Douglas Cairns – författare

This volume of newly commissioned essays marks a collaborative effort among scholars of ancient Greece and early China to investigate discourses of emotions in ancient philosophy, medicine, and literature from c. 5th century BCE-2nd century CE. The aim is to bring scholars working in the two ancient traditions together to explore ways in which cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary investigation might be deployed to advance our understanding of the emotions in these ancient societies, and ultimately, to confront and challenge certain long-standing modern approaches to emotions. The volume not only highlights the diverse ways in which emotions have been portrayed and discussed in different geographical and cultural contexts, but also interrogates the concepts through which writers and thinkers in the past experienced and thought about the emotions. The book takes emotions not as natural givens, but as aspects of human experience and conceptualization whose significance can be properly assessed only within the practices, discourses, and institutions of particular societies. The volume addresses a wide range of topics, such as equanimity and impassivity in Daoism and Stoic thought; therapies of emotions in Greco-Roman and early Chinese medicine and philosophy; the cultivation of emotions in relation to perception, attention, and appraisal in Mengzi and the Stoics; the workings of emotion in Aristotle's moral psychology; models of embodiment in canonical ancient medical texts; the ethics and politics of respect, fear, and awe across time, space and genre; and the social function and expression of contempt in Greek literature. In fostering engagement across traditions and disciplines, the volume seeks to make substantive contributions to existing research in the history and philosophy of emotions, as well as the cross-cultural and global study of emotions.

This volume brings together contributions from leading Plato scholars from Britain, Europe and North America on a closely defined topic central to Plato’s thought and to Ancient Philosophy –Plato’s Form of the Good. The importance of the collection lies in the combination and presentation in one place of a range of different approaches to the good in Plato’s Republic, and different solutions to the problems posed and proposed by these approaches. The two central issues, which form an underlying thread throughout the collection, are: first whether Plato’s Republic is centred on what is good for individual humans, or on some quasi-moral good; and secondly, what the Form of the Good is.Pursuing the Good goes beyond recent studies in the field, and will appeal to classicists and philosophers alike. To the advanced student, it represents a wide-ranging introduction to central issues of Plato’s philosophy; for the academic it will provide stimulus through antithetical and controversial solutions to questions old and new.

The ‘Classic’ narratology that has been widely applied to classical texts is aimed at a universal taxonomy for describing narratives. More recently, ‘new narratologies’ have begun linking the formal characteristics of narrative to their historical and ideological contexts. This volume seeks such a rethinking for Greek literature. It has 2 closely related objectives: to define what is characteristically Greek in Greek narratives of different periods and genres, and to see how narrative techniques and concerns develop over time. The 15 distinguished contributors explore questions such as: how is Homeric epic like and unlike Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible? What do Greek historians consistently fail to tell us, having learned from the tradition what to ignore? How does lyric modify narrative techniques from other genres?This study will appeal to students and scholars of classics as well comparative literature and literary theory

An international cast of distinguished scholars here offers seventeen new contributions on the detail and development of Athenian law; the life, work, and political background of the Attic orators; and the intersection of Attic Comedy with Athenian law, politics, and society. In their detailed and careful use of evidence and deep awareness of social and historical contexts, the essays aspire to standards set by their distinguished honorand, Professor D.M. MacDowell.

Ancient Greek terminology continues to shape contemporary discourse; hubris is a case in point. Typically seen as the catastrophic yet common tendency to reach too high, only to fall, it remains a fixture in the contemporary discourse of business and politics. But hubris has also become a term of art for researchers in a number of academic disciplines; and it remains a hotly contested topic in Classics. This unique volume of essays explores the connections, continuities and differences between ancient hubris and its modern counterparts. Its distinguished multidisciplinary cast of experts in Classics, Business and Management Studies and Psychology explores what modern researchers can learn from the theorisation and deployment of hubris in ancient sources and how modern approaches to hubris can help us understand the ancient concept.

This volume provides an overview of some of the salient aspects of emotions and their role in life and thought of the Greco-Roman world, from the beginnings of Greek literature and history to the height of the Roman Empire. This is a wide remit, dealing with a wide range of sources in two ancient languages, and in the full range of contexts that are covered by the format of this series. The volume’s chapters survey the emotional worlds of the ancient Greeks and Romans from multiple perspectives – philosophical, scientific, medical, literary, musical, theatrical, religious, domestic, political, art-historical and historical. All chapters consider both Greek and Roman evidence, ranging from the Homeric poems to the Roman Imperial period and making extensive use of both elite and non-elite texts and documents, including those preserved on stone, papyrus and similar media, and in other forms of material culture. The volume is thus fully reflective of the latest research in the emerging discipline of ancient emotion history.

For the last four decades, the trend in ancient Greek history has been to view the intersection of slavery and honour wholly in terms of dishonour, with slaves often seen as standing outside the dynamics of honour and recognition. Drawing on new approaches to the philosophy, psychology and sociology of honour, this volume showcases thirteen essays by established and upcoming scholars in which a more complex reality is illustrated. Whilst slavery and dishonour did often go together in the Greek world, slaves could be both the recipients and bestowers of honour across a range of contexts within and beyond the household.

For the last four decades, the trend in ancient Greek history has been to view the intersection of slavery and honour wholly in terms of dishonour, with slaves often seen as standing outside the dynamics of honour and recognition. Drawing on new approaches to the philosophy, psychology and sociology of honour, this volume showcases thirteen essays by established and upcoming scholars in which a more complex reality is illustrated. Whilst slavery and dishonour did often go together in the Greek world, slaves could be both the recipients and bestowers of honour across a range of contexts within and beyond the household.

Antigone is Sophocles’ masterpiece, a seminal influence on a wide range of theatrical, literary, and intellectual traditions. This volume sets the play in the contexts of its mythical background, its performance, its relation to contemporary culture and thought, and its rich reception history. But its main aim is to encourage first-hand engagement with the complexities of interpretation that make the play so enduringly thought-provoking and rewarding. Though Creon’s actions prove disastrous and Antigone’s are vindicated, the Antigone is no simple study in the excesses of tyranny or the virtues of heroic resistance, but a more nuanced exploration of conflicting views of right and wrong and of the conditions that constrain human beings’ efforts to control their destinies and secure their happiness.The book’s chapters consider the extent of the original audience’s acquaintance with earlier versions of the legends of Antigone’s family, the structure of the plot as it unfolds in theatrical performance, the presentation of the characters and the motivations that drive them, the major political, social, and ethical themes that the play raises, and the resonance of those themes in the ways that the play has been interpreted, adapted, performed, and appropriated in later periods.

Antigone is Sophocles’ masterpiece, a seminal influence on a wide range of theatrical, literary, and intellectual traditions. This volume sets the play in the contexts of its mythical background, its performance, its relation to contemporary culture and thought, and its rich reception history. But its main aim is to encourage first-hand engagement with the complexities of interpretation that make the play so enduringly thought-provoking and rewarding. Though Creon’s actions prove disastrous and Antigone’s are vindicated, the Antigone is no simple study in the excesses of tyranny or the virtues of heroic resistance, but a more nuanced exploration of conflicting views of right and wrong and of the conditions that constrain human beings’ efforts to control their destinies and secure their happiness.The book’s chapters consider the extent of the original audience’s acquaintance with earlier versions of the legends of Antigone’s family, the structure of the plot as it unfolds in theatrical performance, the presentation of the characters and the motivations that drive them, the major political, social, and ethical themes that the play raises, and the resonance of those themes in the ways that the play has been interpreted, adapted, performed, and appropriated in later periods.

This volume provides an overview of some of the salient aspects of emotions and their role in life and thought of the Greco-Roman world, from the beginnings of Greek literature and history to the height of the Roman Empire. This is a wide remit, dealing with a wide range of sources in two ancient languages, and in the full range of contexts that are covered by the format of this series. The volume’s chapters survey the emotional worlds of the ancient Greeks and Romans from multiple perspectives – philosophical, scientific, medical, literary, musical, theatrical, religious, domestic, political, art-historical and historical. All chapters consider both Greek and Roman evidence, ranging from the Homeric poems to the Roman Imperial period and making extensive use of both elite and non-elite texts and documents, including those preserved on stone, papyrus and similar media, and in other forms of material culture. The volume is thus fully reflective of the latest research in the emerging discipline of ancient emotion history.

What makes us laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time? How do these two primal, seemingly discrete and non-verbal modes of expression intersect in everyday life and ritual, and what range of emotions do they evoke? How may they be voiced, shaped and coloured in literature and liturgy, art and music? Bringing together scholars from diverse periods and disciplines of Hellenic and Byzantine studies, this volume explores the shifting shapes and functions of laughter and tears.  With a focus on the tragic, the comic and the tragicomic dimensions of laughter and tears in art, literature and performance, as well as on their emotional, socio-cultural and religious significance, it breaks new ground in the study of ancient and Byzantine affectivity.

12 essays by international experts look at how cognition is explicitly or implicitly conceived of as distributed across brain, body and world in Greek and Roman technology, science, medicine, material culture, philosophy and literary studies. A range of models emerge, which vary both in terms of whether cognition is just embodied or involves tools or objects in the world. As many of the texts and practices discussed have influenced Western European society and culture, this collection reveals the historical foundations of our theoretical and practical attempts to comprehend the distributed nature of human cognition.

In seventeen original essays, a distinguished international cast considers the text, interpretation and cultural context of Greek tragedy. There are detailed studies of single plays, of major themes in each of the three tragedians, of modern approaches to tragic text and interpretation, and of the genre's social, religious and political background. Some of tragedy's most distinguished interpreters here present their latest work, and pay tribute to the scholarly achievements of the volume's honorand, Professor A.F. Garvie.

‘Affective valence’ typically refers to the way an affective state feels, i.e. the quality of the (dis)pleasure we subjectively experience: fear usually feels unpleasant, while joy feels good. Yet sometimes affective experience feels ‘bittersweet’, i.e. good and bad at the same time, as when we enjoy being scared on the roller coaster or being sad when reading a heart-rending novel. In these situations, mixed affect is experienced as a blended state in which positive and negative aspects cannot be prised apart in any meaningful way. But mixed affect can also arise from conflicting emotions (e.g when we desire something that we also wish to avoid), from ambivalence (e.g. when we are of two minds about something), and more. Taking a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary perspective, this volume aims to enrich our understanding of the phenomenology of mixed affective experiences. It explores narrative representations of mixed emotions in historical and literary works in both Western and Eastern traditions, as well as the theorization of such experiences in these traditions. It will be of interest to students and scholars of literature (especially classical Chinese, Greek, Indian, and Latin), history of emotions, and philosophy.