Johan Vekselius | Stockholm University (original) (raw)

Books by Johan Vekselius

Weeping for the res publica Tears in Roman political culture

Document name: Weeping for the res publica. Tears in Roman political culture Author(s) Johan Veks... more Document name: Weeping for the res publica. Tears in Roman political culture Author(s) Johan Vekselius Sponsoring organization Title and subtitle: Weeping for the res publica. Tears in Roman political culture Abstract:

Papers by Johan Vekselius

Game Studies, 2024

When video games have historical settings, what is known of the past and how this is interpreted ... more When video games have historical settings, what is known of the past and how this is interpreted with eyes of the present time shapes our gameplay experience. As the past is always reinterpreted and reshaped -- informed by contemporary concerns -- playing historical games becomes a two-way dialogue between history and the now. In this study we explore this dialogue through the lens of Ubisoft’s (2018) Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (ACO), focusing on the doing of gender and sexuality as constructs which vary through place and time. Through close playing, we examine how gender comes to be ergodically through playing with gender by combining the scholarly perspectives of game studies and ancient history.

We argue that the position of modern video game players, with their contemporary values and experiences of doing gender, combine with ‘player choice’ as a core value in modern game development to impact what kinds of historical reconstructions are available for game developers. Our main case study, ACO, avoids making players perform gender practices of the past that clash with modern values. This concerns the characterisation of the female protagonist, representation of other women in the game and representations of sexuality through the game's narrative, aesthetics and game mechanics. Finally, we argue that games like the Assassin's Creed series are leveraging history to tell exciting stories. Yet, the gendered story ACO tells could have been made considerably more interesting by drawing on the ways that gender has been done in history, rather than, as is now, erasing the historical power positions women have inhabited.

Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift , 2023

This essay applies theoretical approaches concurrent in political science and sociology to ancien... more This essay applies theoretical approaches concurrent in political science and sociology to ancient Roman politics. Thus, it assesses two hypotheses. Firstly, that modern theories can further our understanding of Roman politics. Secondly, that the endeavour helps us appreciate populism as a contemporary concept and phenomenon. Theoretical schools current in scholarship are discussed; populism as dis
course, ideology, discursive frame, strategy, and performance, before concept alising a combination of the performative and discursive frame perspectives as a working framework. In the essay’s second half, Roman political history is discussed through the lens of populism theory. It is shown that popular representation was a constant factor during the Republic, a vector, in a political system where expansion brought with it demands for representation that could be politicized with populist
politics, rhetoric, and performances. The Empire inherited this popular vector that the emperor needed to respect as long as the Empire was centred on the city of Rome. The essay suggests the potential of populist theories when applied without normative prejudices.

Over the past decades the extraordinary growth of new technologies has made it possible to extrac... more Over the past decades the extraordinary growth of new technologies has made it possible to extract data from literary texts and analyse them using digital tools. This chapter focuses on the process of creating an enriched digital edition of Pausanias's Periegesis Hellados or Description of Greece. The purpose of this research is twofold: to identify ‘heritage data’ in Pausanias and to describe the technical and epistemological parameters of their aggregation and organisation. In answering the essentially digital humanities research question “how Pausanias's literary heritage information can be best organised and connected to the archaeological record on the ground”, the Digital Periegesis project is charting and analysing the relevant digital tools and methods by which extensive semantic annotation and Linked Open Data (LOD) can facilitate the organisation of heritage information in Pausanias's text and its connection to actual archaeological finds. This chapter discusse...

Medusa. Svensk tidskrift för antiken, 2020

Svenska Institutet i Rom, 2020

This chapter investigates the significance of tears in the political culture of the Roman Empire.... more This chapter investigates the significance of tears in the political culture of the Roman Empire. Its starting point is the tears Pliny the Younger praises the emperor Trajan for shedding in response to senatorial acclamations. I will situate Trajan’s tears in Roman culture and read them against a range of similar and contrasting tears shed in different contexts (the law court, mourning, and political settings in a more narrow sense). Weeping in Roman political culture was extrovert and passionate. The intensity was a sign of the expressed emotion’s sincerity, which is why weeping conveyed sincerity in the communication between significant groups in the political system. Tears expressed virtues such as fides, pietas, clementia, civilitas, and consensus. Weeping also articulated power-relations, and it was a sign of respect or deference to weep in front of another. Tears are nonverbal and are given meaning depending on the situation and how roles with their scripts for behaviour were expected to be performed. If contexts, roles, and scripts are unstable, unreliable, and contested, the same holds true for tears. The duplicities of the Principate gave rise to dissimulatio, which led to ambiguous communication in which emotional expressions became separated from emotional content. During the reign of a “bad emperor” (that is an emperor with a poor reputation in historical tradition, often because of alleged repression of the Senate), Romans might need to feign or withhold tears before the emperor, whose tears could also not be trusted. During the reign of a “good emperor”, like Pliny’s Trajan, tears could be trusted. False and true tears can be read either as a literary representation or as a description of historical circumstances in a pathological or sound political culture, respectively. Trajan’s tears in Pliny’s Panegyricus stand out as a strong expression of sincerity and virtue in an ideologically idealized text that highlights the importance that the tears of those in power could be read.

The thesis explores the meaning and function of tears in Roman political culture during the Repub... more The thesis explores the meaning and function of tears in Roman political culture during the Republic and the Early Empire in various historical settings: mourning, the law court, and in different political contexts where power, authority, and subjection were expressed or exercised. This is carried through by reading representations of weeping in Greek and Latin literary works in different genres, written by different authors. The study demonstrates that while tears and weeping were a common occurrence in Roman politics, the appropriateness and meaning of tears varied by literary context and variables in the historical context (like status, gender, and communicative context). The study also discusses the question of change over and time and argues that the advent of the Emperor impacted weeping and that both an increased appreciation of tears as well as self-control were available as responses for the elite.

Information and Knowledge Organisation in Digital Humanities, 2021

Thinking of literature as spatial information with Geographic Information System (thereon GIS) is... more Thinking of literature as spatial information with Geographic Information System (thereon GIS) is emerging into a science known as Geographic Information Science (Harris, Bergeron, and Rouse 2010). The geospatial information community has been contributing methods, ontologies, use cases and datasets compatible to GIS as means of enabling research in the humanities and social sciences. In praxis, the application of GIS for spatial narratives means essentially unfolding their historical, non-cartesian complexity into layers of meaning-making; it can even facilitate a deeper thinking of place both as the locus for exploring human activity particularly as a contested terrain of competing definitions and as a linking mechanism for information from disparate sources, e.g., the compatibility of text to the actual archaeological data on the ground. This chapter provides a novel perspective on GIS as both an epistemic device and a method for information organisation by focusing on the process of creating a digital cartographic edition, essentially a GIS of Pausanias's 2nd century CE ten-volume travellers' guide, the Description of Greece. The ten volumes comprise a narrative time machine that binds together place and artefact with its notional origin and purpose. Methodical but inconsistent in listing temples, statues, hero shrines, altars and other spaces as "Greek" places, Pausanias constructs an idiosyncratic view of Greek cultural heritage. His method, which he mentions in passing, is overtly personal and selective: "Such in my opinion are the most famous legends (logoi) and sights (theorêmata) among the Athenians, and from the beginning my narrative has picked out of much material the things that deserve to be recorded". Pausanias, Description of Greece HYPERLINK "https://scaife.perseus.org/ reader/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-grc2:1.39.3/" 1.39.3 To create a contemporary GIS out of a 2nd century CE non-cartesian, literary description of Greek heritage is a challenging scholarly endeavour

Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography, 2021

This chapter will explore how ancient authors used the past by looking at de- scriptions of the e... more This chapter will explore how ancient authors used the past by looking at de- scriptions of the emperor Tiberius’ mourning of family and kin. Mourning by and of imperial persons was a potentially contentious issue, not only because it involved public – and highly visible – >gures and often occurred in the context of the transfer of power, but also because what constituted a proper display of grief was controversial and shaped by expectations about elite behaviour and traditional gender roles.

Information and Knowledge Organisation in Digital Humanities, 2021

Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome

Medusa, 2004

Covers the discussion about aDNA research and etruscan origins.

Reading Roman emotions Visual and textual interpretations, 2020

This chapter investigates the significance of tears in the political culture of the Roman Empire.... more This chapter investigates the significance of tears in the political culture of
the Roman Empire. Its starting point is the tears Pliny the Younger praises
the emperor Trajan for shedding in response to senatorial acclamations. I
will situate Trajan’s tears in Roman culture and read them against a range
of similar and contrasting tears shed in different contexts (the law court,
mourning, and political settings in a more narrow sense). Weeping in Roman
political culture was extrovert and passionate. The intensity was a
sign of the expressed emotion’s sincerity, which is why weeping conveyed
sincerity in the communication between significant groups in the political
system. Tears expressed virtues such as fides, pietas, clementia, civilitas,
and consensus. Weeping also articulated power-relations, and it was a sign
of respect or deference to weep in front of another. Tears are nonverbal
and are given meaning depending on the situation and how roles with
their scripts for behaviour were expected to be performed. If contexts,
roles, and scripts are unstable, unreliable, and contested, the same holds
true for tears. The duplicities of the Principate gave rise to dissimulatio,
which led to ambiguous communication in which emotional expressions
became separated from emotional content. During the reign of a “bad
emperor” (that is an emperor with a poor reputation in historical tradition,
often because of alleged repression of the Senate), Romans might
need to feign or withhold tears before the emperor, whose tears could
also not be trusted. During the reign of a “good emperor”, like Pliny’s
Trajan, tears could be trusted. False and true tears can be read either as
a literary representation or as a description of historical circumstances
in a pathological or sound political culture, respectively. Trajan’s tears in
Pliny’s Panegyricus stand out as a strong expression of sincerity and virtue
in an ideologically idealized text that highlights the importance that the
tears of those in power could be read.

Drafts by Johan Vekselius

Populism i antikens Rom: Den folklige, folklighet, folket ELLER Plebs, Populus, Popularer, 2020

PDF of powerpoint given the 17th of January 2020 at the Swedish Institute in Rome about populism ... more PDF of powerpoint given the 17th of January 2020 at the Swedish Institute in Rome about populism in Ancient Rome.

Weeping for the res publica Tears in Roman political culture

Game Studies, 2024

Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift , 2023

Medusa. Svensk tidskrift för antiken, 2020

Svenska Institutet i Rom, 2020

Information and Knowledge Organisation in Digital Humanities, 2021

Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography, 2021

Information and Knowledge Organisation in Digital Humanities, 2021

Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome

Medusa, 2004

Covers the discussion about aDNA research and etruscan origins.

Reading Roman emotions Visual and textual interpretations, 2020

This chapter investigates the significance of tears in the political culture of the Roman Empire.... more This chapter investigates the significance of tears in the political culture of
the Roman Empire. Its starting point is the tears Pliny the Younger praises
the emperor Trajan for shedding in response to senatorial acclamations. I
will situate Trajan’s tears in Roman culture and read them against a range
of similar and contrasting tears shed in different contexts (the law court,
mourning, and political settings in a more narrow sense). Weeping in Roman
political culture was extrovert and passionate. The intensity was a
sign of the expressed emotion’s sincerity, which is why weeping conveyed
sincerity in the communication between significant groups in the political
system. Tears expressed virtues such as fides, pietas, clementia, civilitas,
and consensus. Weeping also articulated power-relations, and it was a sign
of respect or deference to weep in front of another. Tears are nonverbal
and are given meaning depending on the situation and how roles with
their scripts for behaviour were expected to be performed. If contexts,
roles, and scripts are unstable, unreliable, and contested, the same holds
true for tears. The duplicities of the Principate gave rise to dissimulatio,
which led to ambiguous communication in which emotional expressions
became separated from emotional content. During the reign of a “bad
emperor” (that is an emperor with a poor reputation in historical tradition,
often because of alleged repression of the Senate), Romans might
need to feign or withhold tears before the emperor, whose tears could
also not be trusted. During the reign of a “good emperor”, like Pliny’s
Trajan, tears could be trusted. False and true tears can be read either as
a literary representation or as a description of historical circumstances
in a pathological or sound political culture, respectively. Trajan’s tears in
Pliny’s Panegyricus stand out as a strong expression of sincerity and virtue
in an ideologically idealized text that highlights the importance that the
tears of those in power could be read.

Populism i antikens Rom: Den folklige, folklighet, folket ELLER Plebs, Populus, Popularer, 2020