I am currently in the second year of my English PhD at King’s College London. My research explores how the flowering of paradox in early modern literature, logic, philosophy, theology and law is both reflected and shaped by the Sidney circle. Looking back to classical Greek and Roman forms of paradox, my thesis begins with an overview of the paradoxical tradition from fifth century BC Athens, through to the Later Middle Ages, and the English Renaissance. As the Greek root word ‘paradoxon’ suggests, the early modern tradition of paradox signifies a radically sceptical questioning of the doxa, or opinion. The function of paradox presented by the Sidney circle is, as it has always been, to undermine commonplace opinion, or the doxia. Texts produced by the Sidneys thus deploy paradox to undermine both specifically dogmatic views and the notion of single, stable, knowable truths. Reading with queer theory, my thesis will show that paradoxes present the allegedly conventional as excessively rigid, strange, or absurd. I also teach the Early Modern Literary Culture module at King’s. My other academic interests include the conference for Classical and Early Modern Paradoxes at the University of Verona, where I will present my research.