Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach

Jakub Filonik

Associate Professor, Department of Literary Studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice

E-mail address:

jakub.filonik@us.edu.pl

Postal address:

Instytut Literaturoznawstwa UŚ

Uniwersytecka 4

40-007 Katowice

Poland

Websites:

Google Scholar

Academia

ResearchGate

ORCID (0000-0001-9624-1041)

SSRN

Research profile:

My research interests fall into a few areas: ancient Greek law and rhetoric, conceptual metaphors, and the history of political thought, in particular citizenship and freedom. I am also the author of Polish translations of Athenian orators (Demosthenes, Lycurgus, Demades, with Isocrates in preparation). I am currently working on monographs on the concept of freedom in Athenian oratory and on Greek metaphors of participation and citizenship.

I am Principal Investigator of the National Science Centre–funded project Sharing in the polis: Greek conceptualizations of the political community. I have also held a Fulbright Senior Award, a START scholarship from the Foundation for Polish Science, and an award from the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education for outstanding early-career researchers. I have undertaken visiting research and teaching stays, among others, at the University of Chicago, University College London, Royal Holloway, and the University of Cape Town, and in 2026–2027, I am carrying out a research fellowship at the University of Athens.

See below for the list of my academic publications.

Qualifications:

• PhD 2015: University of Warsaw (Literary Studies, Department of Classical Philology); PhD thesis title: Speaking of freedom: The notion and dynamics of freedom in Athenian oratory and Athenian democracy
• MA 2009: Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Classical Philology)

Education and academic posts:

• 2024–now: Associate Professor (University of Silesia in Katowice, Department of Literary Studies)
• 2019–2024: Assistant Professor (University of Silesia in Katowice, Department of Literary Studies)
• 2016–2019: Postdoctoral Researcher (Jagiellonian University, Department of Classical Philology), a full-time research post funded by the National Science Centre
• 2015/2016: Lecturer, part-time (University of Warsaw, Department of Classical Philology)
• 2011: exchange student (University College London, Erasmus exchange programme)
• 2009–2015: full-time doctoral studies, with teaching responsibilities (University of Warsaw, Department of Classical Philology; supervisor: Prof. Cyprian Mielczarski; dissertation title: ‘Speaking of freedom: The notion and dynamics of freedom in Athenian oratory and Athenian democracy’)
• 2004–2009: five-year MA programme (Jagiellonian University, Department of Classical Philology)

Key research output:

Journal papers (peer-reviewed):

• ‘“We that live remissly, undertake as great dangers as they”: Thucydides 2.39–2.40 and the reappropriation of anti-Athenian slurs’, The Journal of Hellenic Studies (in press)
• ‘The concept of sharing in the polis: its origins and early developments’, Erga-Logoi 13.2 (2025 [2026]), DOI: https://doi.org/10.7358/erga-2025-002-filj
• ‘The organization of evidence in Athenian courts: containers, seals and the management of documents’, Classical Quarterly 74.2 (2024 [2025]), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838824000600
• ‘Acquitted / convicted by a single vote? Aeschines 3.252 and vote counts in Athenian oratory’, Mnemosyne (2024), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10285
• ‘φράζειν as a legal procedure: a redundant emendation to Demosthenes 22.27?’, Mnemosyne 6 (2023 [2022]), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10196
• ‘A civic style: the use of μετέχειν metaphors in Athenian oratory’, Trends in Classics 14.2 (2022), pp. 255–270, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2022-0011
• ‘“Living as one wishes” in Athens: the (anti-)democratic polemics’, Classical Philology 114.1 (2019), pp. 1-24, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/701112
• ‘The European family and Athenian fatherland: political metaphors ancient and modern’, The European Legacy 23.1-2 (2018; online November 2017), pp. 25–46, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2017.1402521
• ‘The Polish nobility’s “golden freedom”: on the ancient roots of a political idea’, The European Legacy 20.7, Routledge 2015, pp. 731-744, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2015.1071124
• ‘Athenian impiety trials: a reappraisal’, Dike: Rivista di storia del diritto greco ed ellenistico 16 (2013), pp. 11-96, DOI: https://doi.org/13130/1128-8221/4290
• ‘Ateńskie procesy o bezbożność po 399 r. p.n.e. – próba analizy’, Meander (2016), in Polish [= Athenian impiety trials after 399 BCE], pp. 85-110, DOI: https://doi.org/10.24425/118474
• ‘Ateńskie procesy o bezbożność do 399 r. p.n.e. – próba analizy’, Meander (2014), in Polish [= Athenian impiety trials up to 399 BCE], pp. 65-108, DOI: https://doi.org/10.24425/118435

Book chapters (peer-reviewed):

• ‘Sharing in the polis in crisis: civic language and the contests over participation in late fifth-century Athens’, in Democracy in Danger: Threats and Vulnerabilities of Ancient Greek Democracies, eds I. Giannadaki, K. Kapparis, and A. Wolpert (Routledge 2026), in press
• ‘The proper share: the language of citizenship, participation, and enfranchisement in classical Greece’, in ‘Sharing in the polis’: citizenship and forms of civic participation in the Greek world, eds M. Faraguna and D. Erdas (Milano UP 2026), in press
• ‘The scarcity scare: the topos of limited resources in Athenian oratory’, in Fearmongering in Greek and Roman Literature and Beyond, eds P. Gontijo Leite and I. Worthington (Routledge 2025), pp. 46–62
• ‘How does Lycurgus keep to his point? Legal and rhetorical relevance in the speech Against Leocrates’, in Keeping to the point in Athenian forensic oratory: law, character and rhetoric, eds Edward Harris and Alberto Esu (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), pp. 101–119
• ‘Civic friendships and filial duties: representations of political bonds in classical Athens’, in Friendship in classical literature: studies in honour of Chris Carey and Mike Edwards, eds A. Efstathiou, J. Filonik, C. Kremmydas, and E. Volonaki (Brill, 2023), pp. 267–281, DOI: 10.1163/9789004548671_016
• ‘Sharing in the polis: conceptualizing classical Greek citizenship’, in Citizenship in antiquity: civic communities in the ancient Mediterranean, eds J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (Routledge, 2023), pp. 264–280, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003138730-23
• ‘We are the champions: the role of agonistic metaphors in the political discourse of classical Greece’, in Agōn in Classical Literature: Studies in Honour of Chris Carey, eds M. Edwards, A. Efstathiou, E. Volonaki & I. Karamanou, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement (2022), pp. 155–162
• ‘Speaking for the gods: Greek cultic regulations and their silent informants’, in Rhetoric and religion in ancient Greece and Rome (De Gruyter, Trends in Classics Supplementary Vol., 2021), pp. 37–58, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110699623-003
• ‘Metaphors in rhetoric: from ancient Greek to 21^st-century politics’, in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric, eds M. Edwards, A. Serafim, and S. Papaioannou (Brill; publ. Dec 2021 / copyright 2022), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004470057_021
• ‘Metaphorical Appeals to Civic Ethos in Lycurgus’ Against Leocrates’, in Citizens in the Graeco-Roman World: Aspects of Citizenship from the Archaic Period to 212 AD, eds L. Cecchet & A. Busetto (2017), Brill, Mnemosyne Supplement 407, pp. 223-258, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004352612_011
• ‘Impiety avenged: rewriting Athenian history’, in Splendide Mendax: Rethinking Fakes and Forgeries in Classical, Late Antique, and Early Christian Literature, eds J. Martínez & E. Cueva (Barkhuis 2016), pp. 125-140

Edited volumes:

• Citizenship in antiquity: civic communities in the ancient Mediterranean (Routledge, co-edited with C. Plastow and R. Zelnick-Abramovitz, in the Rewriting Antiquity series, 2023, ISBN 9780367687113)
• Friendship in classical literature: studies in honour of Chris Carey and Michael J. Edwards (Brill, co-edited with A. Efstathiou, Ch. Kremmydas, and E. Volonaki, 2023, ISBN 9789004546332)
• ‘Discourses of identity in the ancient world’, eds J. Filonik, J. Janik, J. Kucharski and P. Liddel: a special issue of Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, vol. 38, issue 1 (2021), with ‘Preliminary Remarks’ by J. Filonik and J. Kucharski (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340304)
• The making of identities in Athenian oratory, Routledge, co-edited with Brenda Griffith-Williams and Janek Kucharski (2019), with introduction, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429277023
• A special two-issue volume of the journal The European Legacy: Towards New Paradigms 23.1-2 (2018), entitled ‘The Greeks in a changing world: ancient answers to modern questions’, co-edited with Brenda Griffith-Williams and Janek Kucharski, with Introduction (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2018.1423779)

Books:

• annotated translation of Demosthenes’ Against Meidias, part of a volume with Dem. 20–24 (PWN [Polish Scientific Publishers], 2023, in Polish)
• annotated translation of the speeches by Lycurgus and Demades, with fragments; part of a volume with a selection from Attic orators (University of Silesia Press, Katowice 2021, in Polish)
• Bunt i buntownicy w tragedii greckiej (Sub Lupa, Warsaw 2010, in Polish) [= Rebels and Rebellion in Greek Tragedy]

Reviews:

• review of Kamen, Insults in Classical Athens (Madison, WI 2020), in: Gnomon 96.6 (2024), DOI: https://doi.org/10.17104/0017-1417-2024-6-494
• review of Tim Whitmarsh, Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism (Berkeley 2020), in: The European Legacy 28.6 (2023), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2023.2214438
• review of David Stuttard, Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens (Cambridge, MA 2018), in: Classical Review1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X19002245
• review of Marek Winiarczyk, Diagoras of Melos: A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism (Berlin 2016), in: H-Soz-Kult, 15.10.2018

Varia (recent):

• a lexicon entry on μετέχειν in Politeia: Cittadinanza e società nel mondo greco antico (https://politeia.unimi.it/en/databases/lexicon-of-citizenship/#m)
• ‘Citizenship in antiquity: current perspectives and challenges’, with C. Plastow and R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (in the Citizenship in antiquity volume listed above, 2023)
• Introduction to the Polish translation of the Antigone by Jean Anouilh, ed. M. Szymański, transl. Monika Zabrocka (2021), WUW [University of Warsaw Press]

(Co-)organisation of events:

• 2025: Conference panel ‘Law and rhetoric in Athenian forensic oratory’, at the 17th Congress of the Fédération internationale des associations d’études classiques (FIEC), University of Wrocław
• 2024: Panel: ‘Scare rhetoric and the discourse of fear in Athenian oratory’, at the International Society for the History of Rhetoric Twenty-Fourth Biennial Conference ‘Continuity and Change in the History of Rhetoric’, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• 2023: Four-day panel: ‘The stage and the rostrum: intersections between drama and oratory in classical Athens’, at the Celtic Conference in Classics 2023, University of Coimbra
• 2019: Panel: ‘Sex and the citizen: the discourse of status, body, and gender in classical Athens’, at the joint 15th Congress of the Fédération internationale des associations d’études classiques (FIEC) and the Classical Association (CA) annual conference 2019, University College London
• 2019: Conference: Citizenship in classical antiquity: current perspectives and challenges, University College London, co-organised with the Jagiellonian University in Kraków; with an open public discussion panel on citizenship ancient and modern
• 2018: Panel: ‘Citizenship and the diversity of identities in the ancient world’, at the European Social Science History Conference 2018, Queen’s University Belfast
• 2017: Three-day panel: ‘The Rhetoric of Identity in Greek Oratory’, at the Celtic Conference in Classics 2017, McGill University and Université de Montréal, Canada
• 2017: Conference: Linguistic Representations of Identity in Rhetoric Ancient and Modern, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
• 2016: Workshop/panel: ‘What’s Not New in the New Europe: Ancient Answers to Modern Questions’ at the 15^th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas ‘What’s New in the New Europe? Redefining Culture, Politics, Identity’, University of Łódź, Poland

Research projects:

• 2023–now: Sharing in the polis: Greek conceptualizations of the political community (PI; funding: National Science Centre, Poland; SONATA grant)
• 2023–now: Punishment in classical Athens. A cognitive approach (project member; funding: National Science Centre, Poland; OPUS grant)
• 2021–now: Polish annotated translation of Isocrates’ corpus (covering Isoc. 7 and 12 myself); grant (project member; funding: the National Programme for the Development of Humanities)
• 2019: Fulbright Senior Award, University of Chicago (PI)
• 2017–2022: Polish annotated translation of selected public speeches by Demosthenes (covering Dem. 21 myself); grant (project member; funding: the National Programme for the Development of Humanities)
• 2016–2019: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Jagiellonian University; grant (PI; ‘The discourse of citizenship in democratic Athens: a cognitive approach’; funding: National Science Centre, Poland)
• 2014–2017: Polish annotated translation of Antiphon, Dinarchus, Lycurgus, and Demades; grant (project member; funding: National Science Centre, Poland)
• 2014/2015: The rhetoric of Athenian citizen (5^th–4^thBCE); ‘academic mobility’ scholarship (PI; funding: Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland)
• 2013–2016: The concept of freedom in Athenian oratory; grant (PI; funding: National Science Centre, Poland)

Awards:

• 2024: Provost’s Individual Award for Excellence in Research, University of Silesia in Katowice
• 2019: Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education award for outstanding early-career researchers (first place in the Humanities)
• 2019: International Society for the History of Rhetoric award / research fellowship (2018 competition)
• 2015/16: Foundation for Polish Science, ‘START’ early career award for academic merit (‘HR Excellence in Research’ EURAXESS-awarded institution)

Fellowships, visiting research, and guest teaching:

• 2026–2027: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Bekker scholarship; host: Prof. Athina Dimopoulou)
• 2026: University of Cape Town, co-teaching ‘The City in the Ancient World’ (host: Prof. Roman Roth)
• 2025: British School at Athens (Regular Member)
• 2022: American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Senior Associate Member)
• 2019: The University of Chicago (Fulbright Senior Award; host: Prof. Clifford Ando)
• 2015: University College London (Foundation for Polish Science ‘START’ scholarship; host: Prof. Chris Carey)
• 2014/15: Royal Holloway, University of London; Centre for Oratory and Rhetoric (‘Mobility Plus’ programme; host: Lene Rubinstein)
• 2013: Fondation Hardt pour l’étude de l’Antiquité classique, Switzerland (Fondation Hardt research bursary)
• 2013: Indiana University Bloomington, USA (OVPIA scholarship; host: Prof. Matthew R. Christ)
• 2011: University College London, UK (LLP Erasmus exchange programme)