In: Iran and the Caucasus: research papers from the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies = Iran i kavkaz : trudy Kavkazskogo e͏̈tìsentra iranistiki, Band 22, Heft 1, S. 8-37
Since the Hellenistic times (if not earlier) Iran participates in the philosophical development of classical Greece. In the times of the Sasanians some knowledge of Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic thinking is detectable, and treatises were written for Xosrō I by philosophers who were well acquainted with the writings of Aristotle. It was always maintained that also Sasanian Zoroastrianism was affected through these Greek-Iranian contacts. But it is remarkable that among the Zoroastrian writings of the 9th-10th centuries only two books–Dēnkard 3 and Škand Gumānīg Wīzār–seem to be substantially influenced by Aristotelian/Neo-Platonic terms and concepts. The paper deals with the question whether the Greek elements within these texts should not better be understood as the fruit of a Zoroastrian participation in the general interest of the Islamic world in Greek thinking in Abbasid Baghdad.
v.1 Leben des Thukydides.-Ein Wort ueber Tiberius.-Spicilegia conjecturarum.-Recensione der Grammatik von Aug. Matthias.--v.2 Bruchstuecke aus dem Leben eines Schulmannes.-Modernste historische Kritik.-Miscellen.-Ruppiner liberalismus.-Ansprache an Herrn von Vincke.-Xenophon's Geburtjahr.-- v.3 Annotationes ad Demosthenis Philippicam I.-De authentia & integritate Anabaseos Xenophonteae.-Gegen Guizot.-Plagiatorisches.-Politische pamphleten. ; Mode of access: Internet.
This dissertation contends that we must account for the values we have inherited from the Greco-Roman tradition, and for the (anti-)colonial histories of the Americas, when we practice and teach reading in the United States today. This comparative study of ancient Greek literature from the Second Sophistic (c. 60-230 CE) and post-1960s U.S. Latina/o literature examines the intersection of ethics, reading, and language politics to reconsider our own conceptions of literacy, literary reading, and education in the present. Both literary traditions exhibit a heightened attention to the educational models and language hierarchies that shape readers into social and political subjects. In the Second Sophistic, Greek writers actively produced a "classical" heritage, as well as their own sociopolitical identities, through literary and linguistic training in an elite Greek dialect; this cultural education was entangled with legacies of Greek and Roman imperialism and conquest. Similarly, contemporary U.S. Latina/o writers grapple with the colonial and the revolutionary legacies of alphabetic literacy in the Americas, especially the relationship between literate education (in a dominant, colonial language) and sociopolitical belonging. Latina/o writers contest the equation of (proper) English with U.S. sociopolitical inclusion to summon a more inclusive, multilingual reading public. Beginning with the second- or third-century CE work of Athenaeus, and moving to the work of Julia Alvarez in the early twenty-first century, the first two chapters argue for the ethical significance of reading practices that diverge from normative educational models of linguistic and literary mastery. The final two chapters emphasize how the embodied dimensions of reading intersect with language politics. The literary production of Lucian in the second century and of Norma Elia Cantú in the late twentieth century highlight the material dimensions of language and literacy instruction, such as forms of bodily discipline that train readers' gestures and tongues. Ultimately, this study argues that how we conceive of, practice, and teach reading are of ethical importance; it seeks an inclusive understanding of reading that accounts for a plurality of perspectives, multiple literacies and linguistic heritages, and the diverse embodied practices of readers.
"Greek Historiography, Roman Society, Christian Empire: the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea" addresses a major shift in Roman social, political, and religious history at the pivotal turn of the fourth century AD. When Christianity was legalized in 313, the Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire, where the pagan Licinius ruled as emperor until the Christian Constantine defeated him in 324, remained in an insecure position. The Greek-speaking eastern Roman elite of this period only admitted outsiders to their circles who displayed a civilized manner of life inculcated in the elite Greek educational curriculum (paideia), the kind of life embodied by Greek philosophers. It was, I argue, to depict this newly legalized Christianity as the models of the philosophical life that Eusebius of Caesarea wrote the first history of the church in the 310s AD. Whereas Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History is usually studied for its intra-Christian discourse, this study considers the History as a Greek text aimed at Roman elites. I demonstrate that the History's reconfiguration of Greek historiographical genres constructed Christianity as a civilized and educated institution whose leaders were worthy to educate and advise the Roman ruling classes.The first three chapters present a reading of the Ecclesiastical History within the rich variety of Greek historiographical genres. The first chapter applies genre theory to show that Eusebius' History was a combination of the Greek genres of national history and philosophical biography. This combination of genres presented the church as a nation of philosophers ready to assume the standard role of philosophers in the Roman Empire, of teaching Roman elites a civilized manner of life and of advising Roman emperors. The second chapter scrutinizes the character of Eusebius' Christianity by studying eighty mini-biographies embedded into the History that echo Diogenes Laertius', Philostratus', and Porphyry's philosophical biographies. By highlighting Christians' homogeneous and universal intellectual prowess, these profiles represent the church as reliable educators and advisors. The third chapter argues that, in a riposte to the grand genre of Greek war history that valorized other nations' pasts, Eusebius transformed persecution and martyrdom from an orderly legal procedure into a violent struggle told in the manner of the great Greek historian Thucydides. As the church's enemy in the struggle martyrdom was Satan and not the Roman persecutors of Christianity, Eusebius could call martyrdoms "wars contested for peace in the soul," critiquing Greek war history with Greek philosophical discourse. His church emerges victorious by remaining steadfastly loyal to God, surpasses the warriors in Greek literature by its virtuous conduct of the wars, and, by scapegoating the demons, absolves the Roman Empire of any systemic flaw that would discourage Christians from supporting it.The next three chapters complement my analysis of the Ecclesiastical History's genres by locating Eusebius' Christianity in the social structures of the early fourth-century Roman Empire. The fourth chapter introduces Eusebius' experience of living under Rome through a thick description of the archaeological remains of his home city, Caesarea Maritima. Caesarea was unmistakably a Roman creation, as the governor of Palestine resided there and the city's topography featured numerous monuments to Roman power, including monuments to philosophers who were respected in the city. The peaceful, prosperous and well-connected life that a wealthy man such as Eusebius could live there solidified Eusebius' loyalty to the Roman Empire. The fifth chapter shows how Eusebius integrated the church into the Empire: he delineated networks of bishops and intellectuals that stretched across the Empire from Mesopotamia to Gaul and Carthage. The geographically diffused church displays a variety of mechanisms for maintaining long-distance cohesion, and the cohesive and homogeneous philosophical church bound together by these ties attracts favor from Roman leaders throughout the History. Through these encounters Eusebius patterned the church's relationship with the Empire after that of Greek philosophers: philosophers typically stayed in contact with emperors and governors while maintaining a critical distance from imperial power, so as to provide impartial advice for imperial officials. Eusebius placed Christians into the beneficial imagined relationship that philosophers had held with the Empire, from which they would strengthen imperial governance. The sixth chapter contextualizes the History in Eusebius' larger literary oeuvre. He published the History when he was writing his long magnum opus, the Gospel Preparation and Gospel Demonstration, a comprehensive exposition and defense of Christian doctrine. Eusebius' simultaneous publication of the Preparation-Demonstration with the History emulated the combination of expository works with biographical narratives in Greek philosophical curricula. Eusebius' forging of a comprehensive program for training Christians to think and act as philosophers positioned the church to displace Greek philosophical schools as the premier intellectual institution of the Empire. From this position, the church could then reinforce the Empire's mission to civilize the inhabited world.The History articulated a central role for Eusebius' church in Rome's imperial regime. Where the most prominent role of Greek philosophers was to educate imperial elites and advise Roman emperors, Eusebius' assertion of Christians' intellectual prowess claimed the church's superiority as a philosophical institution. Eusebius published his vision at a fortuitous moment, for when the Christian emperor Constantine conquered the eastern Roman Empire in 324, the History had already advertised church leaders' competence in the philosophical profession. By telling the church's history within the Greek historiographical tradition stretching back to Herodotus and Thucydides, therefore, Eusebius' History became a catalyst for the church's integration into the power structures of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Scholars have long been divided over whether the Amazons of Greek legend actually existed. 'Postcolonial Amazons' offers a ground-breaking re-evaluation of the place of martial women in antiquity, bridging the gap between myth and reality by expanding our conception of the Amazon archetype to include the real female warriors of the ancient world.
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Die folgenden Links führen aus den jeweiligen lokalen Bibliotheken zum Volltext:
Scholars have long been divided over whether the Amazons of Greek legend actually existed. 'Postcolonial Amazons' offers a ground-breaking re-evaluation of the place of martial women in antiquity, bridging the gap between myth and reality by expanding our conception of the Amazon archetype to include the real female warriors of the ancient world
Zugriffsoptionen:
Die folgenden Links führen aus den jeweiligen lokalen Bibliotheken zum Volltext:
The ancient works of Greek civilization had almost been wiped out of human consciousness until Renaissance revisited it. In early 1800s, when Greece was revolting against Turks after 400 years of slavery, Europe discovered the old Greek tragedies and works of Greek philosophers which had been oppressed by political power bearers. In the 19th century many free spirits like Lord Byron (who died in Greece during the war) were intrigued by these works and began to reinterpret and analyse them to locate universals truths relating to philosophy, ecology, psychology, natural sciences, etc in them.Ever since Renaissance (when Shakespeare made abundant use of Greek Myths in his plays) the craze and interest in Greek mythology has not slowed down. From Homer to John Milton to John Keats to Thomas Hardy, all old and contemporary writers have looked towards Greek Myths for substance for their writing and have used them in all possible genres of literature. This paper attempts to trace the influence of Greek Mythology on English literature and contemporary culture, to point towards the literary works of various centuries which intensively used Greek myths and those English films which depict the same. An effort has been made at finding out the reason behind this continuing popularity of ancient myths and to analyse such a tremendously powerful phenomenon.
In his recent study of publishing in eighteenth-century Russia, Gary Marker has called attention to the importance of publication and distribution of the printed word as one measure of the reception of Western thought into Eastern Europe. For historians of the Balkans, no less than for Russian specialists, a crucial aid in this type of study has been the publication of systematic retrospective national bibliographies. Nowhere in the Balkans has this concern for retrospective bibliographical control been so closely linked with historical scholarship as in Greece. Even before the monumental publication of Émile L. J. Legrand's multivolume Bibliographic hellénique, modern Greek historical and philological study was closely linked to bibliographical coverage of Greek imprints during the Turcocratia. Since World War II, this concern for retrospective national bibliography has been closely identified with the study of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment and Greek literature from the fall of Byzantium to the modern period.
Sophocles' Ajax has long confounded critics. As a study of the great hero figure it has been found wanting, on the basis that Ajax kills himself half-way through the play. On the other hand, the characters left in his wake have been criticised for destroying the tragic gravity by engaging in petty quarrelling over his body. This paper makes sense of the character of Ajax and the structure of the play by pointing to the strong Iliadic resonances at the beginning of the drama, as Ajax plays the role of Achilles going for his sword in anger at Agamemnon in an extreme manifestation of dissent from authority. In Ajax's case, however, Athena does not stay his hand, but rather deflects it so that he experiences the shame of killing cattle and herdsmen. Moreover, the focus even in this opening scene rests with a spectator – Odysseus stands by looking on – rather than with the hero himself as in the Homeric scene. Indeed, the rest of the play examines the fall-out from dissent from the perspective of those dependent on him – his wife, half-brother (Teucer) and men (the Chorus). In this way the double agon, in which Teucer defends the right to bury Ajax in defiance of the authorities, is fundamental to implicating the audience in the process of reassessing Ajax's standing and putting a value on dissent. The shift in focalisation from hero to spectator and the investigation into the problems with, and importance of, dissent suggest one way in which this play performs within the cultural context of Athenian democracy.
