Antiquity Matters

A sharp, often surprising, view of the classical world by a major classics scholar at Cambridge and author of The Glittering Prizes This book is the culmination of more than sixty years of a writing life during which Frederic Raphael has returned again and again to the literature and landscape of the ancient world. In his new book, Raphael deploys his renowned wit and erudition to give us a vivid mosaic of the complexities and contradictions underlying Western civilization and its continuing influence upon contemporary society. Tackling a broad range of topics, from the presumed superiority of democracy to the momentum behind today's gay rights movement, Raphael's often daringly heterodox view of the Greek and Roman world will provoke, surprise, and, at the same time, entertain readers. He shows how the interplay of fiction and reality, rhetorical aspiration and practical cunning, are threaded through modern culture.

A sharp, often surprising, view of the classical world by a major classics scholar at Cambridge and author of The Glittering Prizes This book is the culmination of more than sixty years of a writing life during which Frederic Raphael has returned again and again to the literature and landscape of the ancient world. In his new book, Raphael deploys his renowned wit and erudition to give us a vivid mosaic of the complexities and contradictions underlying Western civilization and its continuing influence upon contemporary society. Tackling a broad range of topics, from the presumed superiority of democracy to the momentum behind today's gay rights movement, Raphael's often daringly heterodox view of the Greek and Roman world will provoke, surprise, and, at the same time, entertain readers. He shows how the interplay of fiction and reality, rhetorical aspiration and practical cunning, are threaded through modern culture.

This edited volume includes a compilation of new approaches to the investigation of inscriptions from different cultural contexts. Innovative research questions about "material text cultures" are examined with reference to Classical Athens, late ancient and Byzantine churches and urban spaces, Hellenistic and Roman cities, and medieval buildings.

This volume presents the historical development and important personalities of the time of transition from manuscript book culture to book printing in the years 1450-1550. The first part of the volume contains a thorough description of historical, social and technical background influencing the development of book printing in Bohemia and Moravia and the impact of book printing production on the contemporary Czech society. The authors described the specific historical conditions in the Kingdom of Bohemia after the pre-reformation Hussite movement. The newly emerged Utraquist confession spread in important parts of Bohemia which led to decrease of social and economic contacts between the Kingdom of Bohemia and Catholic states in Europe. Apart from that the decreased activity of Prague University had negative impact on literacy in Bohemia. These two main reasons were detrimental to the development of book printing in Bohemia. The low quality of first prints was not attractive for educated readers who rather chose better equipped foreign books, mainly in Latin. Book printing in Bohemia soon became a matter of closed Czech speaking public. One of the important consequences of this process was weak reception of humanism and classical antiquity in Czech culture, although the former was partly embraced in Bohemia in previous centuries anyway. The second part of the book presents the first printers and editors of printed books before 1550 with a summary of their publishing activities.

Whether antiquities should be returned to the countries where they were found is one of the most urgent and controversial issues in the art world today, and it has pitted museums, private collectors, and dealers against source countries, archaeologists, and academics. Maintaining that the acquisition of undocumented antiquities by museums encourages the looting of archaeological sites, countries such as Italy, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and China have claimed ancient artifacts as state property, called for their return from museums around the world, and passed laws against their future export. But in Who Owns Antiquity?, one of the world's leading museum directors vigorously challenges this nationalistic position, arguing that it is damaging and often disingenuous. "Antiquities," James Cuno argues, "are the cultural property of all humankind," "evidence of the world's ancient past and not that of a particular modern nation. They comprise antiquity, and antiquity knows no borders." Cuno argues that nationalistic retention and reclamation policies impede common access to this common heritage and encourage a dubious and dangerous politicization of antiquities--and of culture itself. Antiquities need to be protected from looting but also from nationalistic identity politics. To do this, Cuno calls for measures to broaden rather than restrict international access to antiquities. He advocates restoration of the system under which source countries would share newly discovered artifacts in exchange for archaeological help, and he argues that museums should again be allowed reasonable ways to acquire undocumented antiquities. Cuno explains how partage broadened access to our ancient heritage and helped create national museums in Cairo, Baghdad, and Kabul. The first extended defense of the side of museums in the struggle over antiquities, Who Owns Antiquity? is sure to be as important as it is controversial. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

"The very ubiquity of race and racial discussions encourages the general public to accept the power it exerts as natural and to allow the process by which it has assumed such authority to remain unquestioned. In this study, Denise McCoskey explains the position of race today by unveiling its relation to structures of thought and practice in classical antiquity. This study thus attempts both to account for the role of race in the classical world and also to trace the intricate ways Greek and Roman racial ideologies continue to resonate in modern life. McCoskey uncovers the assorted frameworks that organized and classified human diversity more fundamentally in antiquity. Along the way, she highlights the noteworthy intersections of race with other important social structures, such as gender and class. Underlining the role of race in shaping the ancient world, she ultimately turns to the influence of ancient racial formation on the modern world as well, an influence mediated by the receptions and appropriations of classical antiquity, borrowings that serve to shore up modernity and its continuing, albeit complex, juxtapositions of past and present. In this deft study, McCoskey provides a touchstone for thinking more critically about race's many sites of operation in both ancient and modern eras."--Publisher's description.

“Greek debt” means one thing to the country’s creditors. But for millions who prize culture over capital, it means the symbolic debt we owe Greece for democracy, philosophy, mathematics, and fine art. Johanna Hanink shows that our idealized image of ancient Greece dangerously shapes our view of the country’s economic hardship and refugee crisis.