Prize Scholar: James Hua

I am a third year DPhil student in Ancient Greek History, based in the Classics Faculty and funded by Merton, AHRC, and Clarendon. My doctoral research focuses on population displacements and refugee crises in the Archaic and Classical Greek world (ca. 550-300 BCE), ranging from Sicily to Persia and Scythia to Egypt.

The systematic, forcible uprooting of entire settlements by hegemonic powers was a remarkably frequent reality at the time. My research not only gauges the extensive consequences of uprooted populations on Greek history, society, and culture, but also works to recover the experiences, perspectives, and shifting identities of these expelled populations themselves. To do so, it reappraises often overlooked evidence produced by them, especially epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological. This project offers the first systematic overview of population expulsions in this period and proposes a paradigm shift in ancient Greek history that highlights the ‘culture of displacement’ that defined the Greek world.

The timeliness of this project is no more apt than now, and a major goal is to create a dialogue with modern refugee policy. My interest in this topic was sparked by ongoing refugee crises today, their intriguing convergences with ancient Greek ones, and the frequency of this phenomenon in the region I studied for my Undergraduate thesis. Merton has offered the most intellectually stimulating and financially supportive environment to conduct this, generously funding my participation in summer courses, research travel, and providing a wonderfully diverse graduate community with whom to share ideas.

Alongside this research, which extends my Masters work that received Oxford’s Ancient History Prize, I also contribute to publications of primary evidence. As Assistant Editor of Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, I disseminate new Greek epigraphic finds; I aid in digitising epigraphy with Prof. Jonathan Prag (Merton); and have participated in five archaeological excavations, most recently in Lyttos (Crete), Samos, and Aphrodisias (Turkey).