1st Edition
Learning Cities in Late Antiquity The Local Dimension of Education
Education in the Graeco-Roman world was a hallmark of the polis. Yet the complex ways in which pedagogical theory and practice intersected with their local environments has not been much explored in recent scholarship. Learning Cities in Late Antiquity suggests a new explanatory model that helps to understand better how conditions in the cities shaped learning and teaching, and how, in turn, education had an impact on its urban context.
Drawing inspiration from the modern idea of ‘learning cities’, the chapters explore the interplay of teachers, learners, political leaders, communities and institutions in the Mediterranean polis, with a focus on the well-documented city of Gaza in the sixth century CE. They demonstrate in detail that formal and informal teaching, as well as educational thinking, not only responded to specifically local needs, but also exerted considerable influence on local society.
With its interdisciplinary and comparatist approach, the volume aims to contextualise ancient education, in order to stimulate further research on ancient learning cities. It also highlights the benefits of historical research to theory and practice in modern education.
List of Figures; List of Contributors; Preface; 1 Learning Cities: A Novel Approach to Ancient Paideia, Jan R. Stenger; 2 The Role of Big Data in Elucidating Learning Cities Ancient, Present and Future, Michael Osborne, Muir Houston and Catherine Lido; 3 The Importance of the Greek Polis for Greek Literature, or Why Gaza?, Martin Hose; 4 Augustine’s Rhetorics of Theology: Religious Debates in Late Antique Carthage, Therese Fuhrer; 5 Jerome, Quintilian and Little Paula: Asceticism, Education and Ideology, Christa Gray; 6 The Sixth-Century City in the Roman East: Survival or Demise of the Traditional Urban Context?, Ine Jacobs; 7 Town and Gown in the Orations of Choricius of Gaza, Fotini Hadjittofi; 8 Ideals of Education and Sophistic Realities in Late Antique Gaza, David Westberg; 9 Procopius of Gaza and the Debate on Rhetoric versus. Law in His Letters: Was There a Leading Form of Knowledge in Late Antiquity?, Claudia Tiersch; 10 Tradition and Habituation in Rhetorical and Monastic Education at Gaza, Michael W. Champion; 11 Consensus versus Diktat: Two Models of Cultural Leadership in Gaza, Jan R. Stenger; Index
Biography
Jan R. Stenger is the MacDowell Chair of Greek at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom. Before joining Classics at the University of Glasgow in 2012, he was Junior Professor of Classics at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He is Principal Investigator (PI) in the Cluster of Excellence Topoi, Berlin, Germany. His publications include two monographs, edited volumes and articles on Greek lyric poetry, literature and culture of late antiquity, and early Christian literature. His research focusses on educational practice and thinking between c. 300 and 600 CE; he is currently working on a monograph on this topic, funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.
"In conclusion, I warmly recommend the individual chapters of this volume as discrete contributions" - Robert J. Penella, Sehepunkte
