Dr Katy Soar

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology. I gained a BA in Ancient History from the University of Birmingham, and later an MA and PhD in Archaeology from the University of Nottingham. Prior to joining the University of Winchester in April 2017, I held academic positions at the University of Sheffield, the Open University and Royal Holloway University of London.

Areas of expertise

• Minoan and Mycenaean archaeology
• Greek archaeology
• Archaeology and Folklore
• History of archaeology
• Reception of archaeology
• Archaeological theory
• Photography and archaeology

Publications

Edited volumes

• Van Broeck, Leen; Kamash, Zena and Soar, Katy (eds) 2022. Comics and Archaeology: Drawing on the Past.  New York: Palgrave Pivot
• Thornton, Amara and Soar, Katy (ed.) 2022. Strange Relics: Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural. Bath: Handheld Press
• Soar, K. and Aamodt, C. (eds). 2014. Archaeological Approaches to Dance Performance. BAR International Series. Oxford: Archaeopress

Chapters

• Soar, K. 2023. ,‘Banished to Woods and a Sickly Moon’: The Old Gods in Folk Horror', in The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror. Eds. Robert Edgar, Wayne Johnson. London: Routledge, 32-43
• Z Kamash, K Soar, L Van Broeck. 2022. 'Introduction: Why Comics and Archaeology?', in Comics and Archaeology: Drawing on the Past.  New York: Palgrave Pivot, 1-19
• Soar, K. 2021. ‘The Cult of Pan in Nineteenth Century Literature’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic. Ed. Clive Bloom. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 573-594
• Soar, K. 2017. ‘Edward Tylor, Archaeologist? The Archaeological Framework of ‘Mr Tylor’s Science’’, in G. Harvey, L. Sutherland and P-F Tremlett (Eds), Edward Tylor, Religion and Culture. An inter-disciplinary volume in honour of the centenary of Tylor’s death. London: Bloomsbury, 141-162
• Soar, K. 2017. ‘By the Dawn’s Early Light: Colour, Light and Liminality in the Throne Room at Knossos’, in C. Duckworth and A. Sassin (Eds), Colour and Light in Ancient and Medieval Art. London: Ashgate, 46-60
• Soar, K. And Tremlett, P.-F. 2017. ‘Protest Objects: Bricolage, Performance and Counter-Archaeology’. World Archaeology 49(3), 423-434
• Soar, K. 2015. ‘Cultural Performances at the Beginning of the Bronze Age: Early Minoan I and II Cemeteries as Stages for Performance’, in S. Cappel, U.Günkel-Maschek and D. Panagiotopoulos, Minoan Archaeology: Perspectives for the 21st Century. Louvain: UCL Presses Universitaries de Louvain, 283-297
• Soar, K. 2014. ‘Archaeological Approaches to Dance Performance’, in Archaeological Approaches to Dance Performance. Ed. Kathryn Soar and Christina Aamont. Oxford: Archaeopress, 1-4
• Soar, K. 2014. ‘Sects and the City: Factional ideologies in representations of performance from Bronze Age Crete’, World Archaeology 46(2), 224-241
• Soar, K. 2010. ‘Circular Dance Performances in the Prehistoric Aegean’, in A. Chaniotis, S. Leopold, H. Schulze, E. Venbrux, T. Quartier, J. Wojtkowiak, J. Wienhold & G. Samue (Eds), Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual. Volume II: Body, Performance, Agency and Experience. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 137-157
• Soar, K. 2009a. ‘Old Bulls, New Tricks: The Reinvention of Minoan Tradition’, in C. Gallou & M. Georgiadis (Eds), Building Bridges with the Past: The Significance of Memory and Tradition in the Genesis and Transmission of Culture. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 16-27
• Soar, K. 2009b. ‘Dying to be Different: Performance and Social Differentiation in Prepalatial Crete’, in Ç.Özkan Aygün (Ed.), SOMA 2007: Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 351-357

Reviews and reports

• Soar, K. 2021. Nicoletta Momigliano, In Search of the Labyrinth: The Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete, in European Journal of Archaeology 
• Soar, K. 2018. Jennifer Chi, Rachel Herschman, Kenneth D. S. Lapatin (ed.), Restoring the Minoans: Elizabeth Price and Sir Arthur Evans, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review http://www.bmcreview.org/2018/06/20180646.html
• Soar, K. 2016. Helene Whittaker, Religion and Society in Middle Bronze Age Greece, in Classical Review 66(2)
• 2014. Conference report: Senses of the Empire: Multisensory Approaches to Roman Culture, in Networks and Neighbours 2(1), 138-143

Teaching materials

• 2014. A105. Voices, texts and material culture. Book 1: Lives of Objects. Milton Keynes: The Open University

Popular publications

• April 2023. 'The Return of Ley Lines' (with Prof. Niall; Finneran), Hellebore #9: The Old Ways Issue
• November 2022. 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn', Hellebore #8: The Unveiling Issue
• December 2021. East and West Midlands, in The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain
• May 2021. ‘The God of the Great Deep’, Hellebore #5: The Unearthing Issue
• December 2020. Folklore Thursday. ‘Will the Real Father Christmas Please Stand Up?’, https://folklorethursday.com/christmas/will-the-real-father-christmas-please-stand-up/
• November 2020. ‘The Lord of Misrule’, Hellebore #4: The Yuletide Issue
• May 2020, ‘The Great Pan in Albion’, Hellebore #2: The Wild Gods issue
• October 2019, ‘The Bones of the Land’, Hellebore: #1 The Sacrifice Issue
• February 2017. Folklore Thursday. ‘The Cretan Labyrinth Myth, History and Archaeology’, http://folklorethursday.com/folklore-of-archaeology/cretan-labyrinth-myth-history-archaeology
• October 2016. Folklore Thursday. ‘Toil and Trouble? The Goddess Hekate in Ancient Greece’
• http://folklorethursday.com/myths/toil-trouble-goddess-hekate-ancient-greece /
• July 2016. Folklore Thursday. ‘From the Gorgon to the Gift Shop: A Brief Archaeology of the Evil Eye’

http://folklorethursday.com/material-culture/gorgon-gift-shop-brief-archaeology-evil-eye/

Invited talks

‘Postcards as Archives: Postcards, Modernity and the Creation of an Archaeological Site’, Greek Archaeology Group & Prehistoric and Early Greece Graduate Seminar, University of Oxford, June 2023

‘Postcards as Archives: Excavating Popular Archaeology at the Turn of the Century’, IoA History of Archaeology Network Seminar, University College London, February 2017

‘Making Minoans: Modernity, Photography and Travel’, Classical Research Seminar, Trinity College Dublin, February 2017

‘Mazes and Labyrinths in the Ancient World’, Cross-disciplinary discussion forum Thinkspace, UCL, the Bartlett School of Architecture, November 2016

‘What Lies Beneath: Archaeological landscapes and the eerie’, Spectral Landscapes: Explorations of the English Eerie, Oxford, October 2015

‘Framing the Minoans:  Re-presenting Knossos in early twentieth century postcards’, Antiquity and Photography colloquium, Open University, September 2015

Panel respondent for the session ‘Sensing Religion’ at Religious Movement and Sensory Experience in Antiquity conference, King’s College London, July 2015

‘The Space and Place of Death: A Performative Approach to the Cemetery at Mochlos’, The Normative Order of Space in European Antiquity and the Ancient Near East, Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, March 2011

Selected presentations

‘Great Pan is Dead? Horned Gods in 21^st Century Film and Television’, paper presented at Pan and the Anthropocene Symposium, July 2023

‘”Wraith-like is this Native Stone”. Folklore, Folk Horror and Archaeological Landscapes’, paper presented at Folk Horror in the 21st Century conference, Falmouth University, September 2019

‘Mino-Tourism: Picture Postcards and the Creation of the Minoans’, paper presented at Aegean Archaeology Work-in-progress day, University of Cambridge, 10^th June 2019.

'Archaeological Horror and Non-Euclidean Chronologies’, paper presented at After Fantastika, University of Lancaster, July 2018

‘Yummy Mummies: Mummies, vengeance and the archaeological commodification of Egyptian bodies’, with Dr. Catherine Frieman (ANU), paper presented Writing Remains: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Archaeology and Literature, University of Bristol, January 2017

‘‘No diggin’ ere!’: The haunted spaces of archaeology in M.R. James’ A Warning to the Curious’, paper presented at Past Matters, Research Futures, AHRC/Royal Society, London, December 2016

‘Picture Perfect: Postcards in the Making of the ‘Modern Minoan’’, paper presented at Modernity and the Shock of the Ancient: The Reception of Antiquity in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, June 2016

‘Excavating the Monstrous: Temporality and the Archaeological Horror’, paper presented at Promises of Monsters conference, University of Stavanger, April 2016

‘Wish you were here? Depictions of Knossos in Early 20th Century Postcards’, paper presented at North American TAG conference, in the session ‘Moving pictures: exploring archaeological networks of pictures and knowledge in the 19th and 20th centuries", New York University, May 2015

‘The Abyss of All Being: The Influence of Archaeology and Anthropology on the Works of Arthur Machen’, paper presented at A Fiend in the Furrows - Perspectives on 'Folk Horror' in Literature, Film & Music, University of Belfast, September 2014

‘There and Back Again: Performative Landscapes in Minoan Crete’, paper presented at the Sacred Landscapes: Creation, Transformation and Manipulation conference, University of Wales Trinity St Davids, Lampeter, May 2014

‘White Men Can’t Jump: A Reappraisal of Minoan Bull-Leaping’, paper presented at the European Social Sciences and History Conference, University of Vienna, April 2014

‘Old Bulls, New Tricks: Transforming Minoan Ritual in Time and Space’, paper presented at European Association for the Study of Religions annual conference, Liverpool Hope University, September 2013

‘The Clothes Make the (Wo)Man: Clothing and Gender Performativity in Minoan Crete’, paper presented at TAG (Theoretical Archaeology Group) conference, University of Liverpool, December 2012

‘The Toreador Frieze: Narrative and the Performance of Viewing at Minoan Knossos’, Paper presented at the Classical Association Annual Conference, University of Cardiff, April 2010