Numbers, counting, and calculation in Attic oratory

Peter O'Connell | 9 October 2020

Language/Literature

Odysseus in Aeschylean Drama: Revisiting the Fragments

Abstract During my year-long appointment as a CHS-AUTH fellow in Hellenic Studies, I had the opportunity to work on my research project: Odysseus in Aeschylean Drama: Revisiting the Fragments. In my paper I examine the highly fragmentary Aeschylean trilogy concerning Odysseus’ nostos, which consists of the plays Psychagogoi, Penelope, and Ostologoi. A close reading of the surviving fragments allows us to hypothesize that Aeschylus employs various mechanisms and techniques through… Read more

Philosophy/Science

Women in medicine: an epigraphic research

The current study presents 28 epigraphic testimonies of women who practice medicine in a wide geographic area, such as: Attica, Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor and Hispania, from 3rd century BCE to 6th century CE, outlining at the same time the different terms used to articulate and refer to the medical profession. Although the majority of these women were referred to as μαῖα or ἰατρίνη, two cases of women were interestingly… Read more

Language/Literature

Phaedra and Hippolytus: the intertextual journey of the mytheme in 21st century’s drama plays

In the context of the one-year fellowship offered to me by the collaborative programme between the Center for Hellenic Studies and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki I have completed the article titled “Phaedra and Hippolytus: the intertextual journey of the mytheme in 21st century’s drama plays”. The article proposes an intertextual approach to the timeless myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus by looking at its various adaptations, particularly in the Greek… Read more

Language/Literature

The Rhythm of Greek Oral Poetry: Prosody, Accentual Groups and Metrical Anomalies

Kelma! Kelma! Xi tkun inti?Minn fejn ġejt? Meta tnissilt?[…]Ġejt kif ġejt, int l-isbaħ, l-akbar,fost kemm hawn egħġubijet. Word, O word! What are you? Where do you come from? How were you born? […] Anyway, you are the prettiest and greatest of all wonders.Dun Karm (National Poet of Malta), Il-kelma 1–2, 5–6 §0. In October 2018, I applied to Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies (henceforth CHS) with the project “The… Read more

History

The End of the Histories: Land, Wealth, and Empire in Herodotus

Abstract The monograph interrogates the close of the first historical work, Herodotus’ Histories, as an entrée to key refrains in the work as a whole, including migration, wealth, and empire. K. Scarlett Kingsley (Agnes Scott College) and Tim Rood (Oxford) approach this passage ‘in the round’, examining its immediate context at the end of the Greco-Persian Wars and the beginning of Athenian imperial dominance; its interrelations with episodes stretching back… Read more

History Language/Literature

Xenophon on Liberality and Freedom: Ancient Aristocratic Values and Contemporary Inequalities

Abstract Xenophon’s use of slavery as an analogy for political unfreedom permeates his writings, including those revered by the country’s Founding Fathers, the Cyropaedia and the Memorabilia. Xenophon identifies the virtuous leading citizen and ruler through the absence of qualities described as andrapodes (‘of a man-footed beast’, perhaps ancient Greek’s most dehumanising term for the enslaved) and aneleutheron (‘unfree’). The restatement of the link between freedom and unfreedom as character… Read more

History Language/Literature

Portraits of a Pharaoh: The Sesostris Tradition in Ancient Literature and Culture

When Greeks and Romans thought about Pharaonic Egypt, they would have named Sesostris as the land’s most iconic ruler. From his first appearance in Herodotus’ Histories to his afterlife in Byzantine historians, the Sesostris character played the roles of world-conqueror and Egyptian culture hero in Greek and Roman texts. Yet, while the Sesostris character was a creation of legend, he was based on three pharaohs of the Egyptian 12th Dynasty… Read more

Language/Literature

Theater of the Home Front: Gendered Trauma in Greek Tragedy

Abstract In plays about war and homecoming, male and female characters are both traumatized by the extreme events that disrupt their lives, but structural forces, including gender and class hierarchies, shape their pain in different ways, affecting how these characters react to and express their pain, trauma, and grief in performance. These same structural forces also determine how other characters – and the external audience – respond to their expressions… Read more

History

Watchdogs of the People: Demagogues and Popular Culture in Ancient Greece

Abstract I spent a wonderful (all things considered) Spring semester 2020 at the Center for Hellenic Studies, where I worked primarily on my second book project, Watchdogs of the People: Demagogues, Populism, and Popular Culture in Ancient Greece, but also related projects. My book, which will be the first history of the phenomenon of demagoguery (or the “(mis)leading of the people”) across Greek antiquity, aims both to explain the emergence… Read more

Language/Literature Mythology/Religion

Uncanny Intruders

Abstract My main project at CHS this semester, provisionally entitled Uncanny Intruders, seeks to understand Greek literature’s fascination with what Sarah Johnston has called the “returning dead,” from the Homeric poems to Heliodorus’ Ethiopian Story. It demonstrates how an engagement with anthropological approaches to the history and phenomenology of ancient religious experience can deepen and complicate readings of literary texts. In addition, I have also been working on a collaborative… Read more

Language/Literature Mythology/Religion

The Poetics of Distress, the Rape of the Heavenly Maiden, and the Most Ancient Sleeping Beauty: Oralistic, Linguistic, and Comparative Perspectives on the (Pre-)Historical…

§0. Abstract Often compared with West Asian and Egyptian texts, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (hereafter Hymn) and the other variants of the myth of Demeter and Persephone-Kore have a number of onomastic, phraseological, and thematic parallels in texts composed in other Indo-European languages. By means of an oralistic, linguistic, and comparative approach, my research aims to, firstly, reconstruct the common background of the Hymn and its Indo-European counterparts on… Read more

Philosophy/Science

Aristotle’s Metaphysics of Modality

Citation with persistent identifier: Aimar, Simona. “Aristotle’s Metaphysics of Modality.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:AimarS.Aristotles_Metaphysics_of_Modality.2020. The Project We often know what has to be the case in the world for a claim to be true. For instance, we know that the claim (1)  It is raining in Washington, DC. is true just in case it is raining in Washington, DC. Thus the fact that it is raining is Washington, DC is the… Read more

Language/Literature

Materiality and Aesthetics in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry

Citation with persistent identifier: Lather, Amy. “Materiality and Aesthetics in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:LatherA.Materiality_and_Aesthetics_in_Archaic_and_Classical_Greek_Poetry.2020 In its interest in aesthetic experience as a form of interaction between humans and things, my study contributes to the growing body of work in the humanities devoted to uncovering the ways in which humans make sense of things, and conversely, how things make sense of us: how they make us who… Read more

Language/Literature Philosophy/Science

Ars Brevis: Temporal and Exegetical Compressions in Greco-Roman and Islamicate Medicine

Citation with persistent identifier: Das, Aileen. “Ars Brevis: Temporal and Exegetical Compressions in Greco-Roman and Islamicate Medicine.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:DasA.Ars_Brevis.2020 My previous work on the medieval Islamicate reception of Plato’s Timaeus, which circulated in Arabic through the Greek physician Galen’s (d. c. 217 CE) summary of the dialogue, has led to an interest in the role of brevity in medical discourse, which is the subject of my second monograph, Ars… Read more

Art/Archaeology Epigraphy/Papyrology

The Shrine of the Valley of the Muses: An Archaeological, Historical and Literary Topos Revisited

Citation with persistent identifier: Kalliontzis, Yannis. “The Shrine of the Valley of the Muses: An Archaeological, Historical and Literary Revisited.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:KalliontzisY.The_Shrine_of_the_Valley_of_the_Muses.2020 Sometimes the biggest discoveries in ancient studies are hiding in places that are already considered fully excavated. The study of old material kept in chaotic storerooms is sometimes very rewarding. One excellent example of this phenomenon is the sanctuary of the Muses in the Valley of the Muses… Read more

Art/Archaeology

Agriculture and Subsistence Practices in the Dawn of Urbanization of Europe: The Cyclades in the Early Bronze Age

Citation with persistent identifier: Margaritis, Evi. “Agriculture and Subsistence Practices in the Dawn of Urbanisation of Europe: The Cyclades in the Early Bronze Age.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:MargaritisE.Agriculture_and_Subsistence_Practices.2020 I used my time during the Fellowship at the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard from October to December 2019 to focus on the place of Keros in the Early Bronze Age Cyclades. As the Assistant Director of the Keros Cambridge project, directed by… Read more

Art/Archaeology Language/Literature

New Features in Old Texts. A Diachronic Study of Linear B Tablets from the Room of the Chariot Tablets at Knossos to the Odos…

Citation with persistent identifier: Pierini, Rachele. “New Features in Old Texts. A Diachronic Study of Linear B Tablets from the Room of the Chariot Tablets at Knossos to the Odos Pelopidou at Thebes.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:PieriniR.New_Features_in_Old_Texts.2020 This research project aims to investigate the diachronic development of Linear B tablets (standardly approached, instead, as a synchronic dataset) by focusing on specific idiosyncrasies in order to gain a new understanding of the earliest… Read more

Art/Archaeology Language/Literature Philosophy/Science

The Legacy of Ancient Greek Ideals at Times of Environmental Crisis: Heritage, Democracy and Art in Southern Italy and Greece

Citation with persistent identifier: Pellegrino, Manuela. “The Legacy of Ancient Greek Ideals at Times of Environmental Crisis: Heritage, Democracy and Art in Southern Italy and Greece.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:PellegrinoM.The_Legacy_of_Ancient_Greek_Ideals_at_Times_of_Environmental_Crisis.2020 In October 2018, I applied to the Center for Hellenic Studies with a project with the provisional title, “The Legacy of Ancient Greek Ideals at Times of Environmental Crisis: Heritage, Democracy and Art in Southern Italy and Greece.” This fellowship allows… Read more

Art/Archaeology Epigraphy/Papyrology History

Silver Cups from Cyrene: Between Royal Gifts and Numismatic Implications

Citation with persistent identifier: Rosamilia, Emilio. “Silver Cups from Cyrene: Between Royal Gifts and Numismatic Implications.” CHS Research Bulletin 8 (2020). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:RosamiliaE.Silver_Cups_from_Cyrene.2020 Ancient Greek vessels made out of precious metals are one of the most striking products of ancient craftsmanship. With their lavish decoration and elegant lines, gold and silver vessels have long been considered symbols of the luxuries among which members of ancient elites spent their lives. As such, they have become… Read more

Language/Literature

Report | Lysistrata on Stage and on the Street: Aristophanes, Popular Theater and Politics from the French Revolution to the Age of the Web

Citation with persistent identifier: Kotzamani, Marina. “Lysistrata on Stage and on the Street: Aristophanes, Popular Theater and Politics from the French Revolution to the Age of the Web.” CHS Research Bulletin 7 (2019). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:KotzamaniM.Lysistrata_on_Stage.2019 Abstract My project explores Lysistrata’s extraordinary performance history, unearthing a staging tradition of Aristophanes as popular theater, stretching continuously over two centuries and linking 1789 revolutionary politics in France to global activism today.  I maintain that there is an… Read more

Language/Literature

Lysistrata on Stage and on the Street: Aristophanes, Popular Theater and Politics from the French Revolution to the Age of the Web

Abstract My project explores Lysistrata’s extraordinary performance history, unearthing a staging tradition of Aristophanes as popular theater, stretching continuously over two centuries and linking 1789 revolutionary politics in France to global activism today.  I maintain that there is an integral connection between popular approaches to staging Aristophanes and the legacy of democratic enlightenment values.  Another trait of this unique performance tradition is its strong intercultural character, already in place at… Read more

Art/Archaeology Language/Literature Mythology/Religion

Euripides’ Athens: Art, Cult, and Leadership

Abstract This is a book-length project that investigates the political implications of Euripides’ dialogue with cult, iconography and architecture, mainly but not exclusively Athenian. In the first part of this report (‘Art and Politics in Euripides’ Plays’) I offer an overview of my findings before starting my fellowship at the CHS, published in several articles. In the second part (‘Euripides’ Athens: Art, Cult and Leadership’) I report on the progress… Read more

Language/Literature Mythology/Religion

The Poetics of Female Hiketeia: Cult and Character in Euripides

Abstract Setting out to study the significance of Euripidean representations of cultic activities, I have used Andromache as a case study, in order to decode the ways female hiketeia is used in Euripides as a vehicle to engage with questions of cult, individual and collective characterization, gender and class disparities, justice and family relationships. If, as Gould suggests, hiketeia is “a social institution which permits the acceptance of an outsider… Read more