Showing papers in "Classical World in 2015"
TL;DR: In this paper, the question of whether a categorization of the disabled existed in antiquity has been investigated, and it has been shown that some Greeks did construct a social category of disability.
Abstract: Recent scholarship has been divided over the question of whether a categorization of the disabled existed in antiquity. Close readings of Lysias, Plutarch, and other ancient Greek authors strongly suggest that some Greeks did construct a social category of disability. The ἀδύνατοι were banned from military, political, and religious roles in Athens and elsewhere. The Spartans, on the other hand, chastised those who did not fight, even those with disabling impairments, while lauding those who “overcame” their disabilities. Disability thus provides a new framework within which to gauge inter-Greek ethnic identity.
17 citations
TL;DR: This article describe three courses at Haverford College in which theory is the object of attention: Translation and Transformation: Theory and Practice; History of Literary Theory: Plato to Shelley; and Senior Seminar.
Abstract: This article describes three courses at Haverford Col- lege in which theory is the object of attention: Translation and Transformation: Theory and Practice; History of Literary Theory: Plato to Shelley; and Senior Seminar. In the last of these, students survey a range of theoretical approaches in relation to classical lit- erature and are thus encouraged to develop senior theses that are more sophisticated in their awareness and use of method. The the- oretical focus of all three courses allows students to appreciate the capacities and limitations of theory for the critical analysis of texts and cultures. Should critical theory be given a central place in the undergraduate clas- sics curriculum, and if so, what should that place be? Theory already plays an important, if supporting, role in many language and culture courses. When we teach classical mythology, contrasting theories about the nature and social function of myth—from formalism to structuralism and the psychosocial theories of Lacan and Butler—provide interpretive touch- stones for students as they read and discuss ancient texts. Translation theory might play a role in any Greek or Latin course whose instructor leverages the insights of Benjamin, Venuti, and others to complicate the
9 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that the different types of documents contained in the katochoi of the Sarapeion archive can be placed on a linguistic continuum or "register" continuum, and the so-called "tenor vector plays a particularly important role.
Abstract: While the Greek documentary papyri constitute a rich resource for linguistic innovation, they cannot be considered a linguistically homogeneous corpus. In this article, I show that even in a single archive, the “ katochoi of the Sarapeion” archive, considerable variation exists in terms of phonology/orthography, morphology, and syntax. I argue that the different types of documents contained in this archive—that is, dreams, letters and petitions—can be situated on a linguistic continuum or “register” continuum. To account for the linguistic differences between these documents, the so-called “tenor”-vector plays a particularly important role.
6 citations
5 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the integration of physically impaired and disfigured veterans into Roman civil society, and argued that few impairments and disfigurements precluded veterans from holding political or religious office.
Abstract: This paper will focus on physically impaired and disfigured soldiers and their perception in Roman antiquity from the late Republic until the early Imperial era (third century bc until third century ad ). Based on case studies from literary sources, this paper aims to explore the integration of impaired and disfigured veterans into Roman civil society. The first part outlines the ambiguous attitudes shown towards these veterans, who were both praised and ridiculed, and seeks explanations. The second part argues that few impairments and disfigurements precluded veterans from holding political or religious office.
5 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed how Tacitus and Dio used the concept of exemplarity in their narratives of Boudica's revolt in order to present the queen as a complex model of female leadership.
Abstract: This article analyzes how Tacitus and Dio use the concept of exemplarity in their narratives of Boudica’s revolt in order to present the queen as a complex model of female leadership. Tacitus’ Boudica assimilates herself to positive Roman models from Livy; Dio’s Boudica separates herself from Herodotean anti-models, as well as from the imperial women of Rome. In her condemnation of Nero, Dio’s Boudica criticizes the populace for succumbing to the influence of a negative model of leadership. Exempla contribute to each author’s characterization of Boudica; a comparative reading reveals significant differences in each author’s position on the efficacy of exempla in historiography.
5 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the earliest extant examples of extended first-person narration from Greek antiquity and argued that an alternative perspective on ancient autobiographical writing becomes possible when the emphasis is placed on firstperson narration as a narrative strategy per se.
Abstract: The article argues that an alternative perspective on ancient autobiographical writing becomes possible when the emphasis is placed on first-person narration as a narrative strategy per se. Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Seventh Letter and Isocrates’ Antidosis are examined as the earliest extant examples of extended first-person narration from Greek antiquity. The following issues are highlighted as significant factors to be kept in mind in the reading of the texts: the context of rivalry within which the selected examples functioned; the role of the apologetic, protreptic, and paraenetic communicative purposes pursued by the authors; notions of “fictionality” and “factuality” in light of recent theory of autobiography; ancient and modern thinking about the persuasive power of first-person narration; and the intersection of apologetic, protreptic, and paraenetic communicative aims with first-person narration in the selected examples.
3 citations
3 citations
TL;DR: Oenone in Heroides 5, her attempt to win back Paris, is a deft manipulator not only of pastoral and elegy, as previously recognized, but also of epic.
Abstract: Ovid’s Oenone in Heroides 5, her attempt to win back Paris, is a deft manipulator not only of pastoral and elegy, as previously recognized, but also of epic. This essay illustrates both the nymph’s careful deployment of epic themes and that her approach is a necessary response to Paris’ own change of heart and genre as evidenced in Heroides 16. In particular, Oenone’s version of her past history with Paris, their separate accounts of Paris’ recognition and judgment, and Oenone’s attempts to present herself as appropriate to his epic future show the importance of epic in this correspondence.
2 citations
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors use Herodotus, the Father of factually based history, as a model for a variety of organizing principles and rhetorical techniques to enliven and strengthen student academic prose.
Abstract: Both in his models of organization and theme, borrowed from Homeric epic, and in his recasting of anecdotal source materials, Herodotus, the Father of factually based History, had one foot firmly planted in the world of storytelling. My beginning-student writers, too, are just venturing upon the transition from the rhetoric of the heightened world of storytelling to that of the critical investigation of the real world. Through exercises in close reading and imitation, we use book 2 of the Histories as a model for a variety of organizing principles and rhetorical techniques to enliven and strengthen student academic prose.
TL;DR: The authors argues that the Star Wars double-trilogy derives much of its meaning by tapping into the age-old discourse of political freedom versus dictatorial oppression, which is at the core of early imperial reimaginings of the Roman Republic.
Abstract: This essay argues that one of modern Western culture’s most-watched film series, the Star Wars double trilogy, derives much of its meaning by tapping into the age-old discourse of political freedom versus dictatorial oppression, which is at the core of early imperial reimaginings of the Roman Republic. Yet George Lucas’s films reveal that the longed-for era of freedom was hardly that at all, just as the era of libertas longed for in the Roman Principate was similarly illusory, particularly for lower echelons of Roman society.
TL;DR: The model adopted at the University of South Carolina sees classics and comparative literature as engaged with each other and co-constitutive of a larger conversation that seeks to define the basic objects of study across the humanities as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Classics sees theory as a supplement and many comparative literature programs see premodern intellectual life the same way. This mutual suspicion accounts for much of the way theory is taught. In classics, it is often part of a quick proseminar. In comparative literature, theory is said to begin with Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Plato and Aristotle are nodded to, but not seriously read. The model adopted at the University of South Carolina sees classics and comparative literature as engaged with each other and co-constitutive of a larger conversation that seeks to define the basic objects of study across the humanities.
TL;DR: In this article, a new interpretation of Prometheus in Plato's Protagoras is proposed, focusing on the potential of Hermes as representative par excellence of the Protagorean or, more generally, the sophistic tradition.
Abstract: This essay reevaluates scholarship regarding the myth of Prometheus in Plato’s Protagoras and offers a new interpretation that focuses on the potential of Hermes as representative par excellence of the Protagorean, or, more generally, sophistic tradition. I thus consider the messenger god’s traditional portrayal in works such as the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and various Aesopic fragments, which underscore his role as teacher of learnable skills and master of deception. I then suggest that Plato alludes to this playful tradition in his own portrayal of Hermes, who, like Protagoras, is concerned with the distribution and promotion of “political skill.”
TL;DR: A broad range of political procedures, principles, and ways of thinking that are crucial, widespread, and fairly generally accepted (though not always fully realized) components of political life in our modern world have their origin in ancient Greece, even if they were developed further in recent centuries.
Abstract: A broad range of political procedures, principles, and ways of thinking that are crucial, widespread, and fairly generally accepted (though not always fully realized) components of political life in our modern world have their origin in ancient Greece, even if they were developed further in recent centuries. Most prominent among these are normative laws enacted by the community or its representatives, constitutions and constitutional theory, the principles of popular sovereignty, checks and balances, and representation, majority voting, the secret ballot, the concept of citizenship, and political thought and theory. This paper examines the question of when and why each of these “items” was invented by the Greeks, and why they were invented in Greece in the first place (in a small, mountainous, and mostly poor country beyond the reach of the great empires of the time) rather than in Mesopotamia or Egypt—in societies that developed marvelous early civilizations by which the Greeks were inspired in many other ways.
TL;DR: The Graduate Certificate Program in Poetics and Theory at New York University provides a flexible curricular structure for students to make room in their schedule for a more systematic exploration of theoretical approaches than can usually be accommodated within national or area-studies literature programs.
Abstract: The Graduate Certificate Program in Poetics and Theory at New York University provides a flexible curricular structure for students to make room in their schedule for a more systematic exploration of theoretical approaches than can usually be accommodated within national or area-studies literature programs. It is a structure more than a canon and, while a common seminar, reading groups, and an annual conference provide community, the students are free to develop a set of courses within any theoretical domain. Since students add only one additional semester of class work, the program enhances their regular disciplinary course of study.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors lay out the promises and pitfalls of one particular approach to making literary theory central: a full-unit survey class in literary theory, taught by a member of the classics faculty and responsive to the particular needs of classics majors.
Abstract: After first arguing that literary theory should play a significant role in an undergraduate classics curriculum, this paper lays out the promises and pitfalls of one particular approach to making literary theory central: a full-unit survey class in literary theory, taught by a member of the classics faculty and responsive to (although not wholly structured by) the particular needs of classics majors The basic model is evaluated through the exploration of a specific class taught by the author in a number of iterations
TL;DR: This paper investigated the relationship between a fragmentary sixth-century-b.c. inscription (SEG 11.625), part of a stele found in a sanctuary on the Spartan Acropolis, and Alcman's poetry and concluded that although there are some indications that this poem may be attributed to Alcman, there is no solid proof and so, unfortunately, we cannot draw any final conclusions about Alcman’s early reception based on the “Hymn to Athena.
Abstract: This article investigates the relationship between a fragmentary sixth-century-b.c. inscription ( SEG 11.625), part of a stele found in a sanctuary on the Spartan Acropolis, and Alcman’s poetry. Some evidence suggests that this inscription may carry a choral hymn to Athena, or else be a part of an epinician composed by a Spartan poet. I consider questions concerning the authorship of this poem and its generic affiliations. I conclude that although there are some indications that this poem may be attributed to Alcman, there is no solid proof and so, unfortunately, we cannot draw any final conclusions about Alcman’s early reception based on the “Hymn to Athena.”
TL;DR: The authors apply the methodology of narratological focalization to Ovid's account of Medea in the Metamorphoses (7.1-424), an episode that many scholars have acknowledged as marked by jarring shifts.
Abstract: In this paper, I apply the methodology of narratological focalization to Ovid’s account of Medea in the Metamorphoses (7.1–424), an episode that many scholars have acknowledged as marked by jarring shifts. Focalization allows the reader to trace more subtly and appreciate more fully the step-by-step progression in Medea’s character, as the audience’s sympathy is gradually alienated from the young girl in love by means of shifting focalizations. I also investigate the neglected Liber vignette (7.294–296) as an important signpost for the murder of Pelias, rather than a retrospective close to the Aeson episode.
TL;DR: The authors argued that the character of Rhesus in particular highlights how the author is differentiating this work from that of the fifth century and encouraged viewing fourth-century tragedy as an evolution of the genre rather than a decline.
Abstract: This paper examines the spurious and contentious Rhesus and argues for a fourth-century production date based on a similarity to other fourth-century plays. It argues that the character of Hector in particular highlights how the author is differentiating this work from that of the fifth century. More broadly, this article also encourages viewing fourth-century tragedy as an evolution of the genre rather than a decline.
TL;DR: In the face of the institution of slavery, Roman allusions have been used by abolitionists to expose the hypocrisy of the revolutionary rhetoric of liberty and to make clear the vast difference between chattel slavery and slavery as a metaphor for political bondage as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Revolutionary generation regularly invoked the example of Cato the Younger and his fierce resistance to the death to the tyranny of Julius Caesar, whom they compared to King George III in their own passionate resistance to the “slavery” of the British monarchy. Abolitionists appropriated Roman allusions in order to expose the hypocrisy of the revolutionary rhetoric of liberty in the face of the institution of slavery and to make clear the vast difference between chattel slavery and slavery as a metaphor for political bondage.
TL;DR: This article cast doubt on Peterson's reading of the Theaetetus, and in turn present an alternative to it, arguing that we have no good reason to doubt Plato's endorsement of the picture of the philosopher of the digression; this need not mean that they are incompatible.
Abstract: The aim of this essay is to cast doubt on Sandra Peterson’s reading of the Theaetetus , and in turn to present an alternative to it. Against Peterson, I argue that we have no good reason to doubt Plato’s endorsement of the picture of the philosopher of the digression; that, while Socrates and the philosopher of his digression are indeed cast as different types of philosophers, this need not mean that they are incompatible. Quite the contrary, so I argue, is what Plato intends to show us in the Theaetetus . Both Socrates and the philosopher of the digression, while philosophizing in different ways, work together in achieving one overarching aim: betterment of self by means of intellectual activity. In addition, I argue against Peterson’s claim that the Socrates of the Theaetetus is the same as the Socrates of the Apology . I also show that her related reading of the close of the Theaetetus does not stand up to scrutiny. Lastly, I offer an alternative reading of the close of the Theaetetus .
TL;DR: The authors consider the content, structure, pacing, and pedagogical strategies of one version of a one-semester theory proseminar, including sample syllabuses and different writing and in-class projects.
Abstract: A required literary-theory class for classics graduate students was introduced at the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1980s. So how do we get beginning graduate students “from zero to 60” in a one-semester theory proseminar? This paper considers the content, structure, pacing, and pedagogical strategies of one version of such a course, including sample syllabuses and different writing and in-class projects. In particular, I address how such a course can be effectively integrated with the students’ other classics coursework, and how students can be motivated to regard the theory proseminar as just the first step in their ongoing education in theory.
TL;DR: The Ovid and Literary Theory (OFT) course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as mentioned in this paper is a graduate course that divides its time between Ovid (Amores, Ars amatoria) and literary theory.
Abstract: This essay reviews the history, design, and goals of "Ovid and Literary Theory," a graduate course that divides its time between Ovid (Amores, Ars amatoria) and literary theory. The course, originated at Bryn Mawr College and migrated to the Uni- versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, meets a graduate Latin requirement but regularly enrolls undergraduates. Students read both an introductory overview of theory and primary theory during the semester. Written assignments require them to practice applying theory to aspects of Ovidian elegy.