for storytelling, the Greeks' assessment of mythic phenomena in their own culture, and the modes of interpretation to which these gave rise. Her first book, Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity (OUP, 2014), charts ancient dissatisfaction with the excesses of myth and various attempts to cut them down to size; it argues that this rationalizing tradition offers important insights into the practical difficulties inherent in distinguishing myth from history in antiquity and into the fragmented nature of myth itself as an emic concept.
