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After a course of undergraduate studies in St Petersburg, Russia, where my specialization initially was in Russian language and literature, and later in Classical philology, I conducted graduate studies at Stanford University (1993-2000), focusing my research on ancient Greek religion and Greek social history and receiving a PhD in Classics in 2001. Subsequently (2000-2007), I taught ancient Greek and Roman history, as well as Ancient Greek and Latin, at Bowdoin College, USA, and joined King's in 2007.

• Ancient Greek religion (methods and approaches )
• Ancient Greek social history (leasing of public/sacred lands)
• Aigina (history, epigraphy, archaeology)
• Identity formation (ancient to modern Greece)
• Greek epigraphy (Aigina, Attica, Northern Black Sea)
• Digital epigraphy

Current projects

• IOSPE: Ancient Inscriptions from the Northern Black Sea
• History, Religion, and Epigraphy of Ancient Aigina
• The Leasing of Land in Ancient Athens: An Epigraphic and Historical Study of Attic Misthoseis

• Irene Polinskaya (2012) “Calling Upon Gods as Witnesses in Ancient Greece.” In Mètis. Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens. Dossier: Serments et paroles efficacies. New Series 10 (2012), 23-37
• Irene Polinskaya (2010) 'Shared sanctuaries and the gods of others: on the meaning of ‘common’ in Herodotus 8.144', in Valuing Others in Classical Antiquity pp. 43-70
• Irene Polinskaya (2009)  'Fifth-Century Horoi on Aigina a Re-evaluation' HESPERIA, 78 (2), pp. 231-267.
• Irene Polinskaya (2008) “On the Aiginetan Cult of Zeus Pasios: A New Edition of SEG XI 2.”  In ΜΙΚΡΟΣ ΙΕΡΟΜΝΗΜΩΝ. Studies in Honor of Michael H. Jameson, edited by A. P. Matthaiou and I. Polinskaya. Athens, 2008, 211-227
• Irene Polinskaya (2006) “Lack of Boundaries, Absence of Oppositions: the City-Countryside Continuum of a Greek Pantheon.”  In City, Countryside, and the Spatial Organization of Value in Classical Antiquity, edited by R. Rosen and I. Sluiter, Leiden and Boston, 2006, 61-92.
• Irene Polinskaya (2003)“Liminality as Metaphor: Initiation and the Frontiers of Ancient Athens.” In Initiation in Ancient  Greek Rituals and Narratives. New Critical Perspectives, editedby D. B. Dodd and C. A. Faraone. London, 2003, 85-106.

Undergraduate

• 5AACHI01 Greek History down to 322 BC

Postgraduate

• 7AACK410 Territory and Identity in Ancient Greece
• 7AACM730 Greek Epigraphy
• 7AACM735 Introduction to Greek Epigaphy
• 7AACM500 Sources and Methods in Ancient History

I am happy to supervise dissertations on topics in ancient Greek religious, political, and social history, primarily of the Archaic and Classical periods.

Current and past PhD students