Andrea Capra – författare

Capra and Graziosi intervene in current debates about classics and its relation to revolutionary ruptures, nationalist movements, and identity politics today. They begin with The Neoplatonists, an explicit love story posing as the work of an imaginary ancient Greek author, but actually written by the Neapolitan revolutionary and classical scholar Luigi Settembrini (1813-1876). Offering the first English translation of the tale—which, because of its celebration of homosexuality, long remained censored and unpublished—they read it in the context of Settembrini's life, scholarship, and revolutionary politics. Drawing strength from his legacies, Capra and Graziosi go on to tackle the nostalgias of post-truth politics today, demonstrating the queer, reparative potential of various strands of classical scholarship. On the basis of archival research, combined with literary and philosophical analysis, they argue that a commitment to social justice and an investment in the study of Greco-Roman antiquity can—and even should—be rooted in egalitarian, embodied, and joyous forms of love. Classics, Love, Revolution: The Legacies of Luigi Settembrini offers a reassessment of Italian homosexuality, insurgence, and scholarship, while telling a moving story of love and resilience along the way. Postclassical Interventions aims to reorient the meaning of antiquity across and beyond the humanities. Building on the success of Classical Presences, this complementary series features shorter-length monographs designed to provoke debate about the current and future potential of Classical Reception through fresh, bold, and critical thinking.

Capra and Graziosi intervene in current debates about classics and its relation to revolutionary ruptures, nationalist movements, and identity politics today. They begin with The Neoplatonists, an explicit love story posing as the work of an imaginary ancient Greek author, but actually written by the Neapolitan revolutionary and classical scholar Luigi Settembrini (1813-1876). Offering the first English translation of the tale—which, because of its celebration of homosexuality, long remained censored and unpublished—they read it in the context of Settembrini's life, scholarship, and revolutionary politics. Drawing strength from his legacies, Capra and Graziosi go on to tackle the nostalgias of post-truth politics today, demonstrating the queer, reparative potential of various strands of classical scholarship. On the basis of archival research, combined with literary and philosophical analysis, they argue that a commitment to social justice and an investment in the study of Greco-Roman antiquity can—and even should—be rooted in egalitarian, embodied, and joyous forms of love. Classics, Love, Revolution: The Legacies of Luigi Settembrini offers a reassessment of Italian homosexuality, insurgence, and scholarship, while telling a moving story of love and resilience along the way. Postclassical Interventions aims to reorient the meaning of antiquity across and beyond the humanities. Building on the success of Classical Presences, this complementary series features shorter-length monographs designed to provoke debate about the current and future potential of Classical Reception through fresh, bold, and critical thinking.

Capra and Graziosi intervene in current debates about classics and its relation to revolutionary ruptures, nationalist movements, and identity politics today. They begin with The Neoplatonists, an explicit love story posing as the work of an imaginary ancient Greek author, but actually written by the Neapolitan revolutionary and classical scholar Luigi Settembrini (1813-1876). Offering the first English translation of the tale—which, because of its celebration of homosexuality, long remained censored and unpublished—they read it in the context of Settembrini's life, scholarship, and revolutionary politics. Drawing strength from his legacies, Capra and Graziosi go on to tackle the nostalgias of post-truth politics today, demonstrating the queer, reparative potential of various strands of classical scholarship. On the basis of archival research, combined with literary and philosophical analysis, they argue that a commitment to social justice and an investment in the study of Greco-Roman antiquity can—and even should—be rooted in egalitarian, embodied, and joyous forms of love.Classics, Love, Revolution: The Legacies of Luigi Settembrini offers a reassessment of Italian homosexuality, insurgence, and scholarship, while telling a moving story of love and resilience along the way.Postclassical Interventions aims to reorient the meaning of antiquity across and beyond the humanities. Building on the success of Classical Presences, this complementary series features shorter-length monographs designed to provoke debate about the current and future potential of Classical Reception through fresh, bold, and critical thinking.

Plato’s Four Muses reconstructs Plato’s authorial self-portrait through a fresh reading of the Phaedrus, with an Introduction and Conclusion that contextualize the construction more broadly. The Phaedrus, it is argued, is Plato’s most self-referential dialogue, and Plato’s reference to four Muses in Phaedrus 259c–d is read as a hint at the “ingredients” of philosophical discourse, which turns out to be a form of provocatively old-fashioned mousikê.Andrea Capra maintains that Socrates’s conversion to “demotic”—as opposed to metaphorical—music in the Phaedo closely parallels the Phaedrus and is apologetic in character, since Socrates was held responsible for dismissing traditional mousikê. This parallelism reveals three surprising features that define Plato’s works: first, a measure of anti-intellectualism (Plato counters the rationalistic excesses of other forms of discourse, thus distinguishing it from both prose and poetry); second, a new beginning for philosophy (Plato conceptualizes the birth of Socratic dialogue in, and against, the Pythagorean tradition, with an emphasis on the new role of writing); and finally, a self-consciously ambivalent attitude with respect to the social function of the dialogues, which are conceived both as a kind of “resistance literature” and as a preliminary move toward the new poetry of the Kallipolis.

In recent years, studies of the workings of Greek comedy have developed substantially, and the present volume constitutes the first extended examination of comic elements in Plato's Socratic dialogues. Rather than focusing on Plato's theorising about comedy or his aesthetic criticism, the book examines his incorporation of generic features of comedy into his philosophy. By establishing the variety and ubiquity of this practice through multiple dialogues, the chapters demonstrate that comedy is intrinsic to Plato's philosophical project, such that any understanding of his philosophy must be forever attentive to comic connections. This is an important book for scholars of Greek literature as well as ancient philosophy.

In recent years, studies of the workings of Greek comedy have developed substantially, and the present volume constitutes the first extended examination of comic elements in Plato's Socratic dialogues. Rather than focusing on Plato's theorising about comedy or his aesthetic criticism, the book examines his incorporation of generic features of comedy into his philosophy. By establishing the variety and ubiquity of this practice through multiple dialogues, the chapters demonstrate that comedy is intrinsic to Plato's philosophical project, such that any understanding of his philosophy must be forever attentive to comic connections. This is an important book for scholars of Greek literature as well as ancient philosophy.

What is horror? Setting aside the implausible circumstances typical of the horror genre, Capra investigates what he terms "ordinary horror"—the horror that haunts our world, and that we may encounter firsthand. Drawing from ordinary language philosophy and phenomenology, he reframes horror as a common human experience tied to a sense of forced powerlessness—the shattering moment when our control over a given situation, and our very sense of reality, unravels. By tracing this experience across texts beyond the horror genre, Capra reveals its significance for our time.Centering on modern Italian literature, Ordinary Horror shows a tradition not typically associated with horror to be rife with it. To this end, Capra emphasizes the centrality of the experience in canonical authors, as seen, for instance, in Giacomo Leopardi's pages on existential suffering, Primo Levi's writings on Auschwitz, and Elena Ferrante's descriptions of sexual violence. Literature, Capra argues, can convey horror's experiential magnitude through what he calls the "aesthetics of deformation"—scenes when otherwise realistic texts depart from verisimilitude and embrace a more disquieting style. Weaving together aesthetics and phenomenology, Capra shows that just as horror may rupture the fabric of everyday life, so too may it rupture the fabric of a literary text.

What is horror? Setting aside the implausible circumstances typical of the horror genre, Capra investigates what he terms "ordinary horror"—the horror that haunts our world, and that we may encounter firsthand. Drawing from ordinary language philosophy and phenomenology, he reframes horror as a common human experience tied to a sense of forced powerlessness—the shattering moment when our control over a given situation, and our very sense of reality, unravels. By tracing this experience across texts beyond the horror genre, Capra reveals its significance for our time.Centering on modern Italian literature, Ordinary Horror shows a tradition not typically associated with horror to be rife with it. To this end, Capra emphasizes the centrality of the experience in canonical authors, as seen, for instance, in Giacomo Leopardi's pages on existential suffering, Primo Levi's writings on Auschwitz, and Elena Ferrante's descriptions of sexual violence. Literature, Capra argues, can convey horror's experiential magnitude through what he calls the "aesthetics of deformation"—scenes when otherwise realistic texts depart from verisimilitude and embrace a more disquieting style. Weaving together aesthetics and phenomenology, Capra shows that just as horror may rupture the fabric of everyday life, so too may it rupture the fabric of a literary text.

Intertextuality is a well-known tool in literary criticism and has been widely applied to ancient literature, with, perhaps surprisingly, classical scholarship being at the frontline in developing new theoretical approaches. By contrast, the seemingly parallel notion of intervisuality has only recently begun to appear in classical studies. In fact, intervisuality still lacks a clear definition and scope. Unlike intertextuality, which is consistently used with reference to the interrelationship between texts, the term ‘intervisuality’ is used not only to trace the interrelationship between images in the visual domain, but also to explore the complex interplay between the visual and the verbal. It is precisely this hybridity that interests us. Intervisuality has proved extremely productive in fields such as art history and visual culture studies. By bringing together a diverse team of scholars, this project aims to bring intervisuality into sharper focus and turn it into a powerful tool to explore the research field traditionally referred to as ‘Greek literature’.