The author and classicist, joined in conversation by Joshua Billings, presents her new book "Revolution: Modern Uprisings in Ancient Time." On Zoom; register for link.
An open access edition of this book is available through BibliOpen at the link below:
https://bibliopen.org/p/bopen/9780226843049
About the Book (from the publisher):
A consideration of how modern revolutions have employed tropes of classical antiquity.
Despite its Latin etymology, “revolution” in its modern understanding arguably did not exist in antiquity, and revolution as we know it today is considered by many theorists to be a term born in modernity. While they certainly had times of momentous political upheaval, the Greeks and Romans tended to understand such events as part of a narrative of political continuity rather than novelty or rupture. Nevertheless, modern revolutions have repeatedly appropriated tropes of classical discourse, such as freedom, tyranny, tragedy, and fraternity.
With this book, Miriam Leonard offers a conceptual history of revolution, unraveling modernity’s yearning for the new and questioning why ancient concepts continue to play such an important role in political uprisings. Leonard looks at examples of appeals to antiquity during the French and Haitian Revolutions, in anticolonial struggles, and feminist and queer movements and considers works of theorists such as Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, and Sigmund Freud that foreground an engagement with antiquity.
In Conversation:
Miriam Leonard is professor of Greek literature and its reception at University College London. She is the author of "Athens in Paris," "How to Read Ancient Philosophy," "Socrates and the Jews, "and "Tragic Modernities." She is the editor of "Derrida and Antiquity" and coeditor of "Tragedy and the Idea of Modernity" (with Joshua Billings) and "Laughing with Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought" (with Vanda Zajko).
Joshua Billings researches ancient Greek literature and philosophy and modern intellectual history, with a particular concentration on tragedy. He has published two books: "Genealogy of the Tragic: Greek Tragedy and German Philosophy" (Princeton 2014) traces the emergence of modern conceptions of tragedy and the tragic in the 18th and 19th century; and "The Philosophical Stage: Drama and Dialectic in Classical Athens" (Princeton 2021) explores how Greek drama can be understood as a form of philosophical thought before the discipline of philosophy. This interest in fifth-century BCE intellectual history is also the impetus behind the "Cambridge Companion to the Sophists" (co-edited, with Christopher Moore), which was published in 2023.
About the series:
This virtual conversation is the first event in the Public Humanities Initiative's author series on revolution, highlighting the connection between the American Revolution and other modern movements of national liberation or cultural revolution. By exploring the topic of revolution beyond the American context, this series investigates the history of the American Revolution and its consequences for our national history, even as that history is situated with respect to a more far-reaching history of revolutions in the modern period.
Presented in partnership with Princeton Classics. Public Humanities programs and resources at the library are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Humanities | Civic Life | Author Talks | *Registration Required |
TAGS: | Revolution | NEH |
