A lecturer in classics at the University of Oxford, where he is a fellow and tutor at St Hugh’s College, Tim Rood RI ’08 studies the literary techniques of Greek historians, including Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. At Radcliffe, Rood is completing a book on Xenophon’s most famous work, the military memoir Anabasis, and its place in the discourse of Western supremacy, particularly in the context of American martial conflicts of the nineteenth century and today. Here, Rood turns to a less militaristic subject: himself.

Photo by Tony Rinaldo

Quick Study: What is the most challenging aspect of being a Radcliffe fellow?

Yoga.

Which aspect of your work do you most enjoy?

 Writing—on the rare occasions it goes well.

What is your most treasured possession?

My glasses.

Which trait do you most admire in yourself?

Being laid-back. It’s related to some of the traits I least admire in myself, but you haven’t asked about those.

Who is your muse?

Andrea Capovilla. She’s always inspiring me to take my work in more exciting directions.

What do you consider your greatest success?

Getting my son Simon to laugh at my jokes.

Tell us your favorite memory.

An Elamite rock carving high on a hillside in the Zagros Mountains of southwest Iran: a breathtaking view of the valley below, and Shiraz and Persepolis beckoning in the distance.

Who are your heroes?

Robert Byron, witty travel writer and advocate of Islamic architecture; Benjamin Robert Haydon, failed painter (but great diarist); Rose Macaulay, for The Towers of Trebizond.

Describe yourself in six words or fewer.

I may be some time.

What would your colleagues be surprised to learn about you?

A colleague once accused me of stealing her handbag.

Where in the world would you like to spend a month?

Afghanistan.

Whose tunes do you enjoy?

This year’s Radcliffe composers—Mulatu Astatke, Lisa Bielawa, Elena Ruehr—inspirational one and all.

Name a pet peeve.

Noise.

If your life became a motion picture, who should portray you?

Cate Blanchett.

What is your fantasy career?

Novelist.

Who is the Xenophon of present day?

Rory Stewart, for walking from Turkey to Nepal and for his reflections on the self-defeating cultural blindness of the Western powers in Afghanistan and Iraq in his two wonderful books, The Places In-Between and Occupational Hazards. A couple of years ago, he also rented the apartment we’ve been living in this year!

What can the Anabasis tell us about modern warfare?

Crude lesson: Don’t invade Iraq. More complex is Italo Calvino’s vision of Xenophon’s Greeks, “creeping through the mountain heights and fjords amidst constant ambushes and attacks, no longer able to distinguish just to what extent it is a victim or an oppressor,” and inspiring in the reader “an almost symbolic anguish which perhaps only we today can understand.”