Greek and Roman Classics in the British Struggle for Social Reform (original) (raw)

Introduction, Reception and the Classics.

This volume collects the majority of papers from a conference held at Yale University in 2007. That conference, also entitled Reception and the Classics, sought to define and articulate the particular role of Classics and classicists in the project of Reception Studies. 1 The field of Reception Studies ranges over a vast stretch of time and material, from classical antiquity to the present day, from literature to art, music, and film; it is thus an inherently interdisciplinary field in its encompassing of a variety of departments and disciplines, each with its own canons, practices, and shared working assumptions. This interdisciplinary practice has formed the intellectual foundation for the present collection: although Reception Studies as a field has grown in scope and energy between conference and publication, we feel that the question of where Classics stands in relation to its peer disciplines remains alive and crucial.

Classical Reception Studies: Reconceptualizing the Study of the Classical Tradition

ijb.cgpublisher.com

The heritage ofGreco-Roman antiquity is stilt deemed among the most powerful transcultural and transhistorical archives of the contemporary world. The various meanings which this ancient material has taken on in later contexts, both ancient and modern, is central to a researchfield that is nowadays calted 'classical reception studies '. My paper examines the genealogy of this name by focussing on its different components: 'classicaI', 'reception ' and 'studies '. I wilt argue that they are alt attempts to revise the agenda ofits ancestor named 'the classical tradition " The latter mainly tried to reassert the enduring value of antiquity throughout Western history, Ever since the 1960s, the term 'reception ' has become an important shorthandfor the resistance within literary studies against such affirmative notions of tradition. Literary works are no longer seen to have an immanent value, but are time and again 'received' and '(re)appropriated' by new cultural communities. That is why the name 'classical receptions ' was coined at the end of the I 990s, even though it was rashly criticized for overemphasizing the act of receiving and neglecting the appeal or lure of the ancient repertoire. This paper wilt argue that we can also look upon the term reception as a 'travelling concept' (Mieke Bal), a name that primordialty seeks to institutionalize a new pedagogical community within and beyond classical studies. lts aim is to reorganize and refresh the study of 'the classical tradition ' by adopting new methodological values that wilt also realign classical studies with the contemporary humanities. This perspective enables us to work towards a reappraisal of the notion of 'classical tradition " as the latter may come to epitomize the way in which certain cultural communities understand their indebtedness to the classical past.

Classics in Extremis : The Edges of Classical Reception

2017

  1. is typically known for his efforts in promoting a pan-Hispanic American cultural and literary identity. 1 Less known, however, is his role in reintroducing ancient Greek literature and thought across a region in which the Graeco-Roman classics were generally part of a forgotten colonial past. 2 The Dominican intellectual was a leading figure not only in the most prominent intellectual circles in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, 3 but also in Argentina, where he spent last twenty years of his life teaching philology and literature at the University in La Plata, sharing a deep friendship with the young Jorge Luis Borges. 4 Though he repeatedly invoked Hellenic thought and literature in all these contexts for various ideological and political ends, 5 this chapter examines both his earliest and most intimate encounter with the ancient Greek world: the philhellenic Classics in Extremis, Chapter 8, 2