Xavier Buxton’s Article Accepted by the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies

We are delighted to announce that our post-doctoral researcher, Dr Xavier Buxton, has had his article “Many-Headed Song: Configuring the Lyric Chorus as a Group Mind” accepted for publication in the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies.

In this article, Dr Buxton explores one of the most fascinating questions at the heart of our ERC project: how do groups in antiquity think, feel, and act together? Focusing on the archaic Greek lyric chorus—those collectives of singers and dancers who move and speak in unison—he applies the Group Mind Thesis and narratological models of collective cognition to rethink how the chorus functioned as both a unified voice and a dynamic community of individuals.

Through close readings of Alcman’s partheneia and other early poetic and visual evidence, Dr Buxton shows that choruses are not simply harmonious wholes. Rather, they reveal a multi-level collective consciousness, shifting between unity and division, sub-groups and leaders, cooperation and rivalry. This “composite chorus” illuminates the inner dynamics of collective performance and demonstrates how ancient audiences could imagine groups as complex agents in their own right—capable of shared perception, desire, and judgment.

The study’s insights extend beyond lyric poetry: Dr Buxton traces how these choral forms anticipate the development of dithyramb and tragedy, genres in which collective voices and group behaviour are central. His work thus advances our project’s central aim of understanding group minds and collective behaviours in ancient narrative, showing how literary forms themselves can model and interrogate the workings of shared cognition.

We warmly congratulate Dr Buxton on this achievement and look forward to the wider conversations his article will spark across Classics and cognitive humanities! The published article will be uploaded to our website soon!