Ontologies for DigitalHumanities – O4DH workshop: Demystifying ontologies, April 20th and 21st, 2021, 5pm to 7pm (Paris time).

‘Demystifying’ is a new series of workshops of the Ontologies for Digital Humanities (O4Dh) initiative supported by the Université Savoie Mont Blanc and Liaocheng University. The 2021 workshops are dedicated to…[Read more]

Three types of academic sources are crucial for understanding the Hindu tradition in our times: a) scriptures and the classical texts that are available mostly in Sanskrit b) works in the English language produced by orientalists, religious studies scholars, and some modern Hindu religious leaders themselves, and c) writings of…[Read more]

The seventh-century apocalyptic dialogue text Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati (“Teaching of Jacob, Newly Baptized”) depicts forcibly baptized Jews coming to terms with their new situation in hidden meetings led by Jacob. At a key moment in the text, the last voices of Jewish resistance belong to the wife and mother-in-law of one of the dialogue…[Read more]

The document consists mainly of supplementary notes on points that would have taken up too much space in the edition or have occurred to me since completing it. Some of them correct errors or omissions, others take account of recently published work. There is also a list of errata, i.e. typos and other small-scale slips.

One of the recurring themes in the public perception of containment policies during the current COVID-19 pandemic are the supposedly uneven and everchanging measures taken up by international, national and local authorities. This is especially the case in countries with a federal structure, like Germany. Not surprisingly, historical containment…[Read more]

This course explores key themes related to the archaeology of urbanism and urban centers in the ancient Mediterranean world. The development of urban culture in the Mediterranean world and western Asia will provide an opportunity to discuss cultural interactions and the development of the framework of urban culture in the ancient Near East, while…[Read more]

Entry ‘Aristophanes: Clouds’, in: The Literary Encyclopedia (published version)

Entry ‘Sophocles: Philoctetes’, in: The Literary Encyclopedia (published version)

Entry ‘Ancient Greek Theatre in Italy’ in The Literary Encyclopedia (published version)

Art forms in Troy’s city walls, and Schliemann’s awareness thereof.

In this essay, I consider the ideal ascetic leader depicted in the Life of Moses attributed to Gregory of Nyssa: that leader is not a bishop, but a leader who has more experience with the day-to-day struggles of monks, particularly the kind of struggles described by Evagrius and writers influenced by him.

This article proposes a new understanding of the etymology of histrio. It is likely that it originally came from Greek histor, as has been demonstrated by Szemerényi 1975. However, the conclusions presented by this scholar must be slightly revised, in particular the distinction he establishes between histrio and ludius. While the second word has…[Read more]

Johann Joachim Winckelmann not only idealized Greek Classical art, but also the whole ancient Classical Greek world in a way that went well beyond what could be envisaged as historical knowledge. His influence on the history of contemporary literature and on classical scholarship, however, is not an obvious topic to scrutinize, since he was almost…[Read more]

In this episode of The History of European Theatre, Phil Rowe interviewed me on the evolution of Greek theatre after the Classical period and the existence of dramatic performances in Greek in Roman Italy.

The article shows that the character of Odysseus in Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes constitutes a crucial element for the redefinition of the concept of ‘nobility’. This figure has already been seen to promote a new definition of the concept, but previous analyses have tended to focus only on one or the other of the two plays, as Odysseus appea…[Read more]

CORVIDS * QRt by PRURITUS MIGRANS * CC: BY-NC-SA

This paper looks beyond Ptolemaic Alexandria to consider the literary dynamics of another Hellenistic kingdom, Attalid Pergamon. I offer a detailed study of the fragmentary opening of Nicander’s Hymn to Attalus (fr. 104 Gow–Schofield) in three sections. First, I consider its generic status and compare its encomiastic strategies with those of T…[Read more]

THEATER OF THE PEOPLE:
SPECTATORS AND SOCIETY IN ANCIENT ATHENS

Greek drama has been subject to ongoing textual and historical interpretation, but surprisingly little scholarship has examined the people who composed the theater audiences in Athens. Typically, scholars have presupposed an audience of Athenian male citizens viewing dramas…[Read more]

Review of Kings, Countries, Peoples: Selected Studies on the Achaemenid Empire, by Pierre Briant, translated by Amélie Kuhrt. Oriens et Occidens, vol. 26. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017. Pp. xxv + 633. €99.

This epilogue reflects on scholarship in the study of South Asian medicines and healing traditions at the end of the twentieth century and in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It underscores the growing multidisciplinarity of this field, and it
suggests that the contributions to this special issue signal this development and…[Read more]