1st Edition

The Imagination of the Mind in Classical Athens Forms of Thought

Edited By Emily Clifford, Xavier Buxton Copyright 2024
344 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

344 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

344 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book explores the imaginative processes at work in the artefacts of Classical Athens. When ancient Athenians strove to grasp ‘justice’ or ‘war’ or ‘death’, when they dreamt or deliberated, how did they do it? Did they think about what they were doing? Did they imagine an imagining mind ? European histories of the imagination have often begun with thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. By... Read more

Introduction —Emily Clifford and Xavier Buxton; 1. How Far, How Close? Imagining the Battle of Cunaxa in Greek Historiography —Luuk Huitink; 2. The Realms of Fantasy: Aristotle on the Phenomenality of Mental Imagery —Pia Campeggiani; 3. Morbid Phantasies: the ‘After-Death’ and the Dead between Imagination and Perception —Karolina Sekita; 4. An Imagined and Imagining dēmos in Athenian Public Inscription —Leah Lazar; 5. Imagining Justice in the Athenian Lawcourt: Aeschines and Others —Guy Westwood; 6. Plato’s Creative Imagination —Zacharoula Petraki; 7. Imagining Death with Painted Pots —Emily Clifford; 8. Imagining Bodies with Gorgias —David Fearn; 9. Vigilance to the Point of Magic —Tom Phillips; 10. Performing the Mind: Aeschylus’ Suppliants and the Theatre of ‘Deep Thought’ —Xavier Buxton; Epilogue: The Ancient Imagination in Retrospect —Jaś Elsner and Michael Squire.

Biography

Emily Clifford is Junior Research Fellow in Greek Mythology at Christ Church College in Oxford, UK. Her research examines visual and verbal media from the Greek and Roman worlds to build a cultural history of thinking and idea-formation, currently focusing on death. She is completing a monograph on culturally-mediated reflections on death in Classical Athens.

Xavier Buxton is Teaching Fellow in Greek Language and Literature at the University of Warwick, UK. His research combines literary criticism and intellectual history to explore ways of thinking, especially thinking with emotions, in Classical Athens.