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"Hobden, Fiona"
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The Symposion in Ancient Greek Society and Thought
The symposion was a key cultural phenomenon in ancient Greece. This book investigates its place in ancient Greek society and thought by exploring the rhetorical dynamics of its representations in literature and art. Across genres, individual Greeks constructed visions of the party and its performances that offered persuasive understandings of the event and its participants. Sympotic representations thus communicated ideas which, set within broader cultural conversations, could possess a discursive edge. Hence, at the symposion, sympotic styles and identities might be promoted, critiqued and challenged. In the public imagination, the ethics of Greeks and foreigners might be interrogated and political attitudes intimated. Symposia might be suborned into historical narratives about struggles for power. And for philosophers, writing a Symposium was itself a rhetorical act. Investigating the symposion's discursive potential enhances understanding of how the Greeks experienced and conceptualized the symposion and demonstrates its contribution to the Greek thought world.
eBook
Classics in the Modern World. A Democratic Turn?, Lorna Hardwick and Stephen Harrison (Eds.) : reviews
For a collection of written articles, Classics in the Modern World is highly conversational. This is partly due to its origins in a preliminary e-seminar and follow-up conference on the 'democratic turn' in modern engagements with Classical Antiquity. Not only are questions that arose within these initial forums re-presented in the 'Introduction' (Hardwick and Harrison, pp. xix-xxxvii), but they are directly and indirectly raised throughout the volume's thirty contributions. Moreover, the very frame is interrogative. The content of the volume is diverse, with case studies drawn from a broad array of periods and settings and Classical receptions that might seem quite detached. Yet the question mark in the title - A Democratic Turn? - makes each individual argument a new contribution to a live debate. Whether dipping in or working more methodically through the book, the reader joins the evaluation of how Classics in modern settings might possess a democratic quality.
Journal Article
History Meets Fiction in Doctor Who, ‘The Fires of Pompeii’: A BBC Reception of Ancient Rome on Screen and Online
‘Ancient Rome!’ The door of the iconic police box squeaks open. The camera pans, following a dark-haired man as he emerges, pushes through a curtained doorway, and, with a glint in his eye, glee in his smile, and a touch of London in his voice, announces their destination to his redhead companion. So begins ‘The Fires of Pompeii’, the second episode in the fourth season of the current BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) science-fiction drama Doctor Who. And so, no doubt, began the scribbling of pens on notebooks, as classicists who examine popular receptions of ancient Greece and Rome recognized a fresh opportunity to explore the dynamics of modern engagements with the classical world. At the time of broadcast, I was ensconced in my Liverpool office, writing the final lecture of a new undergraduate module devoted to Roman society. The topic was ‘Receptions of Roman Life’. My plan was to contrast depictions of Roman life in different media from distinct periods to encourage our students to recognize how modern reconstructions of Roman society are variously informed by questions of authority, genre, and cultural contexts. Serendipitously, ‘The Fires of Pompeii’ provided an engaging contemporary reception of the Roman world on television.
Journal Article
IMAGINING PAST AND PRESENT: A RHETORICAL STRATEGY IN AESCHINES 3, AGAINST CTESIPHON
As a counterpoint to the tendency of scholarly treatment to isolate historical allusions used in ancient law court deliberative oratory from the broader rhetorical ploys of the speeches in which they appear, the author focuses on the use of historical allusion in Aeschines' third law court oration, \"Against Ctesiphon\", delivered in 330 B.C.E., to demonstrate how references to Athens' past in the context of this specific oration work to construct imaginary visions of the bygone city that, in conjunction with re-imaginings of the present, advance the immediate prosecution of Ctesiphon. The author's account is thereby intended to extend current understandings of Aeschines' rhetorical technique and to provide a new consideration of the possible deployment of historical allusions in forensic oratory. Noting how studies of law court dynamics focus on the role of identity construction in creating empathy or community between speakers and their jury, the author proceeds to argue that Aeschines' rhetorical strategy of imagining past and present plays with this central dynamic in an innovative way that harnesses the social memory of the city and the lived experiences of the jury whilst subtly reconstituting both and propelling the jurors to vote against the defendant. Thus, the author concludes, the persuasive power of Aeschines' strategy lies not simply in a shared nostalgia for the past or its appeal to a pre-existing disgruntlement with the present but resides finally in the vision of the future which it promises to instate.
Journal Article
Ancient World Documentaries
Documentaries about ancient Greece and Rome share some basic qualities with the films and television programs. Through the use of established filming and editing techniques to create and order those images and sounds, documentaries present narratives about the history, society and culture of the ancient world that aim to be authoritative and convincing. This chapter traces the conventions of ancient world documentaries, to identify what they show and what they say. The positioning of narrators, presenters and expert witnesses within ancient world documentaries determines the structure and style of historical investigation, and advances a program's truth claim. Documentary programs tell stories about ancient Greece and Rome through authorized narration, supported by visual cues. However, documentaries also depict moments from “real life”—in ancient word documentaries, moments in ancient history—using the conventions of drama, as a theatrical and cinematic practice.
Book Chapter