The Politics of Form in Greek Literature


Book Description

The Politics of Form in Greek Literature explores the relationship between form and political life specifically in Greek textual culture. In the last generation or so, classicists (and their counterparts in other disciplines) have begun to pay greater attention to the socio-historical contexts of literary production and sought to historicize aesthetic practice. However, historicism (and in particular New Historicism) is only one mode of approaching the question of form, which is increasingly brought into dialogue with a number of other issues (e.g. gender). Bringing together contributions from a range of experts, this volume examines these and other related approaches, assessing their limitations and discussing possibilities for the future. Individual chapters discuss an array of ancient authors, including Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Callimachus, and more, and sketch out the specifically Greek contribution to the debate, as well as the implications for other disciplines. What emerges from this book are new ways of thinking about form, and indeed about politics, that will be of value to scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences.







Catalogue


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Antiquitates et Lumières


Book Description

Si le XVIIIe siècle est généralement qualifié de «Siècle des Lumières», cette période se caractérise également par un véritable «retour à l'antique» au sein des différents États européens. Cet engouement, conforté par de nombreuses découvertes archéologiques dont les premières fouilles à Herculanum et à Pompéi (1738 et 1748), se manifeste notamment dans le domaine des recherches portant sur l’Antiquité romaine: les textes des Anciens font l’objet d’une relecture critique tandis que les antiquaires, ces érudits collectant et étudiant les objets et les monuments antiques, développent de nouvelles approches permettant d’analyser les traces archéologiques. L’étude et la réception de l’Antiquité romaine au cours du XVIIIe siècle constituent un domaine de recherche relativement peu traité mais particulièrement riche et fécond: il fournit un éclairage intéressant non seulement sur l’histoire intellectuelle du Siècle des Lumières mais aussi sur l’histoire politique – les autorités «éclairées» prenant à coeur de mettre en valeur le passé romain des régions qu’elles administraient – et sur l’histoire sociale de cette période – les antiquaires travaillant souvent collectivement dans le cadre d’académies ou par le biais d’une correspondance. Ce volume propose un panorama vaste mais structuré illustrant les liens existant entre antiquarisme, histoire romaine et Lumières.




The Afterlife of Used Things


Book Description

Recycling is not a concept that is usually applied to the eighteenth century. “The environment” may not have existed as a notion then, yet practices of re-use and transformation obviously shaped the early-modern world. Still, this period of booming commerce and exchange was also marked by scarcity and want. This book reveals the fascinating variety and ingenuity of recycling processes that may be observed in the commerce, crafts, literature, and medicine of the eighteenth century. Recycling is used as a thought-provoking means to revisit subjects such as consumption, the new science, or novel writing, and cast them in a new light where the waste of some becomes the luxury of others, clothes worn to rags are turned into paper and into books, and scientific breakthroughs are carried out in old kitchen pans.