Associate Professor Tristan Taylor

Biography

Tristan came to UNE via circuitous route following completion of his law degree at the University of Tasmania in 2000, completing an Honors thesis on quota management in Australian fisheries. He subsequently completed an MA in Roman Law at the same institution and ultimately a PhD in Classics at Yale University in 2010. He has taught in both law, particularly Introduction to Law, Roman Law and Criminal Law, and Classics, including Latin, Greek and Ancient History. He was a Visiting Fellow in Genocide Studies in the Yale University Genocide Studies Program in 2013-14 and was awarded a UNE Partnerships Grant for his work on comparative genocide studies in the Roman world. In addition, he has worked professionally along the way in Fisheries Law, the Law of the Sea, Indigenous Law, Natural Resources Law and Environmental Law in consultancies and for the Commonwealth National Oceans Office. His main research interests are Roman Law and Society, Comparative Genocide Studies, and Roman imperial ideology.

Qualifications

PhD (Yale) 2010, MPhil (Yale) 2007, MA (Yale) 2006, MA (UTas) 2006, BA/LLB (Hons)(UTas) 2000, BA (Hons)(UTas) 1998

Awards

Selection of Grants and Awards

2014 - UNE Partnerships Grant for comparative genocide studies in the Roman world.

2013-4 - Visiting Fellow in Genocide Studies in the Yale University Genocide Studies Program.

Teaching Areas

Primary Research Area/s

Comparative Genocide Studies; Roman Imperial History; Roman Law

Research Interests

Current Projects

Mass Violence and Genocide in the Roman World (monograph under contract to Routledge Publishing – forthcoming).

Understanding Roman Law (Monograph under contract to Routledge).

Publications

Books

Kiernan, B., T. M. Lemos and T. S. Taylor (Eds.), Cambridge World History of Genocide Vol. 1: Genocide in the Ancient, Medieval and Premodern worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Taylor, T. S. (Ed.), A Cultural History of Genocide in the Ancient World (London: Bloomsbury Academic 2021).

Hamer, D., J. Jones, P. O’Mara, B.Smith and T. S. Taylor, Laying Down the Law (12^th Ed, Sydney, LexisNexis, 2024).

Creyke, R., D. Hamer, P. O’Mara, B. Smith, and T. S. Taylor, Laying Down the Law (11^th Ed, Sydney: LexisNexis, 2021).

Creyke, R., D. Hamer, P. O’Mara, B. Smith, and T. S. Taylor, Laying Down the Law (10^th Ed, Sydney: LexisNexis, 2018).

Cook, C., R. Creyke, H. Geddes, D. Hamer, T. S. Taylor, Laying Down the Law (9^th Ed, Sydney: LexisNexis, 2015).

Cook, C., R. Creyke, R. Geddes, and D. Hamer with T. S. Taylor, Laying Down the Law (8^th Ed., LexisNexis Butterworths, 2012).

Articles and Book Chapters

Lemos, T. M., T. S. Taylor and B. Kiernan, ‘Introduction to Volume 1’, in B. Kiernan, T. M. Lemos and T. S. Taylor(eds.), Cambridge World History of Genocide Vol. 1: Genocide in the Ancient, Medieval and Premodern worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 31-56.

Taylor, T. S., ‘A Tale of Three Cities: The Roman Destruction of Carthage, Corinth and Numantia’, in B. Kiernan, T. M. Lemos and T. S. Taylor(eds.), Cambridge World History of Genocide Vol. 1: Genocide in the Ancient, Medieval and Premodern worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 278-308.

Taylor, T. S., ‘Caesar’s Gallic Genocide: A Case Study in Ancient Mass Violence’, in B. Kiernan, T. M. Lemos and T. S. Taylor(editors), Cambridge World History of Genocide Vol. 1: Genocide in the Ancient, Medieval and Premodern worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 309-329.

Taylor, T. S., ‘The Lost Poem by the Forgotten Poet of Charles V’s “Conquest of Tunis” Tapestries. The Periocha expeditionis Africanae Thunetensis of François de Bourgogne de Fallais’ in M. Laureys, V. Leroux, S. Tilg, and F. Schaffenrath (eds.), Carolus Quintus. Kaiser Karl V. in der neulateinischen Literatur/L’empereur Charles Quint dans la littérature néo-latine (Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2022), 179-209.

Taylor, T. S., ‘The Roman Military Oath: The Sacramentum Militiae’, in M. Dillon and C. Matthew (eds.), Religion and Warfare in the Classical World: The Roman Empire (London: Pen and Sword, 2022), 19-42.

Taylor, T. S., ‘Introduction: A Cultural History of Genocide in the Ancient World’, in T. S. Taylor (ed.), A Cultural History of Genocide in the Ancient World (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), 1-29.

Taylor, T. S., ‘Social Status, Legal Status and Legal Privilege’ in C. Ando, P. Du Plessis, K. Tuori (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Roman Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) Ch. 27.

Taylor, T., 'Magic and Property: The Legal Context to Apuleius' Apologia'45 (2011) Antichthon149-66.

Taylor, T. Update of Halsbury's Laws of Australia 'Primary Industry: FISHERIES', III (Sydney: LexisNexis, 2013 – in press).

Reviews

Review of K. Czajkowksi, Localized Law: The Babatha and Salome Komaise Archives. Oxford studies in Roman society and law. (Oxford; New York:  Oxford University Press, 2017) in BMCR 2018.03.41

Review of D. Hamel, Reading Herodotus: A guided Tour through the Wild Boars, Dancing Suitors and Crazy Tyrants of The History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni. Press, 2012) in Ancient History: Resources for Teachers 40(2) (2010) 198-203 (Published 2013).

Review of A. Schiavone, The Invention of Law in the West (Harvard: Belknap Press, 2012) in Classical Review 63(2) (2013) 518-20.

Review of S. Hornblower, The Greek World (4^th ed. London: Routledge, 2011) for Ancient History: Resources for Teachers 39(2) (2009) 264-9 (Published 2012).

Review of R. Knapp, Invisible Romans (Cambridge: Harvard, 2011) in BMCR 2012.07.03.

Review of W. Eck, Augustus(Blackwell, 2003) in Eras 6 (2004).

Selected Refereed Conferences and Invited Papers

‘Genocide in Ancient Greece?’, Genocide in Ancient Greece? Roundtable, Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C., November 2023.

‘Genocide in Roman Imperialism’, Book Roundtable on the Cambridge World History of Genocide, Social Science History Association, Washington, D.C., USA, November 2023.

‘In the Shadow of Power: Memorializing and Healing by Victims and Perpetrators of Ancient Mediterranean Urbicide’, International Association of Genocide Scholars, Barcelona, Spain, July 2023.

‘City destruction and Religious Persecution in Ancient Rome: Existential Anxieties and the Genesis of Genocide’, Oddities of Violence Conference, Calgary, Canada, June 2023.

‘A Cultural History of Genocide: The ‘Truth’ in a ‘False’ Debate’, Australasian Society for Classical Studies, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2020.

‘The Conquest of Tunis and the Mini-Aeneid of Charles V’, NeoLatina: Carolus Quintus: Kaiser Karl V. in der neulateinischen Literatur, Freiburg, Germany, June 2019.

‘A Cultural History of Genocide: Opportunities and Dangers’, III Congreso Internacional Violencia Colectiva y Genocidio: hacia una historia cultural del genocidio, Carmona, Spain, June 2018.

‘Shadows of Ovid in Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato’, Australasian Society for Classical Studies, Brisbane, Australia, February 2018.

‘Between Clemency and Genocide: The Representation of Mass-violence in Praise of Roman Emperors’, International Association of Genocide Studies, Brisbane, Australia, July 2017.

‘From Republic to Empire – Rome and Star Wars, Octavian and Palpatine, from Roman Empire to Evil Empire’, Classical Association, Canterbury, UK, April 2017.

‘Princeps legibus solutus an non? Cultures of Legality in the Roman Empire’, Symposium on the Rule of Law in Ancient Rome, Sydney, Australia, February 2017.

‘The Curious Case of Uspe: Legalism, Profit and Terror in Roman Imperialism’, Society for Classical Studies Conference, Toronto, Canada, January 2017.

‘From the Past to the Present and Back Again – the Benefits and Pitfalls of the Comparative Method Across the Ages in Genocide Studies’,  II Congreso Internacional Violencia Colectiva y Genocidio: ¿Camino sin retorno? Pautas, frenos y metodología para el estudio del genocidio, Seville, Spain, December 2016.

‘From Anxiety to Exemplarity: Towards a Typology of Roman Mass-Violence and Genocide’, Society for Biblical Literature, San Antonio, USA, November 2016.

‘Polybius and the Ethics of Mass-Violence’, Australasian Society for Classical Studies, Melbourne, Australia, February 2016.

‘Dynamic Interpretation and the Interpretation of Dynamics’, Seminario Internacional: ¿Un Crimen Sin Historia? Definir Y Repensar El Genocidio En La Época Moderna, Seville, Spain, December 2015.

‘Anxieties of Violence’, Pacific Rim Latin Literature Seminar, Auckland, New Zealand, July 2015.

‘Lessons of Violence: Mass-Violence and Roman Republican Imperialism’, Classical Association, Bristol, UK, April 2015.

‘Liberator or Tyrannus: The Ideology of Libertas in Usurpation’, Society for Classical Studies, New Orleans, USA, January 2015.

‘Extermination in Late Roman Imperial Ideology in the Latin West’, Classical Association, Nottingham, UK, April 2014.

'Fog of Peace: (Pseudo)-Alliances on the Coins of Late Roman Usurpers', American Philological Association Conference, Chicago, USA, January 2014 (Abstract accepted).

'Mass-Enslavement in Caesar's Gallic Conquest: A Case Study', Classical Association Conference, Reading, UK, April 2013.

'Law's Victory, Victory's Laws: Law in the Aftermath of Civil War in Late Antiquity', Australasian Classical Association Conference, Sydney, Australia, January 2013.

'History or Cliche? Themes in Third Century Coinage' American Philological Association Conference, Seattle, USA, January 2013.

'Caesar's Gallic Genocide? A Case Study in Ancient Mass Violence', Classical Association Conference, Exeter, UK, April 2012.

'Lost in Transmission: Themes in Third Century Coinage', Australasian Society for Classical Studies Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, January 2011.'More than Mere Markers: Making Magnentius' Milestones Meaningful', APA Conference, San Antonio, USA, January 2011.

Memberships

International Association of Genocide Scholars

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

American Philological Association

Australasian Society for Classical studies

Classical Association (UK)

External Profiles

• Google Scholar Profile
• Academia Profile
• ORCid Profile

Further Information

Service and Administrative Duties