Annual J P Postgate Lecture: ‘The Humanities and the Politics of Crisis: Lessons from Ancient Athens’ by Professor Emily Greenwood (Yale)
5:30pm - 8:00pm /
Tuesday 8th December 2015
Type: Lecture /
Category: Research
- Caroline Stanley
- Suitable for: Any students, staff and members of the public who are interested in attending this lecture.
- Admission: Free of charge but please use the link below to register.
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The language of crisis is ubiquitous in contemporary politics and the public sphere. At the close of 2015 Europe is still working through the implications of ‘the Greek crisis’, while a refugee crisis unfolds across Europe. Too often, commentary on these economic, social, and political crises is monopolized by the Social Sciences, and the Humanities are left out of the debate.
This lecture will consider what it means to attach the label ‘crisis’ to unfolding events and will offer a deep history of crisis from the perspective of ancient Greece focusing primarily on classical Athens, emphasising the very close relationship between political crisis, rhetoric, public debate, and the arts. The lecture will analyse how ancient Athenians responded to and reflected on their crises, turning to highly dramatized political and legal debates and theatrical performances in which politicians asked ‘what should we do?’ and theatrical characters asked ‘what shall I do?’, not to mention other genres, such as history and philosophy. These Athenian case studies in the politics of crisis offer a challenging thought-experiment for the role of the Humanities in providing ‘words to our now’.
Professor Greenwood is Professor of Classics at Yale University.
This lecture will consider what it means to attach the label ‘crisis’ to unfolding events and will offer a deep history of crisis from the perspective of ancient Greece focusing primarily on classical Athens, emphasising the very close relationship between political crisis, rhetoric, public debate, and the arts. The lecture will analyse how ancient Athenians responded to and reflected on their crises, turning to highly dramatized political and legal debates and theatrical performances in which politicians asked ‘what should we do?’ and theatrical characters asked ‘what shall I do?’, not to mention other genres, such as history and philosophy. These Athenian case studies in the politics of crisis offer a challenging thought-experiment for the role of the Humanities in providing ‘words to our now’.
Professor Greenwood is Professor of Classics at Yale University.