Marco Fantuzzi
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199603626
- eISBN:
- 9780191746321
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603626.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Iliad is a poem whose events revolve around the “anger” of Achilles, and his personal fierceness and pursuit of glory remain, despite different and more complex nuances, the prevailing features ...
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The Iliad is a poem whose events revolve around the “anger” of Achilles, and his personal fierceness and pursuit of glory remain, despite different and more complex nuances, the prevailing features of his characterization. This book proposes to investigate how different literary authors and visual artists at different periods responded to Achilles' “erotic life”, an aspect about which the Iliadwas almost completely silent. Achilles' loves expose a crack in the usually self-assured attitude of the hero, demonstrating the limits of epic heroism and the epic vision of the world. As such, these moments of erotic “weakness” became perfect manifestos for reuse in other genres, such as tragedy and the various forms of love poetry, in which themes of love and passion were more customary than in heroic epic.Less
The Iliad is a poem whose events revolve around the “anger” of Achilles, and his personal fierceness and pursuit of glory remain, despite different and more complex nuances, the prevailing features of his characterization. This book proposes to investigate how different literary authors and visual artists at different periods responded to Achilles' “erotic life”, an aspect about which the Iliadwas almost completely silent. Achilles' loves expose a crack in the usually self-assured attitude of the hero, demonstrating the limits of epic heroism and the epic vision of the world. As such, these moments of erotic “weakness” became perfect manifestos for reuse in other genres, such as tragedy and the various forms of love poetry, in which themes of love and passion were more customary than in heroic epic.
Edith Hall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780195392890
- eISBN:
- 9780199979257
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195392890.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This monograph is a cultural history of the performance, reception and influence of the ancient Greek tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides. First produced in the late 5th century BCE in Athens, ...
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This monograph is a cultural history of the performance, reception and influence of the ancient Greek tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides. First produced in the late 5th century BCE in Athens, this play was one of the most influential of all the canonical classical dramas in antiquity until the fourth century CE and in the period between the Renaissance and the early 20th century. It dramatises the escape of the Greek siblings Iphigenia and Orestes, with Orestes' friend Pylades, from the barbarian community of the Taurians on the north coast of the Black Sea, bringing with them an ancient statue of Artemis. The book explores the extent and diversity of the play's cultural impact diachronically. Its first half documents and analyses the reasons for the popularity of the play in antiquity, appearing in Greek and Roman poetry, fiction, philosophy, vase-painting, murals, sarcophagus art, and on coins. The second half discusses the influence of the play since the Renaissance, with particular attention to Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris, Frazer's The Golden Bough, Gilbert Murray's Edwardian translation and more recent feminist and postcolonial adaptations.Less
This monograph is a cultural history of the performance, reception and influence of the ancient Greek tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides. First produced in the late 5th century BCE in Athens, this play was one of the most influential of all the canonical classical dramas in antiquity until the fourth century CE and in the period between the Renaissance and the early 20th century. It dramatises the escape of the Greek siblings Iphigenia and Orestes, with Orestes' friend Pylades, from the barbarian community of the Taurians on the north coast of the Black Sea, bringing with them an ancient statue of Artemis. The book explores the extent and diversity of the play's cultural impact diachronically. Its first half documents and analyses the reasons for the popularity of the play in antiquity, appearing in Greek and Roman poetry, fiction, philosophy, vase-painting, murals, sarcophagus art, and on coins. The second half discusses the influence of the play since the Renaissance, with particular attention to Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris, Frazer's The Golden Bough, Gilbert Murray's Edwardian translation and more recent feminist and postcolonial adaptations.
Emily Greenwood
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199575244
- eISBN:
- 9780191722189
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199575244.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Afro‐Greeks explores dialogues between anglophone Caribbean literature and the complex legacies of ancient Greece and Rome, from the 1920s to the beginning of the twenty‐first century. ...
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Afro‐Greeks explores dialogues between anglophone Caribbean literature and the complex legacies of ancient Greece and Rome, from the 1920s to the beginning of the twenty‐first century. Classics still bears the negative associations of the colonial educational curriculum that was thrust upon the British West Indies with the Victorian triad of the three Cs (Cricket, Classics, and Christianity). In a study that embraces Kamau Brathwaite, Austin Clarke, John Figueroa, C. L. R. James, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, and Eric Williams, the author traces a distinctive regional tradition of engaging with Classics in the English‐speaking Caribbean. She argues that, following on from C. L. R. James's revisionist approach to the history of ancient Greece, there has been a practice of reading the Classics for oneself in anglophone Caribbean literature, a practice that has contributed to the larger project of the articulation of the Caribbean self. The writers examined offered a strenuous critique of an exclusive, Western conception of Graeco‐Roman antiquity, often conducting this critique through literary subterfuge, playing on the colonial prejudice that Classics did not belong to them. Afro‐Greeks examines both the terms of this critique, and the way in which these writers have made Classics theirs.Less
Afro‐Greeks explores dialogues between anglophone Caribbean literature and the complex legacies of ancient Greece and Rome, from the 1920s to the beginning of the twenty‐first century. Classics still bears the negative associations of the colonial educational curriculum that was thrust upon the British West Indies with the Victorian triad of the three Cs (Cricket, Classics, and Christianity). In a study that embraces Kamau Brathwaite, Austin Clarke, John Figueroa, C. L. R. James, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, and Eric Williams, the author traces a distinctive regional tradition of engaging with Classics in the English‐speaking Caribbean. She argues that, following on from C. L. R. James's revisionist approach to the history of ancient Greece, there has been a practice of reading the Classics for oneself in anglophone Caribbean literature, a practice that has contributed to the larger project of the articulation of the Caribbean self. The writers examined offered a strenuous critique of an exclusive, Western conception of Graeco‐Roman antiquity, often conducting this critique through literary subterfuge, playing on the colonial prejudice that Classics did not belong to them. Afro‐Greeks examines both the terms of this critique, and the way in which these writers have made Classics theirs.
Michael Herren
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190606695
- eISBN:
- 9780190606725
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190606695.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book is a comprehensive study of the methods of interpreting myths developed by the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, and passed on to Jewish and Christian interpreters of the Bible. Methods of ...
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This book is a comprehensive study of the methods of interpreting myths developed by the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, and passed on to Jewish and Christian interpreters of the Bible. Methods of interpretation are closely related to developments in Greek philosophy from the Presocratics to the Neoplatonists. Most Greeks viewed myths as the creation of poets, especially Homer and Hesiod, or else as an ancient revelation corrupted by them. In the first instance, critics sought in the intention of the authors some deeper truth, whether physical or spiritual; in the second, they deemed it necessary to clear away poetic falsehoods in order to recapture an ancient revelation. Early Greek historians attempted to explain myths as exaggerated history; myths could be purified by logos (reason) and rendered believable. Practically all of these early methods could be lumped under the term “allegory”—to intend something different from what one expressed. Occasionally, philosophers veered from a concern for the literal truth of myths. A few thinkers, while acknowledging myths as fictions, defended their value for the examples of good and bad human behavior they offered. These early efforts were invaluable for the development of critical thinking, enabling public criticism of even the most authoritative texts. The Church Fathers took the interpretative methods of their pagan contemporaries and applied them to their reading of the scriptures. Greek methods of myth interpretation passed into the Middle Ages and beyond, serving as a perennial defense against the damaging effects of scriptural literalism and fundamentalism.Less
This book is a comprehensive study of the methods of interpreting myths developed by the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, and passed on to Jewish and Christian interpreters of the Bible. Methods of interpretation are closely related to developments in Greek philosophy from the Presocratics to the Neoplatonists. Most Greeks viewed myths as the creation of poets, especially Homer and Hesiod, or else as an ancient revelation corrupted by them. In the first instance, critics sought in the intention of the authors some deeper truth, whether physical or spiritual; in the second, they deemed it necessary to clear away poetic falsehoods in order to recapture an ancient revelation. Early Greek historians attempted to explain myths as exaggerated history; myths could be purified by logos (reason) and rendered believable. Practically all of these early methods could be lumped under the term “allegory”—to intend something different from what one expressed. Occasionally, philosophers veered from a concern for the literal truth of myths. A few thinkers, while acknowledging myths as fictions, defended their value for the examples of good and bad human behavior they offered. These early efforts were invaluable for the development of critical thinking, enabling public criticism of even the most authoritative texts. The Church Fathers took the interpretative methods of their pagan contemporaries and applied them to their reading of the scriptures. Greek methods of myth interpretation passed into the Middle Ages and beyond, serving as a perennial defense against the damaging effects of scriptural literalism and fundamentalism.
Philomen Probert
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199279609
- eISBN:
- 9780191707292
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279609.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The accentuation of many categories of ancient Greek word appears arbitrary, but this book points to some striking correlations between accentuation and a word’s synchronic morphological ...
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The accentuation of many categories of ancient Greek word appears arbitrary, but this book points to some striking correlations between accentuation and a word’s synchronic morphological transparency, and between accentuation and word frequency that give clues to the prehistory of the accent system. Bringing together comparative evidence for the Indo-European accentuation of the relevant categories with recent insights into the effects that loss of transparency and word frequency have on language change, the book uses the synchronically observable correlations to bridge the gap between the accentuation patterns reconstructable for Indo-European and those directly attested for Greek from the Hellenistic period onwards. As well as yielding a better understanding of the history of Greek accentuation, this study produces some more general discoveries. The notion that recessive accentuation is the most globally regular — in the terms of some ‘default’ — accentuation for ancient Greek, current in work on Greek phonology, turns out to have implications for the history of the language since the synchronic patterns point to a process by which words originating in non-recessive morphological categories often became recessive after their morphological analysis was lost. Both this loss of analysis and the subsequent change in accentuation are inhibited under certain conditions relating to a word’s frequency. The study yields new insights into the role of frequency in language change, and into some aspects of Indo-European accentuation.Less
The accentuation of many categories of ancient Greek word appears arbitrary, but this book points to some striking correlations between accentuation and a word’s synchronic morphological transparency, and between accentuation and word frequency that give clues to the prehistory of the accent system. Bringing together comparative evidence for the Indo-European accentuation of the relevant categories with recent insights into the effects that loss of transparency and word frequency have on language change, the book uses the synchronically observable correlations to bridge the gap between the accentuation patterns reconstructable for Indo-European and those directly attested for Greek from the Hellenistic period onwards. As well as yielding a better understanding of the history of Greek accentuation, this study produces some more general discoveries. The notion that recessive accentuation is the most globally regular — in the terms of some ‘default’ — accentuation for ancient Greek, current in work on Greek phonology, turns out to have implications for the history of the language since the synchronic patterns point to a process by which words originating in non-recessive morphological categories often became recessive after their morphological analysis was lost. Both this loss of analysis and the subsequent change in accentuation are inhibited under certain conditions relating to a word’s frequency. The study yields new insights into the role of frequency in language change, and into some aspects of Indo-European accentuation.
Paola Ceccarelli
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199675593
- eISBN:
- 9780191757174
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199675593.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The book offers a history of the development of letter writing in ancient Greece from the archaic to the early Hellenistic period. At the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth century a ...
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The book offers a history of the development of letter writing in ancient Greece from the archaic to the early Hellenistic period. At the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth century a turning point in epistolography takes place, as an epistolary language appropriate to, and standard for, private communication is developed. Highlighting the specificity of letter-writing, as opposed to other forms of communication and writing, the volume looks at documentary letters, but also traces the role of embedded letters in the texts of the ancient historians, in drama, and in the speeches of the orators. While a letter is in itself the transcription of an oral message and, as such, can be either truthful or deceitful, letters acquired negative connotations in the fifth century when used for transactions concerning the public and not the private sphere. Viewed as the instrument of tyrants or near eastern kings, these negative connotations were evident especially in Athenian drama, where comedy and tragedy testified to an underlying concern with epistolary communication. In other areas of the Greek world, such as Sparta or Crete, the letter may have been seen as an unproblematic instrument for managing public policies: inscriptions document the official use of letters by the Hellenistic kings, and by some poleis as well.Less
The book offers a history of the development of letter writing in ancient Greece from the archaic to the early Hellenistic period. At the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth century a turning point in epistolography takes place, as an epistolary language appropriate to, and standard for, private communication is developed. Highlighting the specificity of letter-writing, as opposed to other forms of communication and writing, the volume looks at documentary letters, but also traces the role of embedded letters in the texts of the ancient historians, in drama, and in the speeches of the orators. While a letter is in itself the transcription of an oral message and, as such, can be either truthful or deceitful, letters acquired negative connotations in the fifth century when used for transactions concerning the public and not the private sphere. Viewed as the instrument of tyrants or near eastern kings, these negative connotations were evident especially in Athenian drama, where comedy and tragedy testified to an underlying concern with epistolary communication. In other areas of the Greek world, such as Sparta or Crete, the letter may have been seen as an unproblematic instrument for managing public policies: inscriptions document the official use of letters by the Hellenistic kings, and by some poleis as well.
Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199678921
- eISBN:
- 9780191760259
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678921.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book examines cinematic representations of ancient Greek women from the realms of myth and history, including Helen, Medea, Penelope, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Iole, Dianeira, Io, Gorgo, ...
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This book examines cinematic representations of ancient Greek women from the realms of myth and history, including Helen, Medea, Penelope, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Iole, Dianeira, Io, Gorgo, Olympias, and Cleopatra. The chapters assembled here discuss how these female figures are resurrected on the big screen at different historical junctures, and are embedded in a narrative that serves different purposes (aesthetic, socio-moral, political) depending on the director of the film, the screenwriter, the studio, the country of its origin, and the time of its production. Using a diverse array of hermeneutic approaches (gender theory, feminist criticism, gaze theory, psychoanalysis, sociological theories of religion, film history, viewer-response theory, and personal voice criticism), the chapters aim to cast light on cinema's investments in the classical past and decode the mechanisms whereby the women under examination are extracted from their original context and are brought to life to serve as vehicles for the articulation of modern ideas, concerns, and cultural trends. Binding the chapters together is the common goal to explore the dialectic of continuity and rupture that characterizes the appropriation of the women of Greek myth and history in the cinema. To this end, the volume as a whole investigates not only how antiquity on the screen distorts, compresses, contests, and revises antiquity on the page but also, more crucially, why the medium uses such eclectic representational strategies vis-à-vis the classical world.Less
This book examines cinematic representations of ancient Greek women from the realms of myth and history, including Helen, Medea, Penelope, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Iole, Dianeira, Io, Gorgo, Olympias, and Cleopatra. The chapters assembled here discuss how these female figures are resurrected on the big screen at different historical junctures, and are embedded in a narrative that serves different purposes (aesthetic, socio-moral, political) depending on the director of the film, the screenwriter, the studio, the country of its origin, and the time of its production. Using a diverse array of hermeneutic approaches (gender theory, feminist criticism, gaze theory, psychoanalysis, sociological theories of religion, film history, viewer-response theory, and personal voice criticism), the chapters aim to cast light on cinema's investments in the classical past and decode the mechanisms whereby the women under examination are extracted from their original context and are brought to life to serve as vehicles for the articulation of modern ideas, concerns, and cultural trends. Binding the chapters together is the common goal to explore the dialectic of continuity and rupture that characterizes the appropriation of the women of Greek myth and history in the cinema. To this end, the volume as a whole investigates not only how antiquity on the screen distorts, compresses, contests, and revises antiquity on the page but also, more crucially, why the medium uses such eclectic representational strategies vis-à-vis the classical world.
Ruth Morello and A. D. Morrison (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203956
- eISBN:
- 9780191708244
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203956.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The surviving body of ancient letters offers the reader a stunning variety of material, ranging from the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri to imperial rescripts, New Testament ...
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The surviving body of ancient letters offers the reader a stunning variety of material, ranging from the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri to imperial rescripts, New Testament Epistles, fictional or pseudepigraphical letters and a wealth of missives on almost every conceivable subject. They offer us a unique insight into ancient practices in the fields of politics, literature, philosophy, medicine, and many other areas. This collection presents a series of case studies in ancient letters, asking how each letter writer manipulates the epistolary tradition, why he chose the letter form over any other, and what effect the publication of volumes of collected letters might have had upon a reader's engagement with epistolary works. This volume brings together both well-established and new scholars currently working in the fields of ancient literature, history, philosophy, and medicine to engage in a shared debate about this most adaptable and ‘interdisciplinary’ of genres.Less
The surviving body of ancient letters offers the reader a stunning variety of material, ranging from the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri to imperial rescripts, New Testament Epistles, fictional or pseudepigraphical letters and a wealth of missives on almost every conceivable subject. They offer us a unique insight into ancient practices in the fields of politics, literature, philosophy, medicine, and many other areas. This collection presents a series of case studies in ancient letters, asking how each letter writer manipulates the epistolary tradition, why he chose the letter form over any other, and what effect the publication of volumes of collected letters might have had upon a reader's engagement with epistolary works. This volume brings together both well-established and new scholars currently working in the fields of ancient literature, history, philosophy, and medicine to engage in a shared debate about this most adaptable and ‘interdisciplinary’ of genres.
William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199793983
- eISBN:
- 9780190261283
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199793983.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Recent advances in cognitive psychology, socio-linguistics, and socio-anthropology are revolutionizing our understanding of literacy. However, this research has made only minimal inroads among ...
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Recent advances in cognitive psychology, socio-linguistics, and socio-anthropology are revolutionizing our understanding of literacy. However, this research has made only minimal inroads among classicists. In turn, historians of literacy continue to rely on outdated work by classicists (mostly from the 1960s and 1970s) and have little access to the current reexamination of the ancient evidence. This timely volume seeks to formulate interesting new ways of conceiving the entire concept of literacy in the ancient world, as text-oriented events embedded in particular socio-cultural contexts. This book rethinks from the ground up how students of classical antiquity might best approach the question of literacy in the past, and how that investigation might materially intersect with changes in the way that literacy is now viewed in other disciplines. The result provides new ways of thinking about specific elements of “literacy” in antiquity, such as the nature of personal libraries, or what it means to be a bookseller in antiquity; new constructionist questions, such as what constitutes reading communities and how they fashion themselves; new takes on the public sphere, such as how literacy intersects with commercialism, or with the use of public spaces, or with the construction of civic identity; new essentialist questions, such as what do “book” and “reading” signify in antiquity, why literate cultures develop, or why literate cultures matter.Less
Recent advances in cognitive psychology, socio-linguistics, and socio-anthropology are revolutionizing our understanding of literacy. However, this research has made only minimal inroads among classicists. In turn, historians of literacy continue to rely on outdated work by classicists (mostly from the 1960s and 1970s) and have little access to the current reexamination of the ancient evidence. This timely volume seeks to formulate interesting new ways of conceiving the entire concept of literacy in the ancient world, as text-oriented events embedded in particular socio-cultural contexts. This book rethinks from the ground up how students of classical antiquity might best approach the question of literacy in the past, and how that investigation might materially intersect with changes in the way that literacy is now viewed in other disciplines. The result provides new ways of thinking about specific elements of “literacy” in antiquity, such as the nature of personal libraries, or what it means to be a bookseller in antiquity; new constructionist questions, such as what constitutes reading communities and how they fashion themselves; new takes on the public sphere, such as how literacy intersects with commercialism, or with the use of public spaces, or with the construction of civic identity; new essentialist questions, such as what do “book” and “reading” signify in antiquity, why literate cultures develop, or why literate cultures matter.
Erin B. Mee and Helene P. Foley (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199586196
- eISBN:
- 9780191728754
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book analyses what happens to Sophocles' play as it is adapted and (re)produced around the world, and it focuses specifically on Antigone in performance. The chapters highlight the numerous ways ...
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This book analyses what happens to Sophocles' play as it is adapted and (re)produced around the world, and it focuses specifically on Antigone in performance. The chapters highlight the numerous ways in which social, political, historical, and cultural contexts transform the material; how artists and audiences in diverse societies including Argentina, The Congo, Finland, Haiti, India, Japan, and the United States interact with it; and the variety of issues it has been used to address.Less
This book analyses what happens to Sophocles' play as it is adapted and (re)produced around the world, and it focuses specifically on Antigone in performance. The chapters highlight the numerous ways in which social, political, historical, and cultural contexts transform the material; how artists and audiences in diverse societies including Argentina, The Congo, Finland, Haiti, India, Japan, and the United States interact with it; and the variety of issues it has been used to address.
Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing
Clausewitz's Puzzle
International Legitimacy and World Society
Levelling the Playing Field
Multicultural Nationalism
The Politics of Public Service Bargains
Corporate Governance, Competition, and Political Parties
The European Union and the People
Citizenship and the Environment
