Maria Cristina Mennuti

Personal Statement

After completing my academic education in Philosophy across Italy and Germany, I moved to the United Kingdom, where I completed my PhD in Classics and Ancient Philosophy at Durham University, while being a visiting researcher at the universities of Geneva, Turin, and Dublin and the University of Notre Dame in the United States. My doctoral research aimed at exploring the role of daemons and minor deities in the models of the cosmos and the ethical theories developed by ancient philosophers, from Plato onwards. I then joined the Department of Philosophy at Tubingen University as a research and teaching postdoctoral fellow, where I studied in greater depth the ways in which ancient philosophers establish models of divine mediation through the study of causality, the identity of gods and their role in the cosmos, and means of communication such as dreams and votive offerings, which enable communication between the human world and the divine spheres. My passion for research in ancient philosophy is not, however, the only driving force in my work. I have always cultivated my passion for teaching at all levels of education, from teaching children and teenagers in school to volunteering with students from disadvantaged backgrounds or adjusting to a new country. During my PhD and postdoc, this passion grew across both Classics and Philosophy into a distinctive effort to treat ancient texts not as objects to be passively interpreted, but as intellectual laboratories in which students actively reconstruct positions, confront unresolved problems, and understand how ancient ideas might transform today's world. At Durham, I taught across a wide undergraduate curriculum, including Greek language (from beginner’s grammar to assessed translation), Early Greek Philosophy in translation, Ancient Science, and broader modules on social and cultural history of the Greek and Roman world, where I developed methods to help students transition from comprehension to argumentation – for example, by structuring translation exercises around interpretative stakes rather than purely linguistic accuracy, and by encouraging students to analyse a range of literary and material sources from the Graeco-Roman world. At Tübingen, my modules range from 'Death and Immortality in Ancient Philosophy' to 'Cosmological Ethics in Stoicism', where students engage with ancient theories alongside contemporary debates by stress-testing philosophical arguments in collaborative settings. My work and life experience in leading international institutions as a woman first-generation academic has given me firsthand insight into what it means to adapt to new learning environments while communicating in unfamiliar languages and cultures. In my classes on Thicket, I am attentive to building inclusive and intellectually confident classrooms, acting on my commitment to equality, diversity, and access to education for all through dynamic teaching practices, in-class discussions, and self-reflection. As teaching is never a one-way learning path, I look forward to learning with and from you! :-)

• BA in Philosophy — Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
• MA in Philosophy — Università degli Studi di Torino
• PhD in Classical Studies — Durham University

• BA in Philosophy
  Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
• MA in Philosophy
  Università degli Studi di Torino
• PhD in Classical Studies
  Durham University

• Adjunct of Philosophy — Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
• Teaching Assistant of Classical Studies — Durham University

• Adjunct of Philosophy
  Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
• Teaching Assistant of Classical Studies
  Durham University