1st Edition
Antonio Gramsci and the Ancient World
Antonio Gramsci and the Ancient World explores the relationship between the work of the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci and the study of classical antiquity.
The collection of essays engages with Greek and Roman history, literature, society, and culture, offering a range of perspectives and approaches building on Gramsci’s theoretical insights, especially from his Prison Notebooks. The volume investigates both Gramsci’s understanding and reception of the ancient world, including his use of ancient sources and modern historiography, and the viability of applying some of his key theoretical insights to the study of Greek and Roman history and literature. The chapters deal with the ideas of hegemony, passive revolution, Caesarism, and the role of intellectuals in society, offering a complex and diverse exploration of this intersection.
With its fascinating mixture of topics, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of classics, ancient history, classical reception studies, Marxism and history, and those studying Antonio Gramsci’s works in particular.
List of Figures and Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: The Reception of Gramsci’s Thought in Historical and Classical Studies
Emilio Zucchetti
1. Negotiating Hegemony in Early Greek Poetry
Laura Swift
2. Upside-down Hegemony? Ideology and Power in Ancient Athens
Mirko Canevaro
3. Gramsci and Ancient Philosophy: Prelude to a Study
Phillip Sidney Horky
4. A Gramscian Approach to Ancient Slavery
Kostas Vlassopoulos
5. The Etruscan Question. An Academic Controversy in the Prison Notebooks
Massimiliano Di Fazio
6. Polybios and the Rise of Rome. Gramscian Hegemony, Intellectuals and Passive Revolution
Emma Nicholson
7. Antonio Gramsci Between Ancient and Modern Imperialism
Michele Bellomo
8. Plebeian Tribunes and Cosmopolitan Intellectuals: Gramsci’s Approach to the Late Roman Republic
Mattia Balbo
9. Between Caesarism and Cosmopolitanism: Julius Caesar as an Historical Problem in Gramsci
Federico Santangelo
10. Gramsci and the Roman Cultural Revolution
Christopher Smith
11. Caesarism as Stasis from Gramsci to Lucan: an "Equilibrium with Catastrophic Prospects"
Elena Giusti
12. Hegemony in the Roman Principate: Perceptions of Power in Gramsci, Tacitus and Luke
Jeremy Paterson
13. Gramsci’s View of Late Antiquity: between longue durée and Discontinuity
Dario Nappo
14. Cultural Hegemonies, ‘NIE-orthodoxy’, and Social Development Models: Classicists’ ‘Organic’ Approaches to Economic History in the Early XXI Century
Cristiano Viglietti
Afterthoughts
1. The Author as Intellectual? Hints and Thoughts for a Gramscian ‘Re-reading’ of the Ancient Literatures
Anna Maria Cimino
2. Hegemony, Coercion and Consensus: A Gramscian Approach to Greek Cultural and Political History
Alberto Esu
3. Hegemony, Ideology, and Ancient History. Notes towards a Development of an Intersectional Framework
Emilio Zucchetti
General Index
Index of the Ancient Sources
Index of Gramsci’s Texts
Biography
Emilio Zucchetti is Germanicus Scholar of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (London, UK) and Teaching Assistant at Newcastle University, UK.
Anna Maria Cimino is a PhD student in Classics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy.
"The authors and editors of this volume persuasively contend that this alertness to the challenges of conjunctural moments in world history that was a characteristic of the great Italian Marxist is equally insightful when applied to the ancient world. Connected to this innovative perspective is an equally enlightening examination of how Gramsci’s thoughts throughout his political career were affected by his own knowledge and understanding of the ancient world." -Sean Ledwith, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
"Capita più raramente, insomma, di vedere una grande casa editrice pubblicare un’opera sul mondo greco o romano in cui sia dichiarata, e coerentemente sviluppata, la “epistemologia” cui l’autore si ispira, ovverosia i fondamenti teorici in base ai quali vengono ripresi in esame determinati aspetti della cultura antica. Eppure è soltanto così, sulla base di robusti modelli di pensiero, che la ricerca e la comprensione del passato può non solo progredire, ma rendersi nuova e interessante. Colpisce dunque vedere una casa editrice importante, come Routledge, che pubblica un volume in cui le categorie (gramsciane) che animano le singole ricerche sono dichiarate e sviluppate." - Maurizio Bettini, La Repubblica
[It is much rarer to see a large publisher releasing a work about the Greek and Roman world whose authors’ "epistemology" (i.e. the theoretical foundation through which certain aspects of ancient culture are observed) is declared and consistently developed. Yet it is only in this way, based on robust thought patterns, that research and understanding of the past can not only progress, but become new and interesting. It is therefore striking seeing an important publisher, such as Routledge, releasing a volume in which the (Gramscian) categories animating the specific pieces of research are declared and developed.]
"[This book] gathers a miscellany of fourteen essays by scholars who share an interest in exploring possible links between the Italian thinker’s works and Classical Studies[...]presenting a variety of approaches that can be easily summarised as two main paths of analysis, which we may identify respectively as a historio-graphical and an applicational approach.
Although they all start from the same methodological outlook, each essay con>centrates on a different aspect of the ancient world addressed by Gramscian works, either directly or indirectly. "
-Eugenia Vitello, thersites"All in all, this volume provides an extensive introduction to Gramsci’s thought and its uses in contemporary historical research. However, I think the main strength of this volume is that it does not take Gramsci’s ideas as a static canon, but something that should be used and transformed in order to better describe society and its power structures. It invites reader to improve and engage, which is a wonderful and ambitious suggestion from any volume." - Bryn Mawr Classical Review
