Critical Ancient World Studies

"This volume explores and elucidates Critical Ancient World Studies, a new model for the study of the ancient world operating critically, setting itself against a long history of a discipline formulated to naturalise a hierarchical, white supremacist origin story for an imagined modern 'West'. Critical Ancient World Studies (CAWS) is a methodology for the study of antiquity that shifts away from the assumptions and approaches of the discipline known as 'classical studies' and / or 'Classics'. Although it seeks to reckon with the discipline's colonial history, it is not simply the application of decolonial theory, or the search to uncover subaltern narratives in a subject that has special relevance to the privileged and powerful. Rather, it dismantles the structures of knowledge that have led to this privileging, and questions the categories, ideas, themes, narratives, and epistemological structures that have been deemed objective and essential within the inherited discipline of 'Classics'. The contributions in this book, by an international group of researchers, offer a variety of situated, embodied perspectives on the question of how to imagine a more critical discipline, rather than a unified single view. The volume is divided into four parts: Critical Epistemologies, Critical Philologies, Critical Time and Critical Space, and Critical Approaches, and uses these as spaces to propose disciplinary transformation. Critical Ancient World Studies: The Case for Forgetting Classics is a must-read for scholars and practitioners teaching in the field of classical studies, and the breadth of examples also make it an invaluable resource for anyone working on the ancient world within other disciplines"--

"A remarkable book,in which Forsythe uses his thorough knowledge of the ancient evidence to reconstruct a coherent and eminently plausible picture which in turn illuminates early Roman society more immediately than any other category of evidence is able to do. Forsythe displays his impressive ability to demonstrate to what extent and why the tradition that dominates the extant historical narratives is not credible."—Kurt Raaflaub, author of The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece "An excellent synthetic treatment of early Roman history found in both modern literary and archaeological materials."—Richard Mitchell, author of Patricians and Plebeians

This volume explores and elucidates critical ancient world studies (CAWS), a new model for the study of the ancient world operating critically, setting itself against a long history of a discipline formulated to naturalise a hierarchical, white supremacist origin story for an imagined modern West. CAWS is a methodology for the study of antiquity that shifts away from the assumptions and approaches of the discipline known as classical studies and/or classics. Although it seeks to reckon with the discipline’s colonial history, it is not simply the application of decolonial theory or the search to uncover subaltern narratives in a subject that has special relevance to the privileged and powerful. Rather, it dismantles the structures of knowledge that have led to this privileging, and questions the categories, ideas, themes, narratives, and epistemological structures that have been deemed objective and essential within the inherited discipline of classics. The contributions in this book, by an international group of researchers, offer a variety of situated, embodied perspectives on the question of how to imagine a more critical discipline, rather than a unified single view. The volume is divided into four parts – “Critical Epistemologies”, “Critical Philologies”, “Critical Time and Critical Space”, and “Critical Approaches” – and uses these as spaces to propose disciplinary transformation. Critical Ancient World Studies: The Case for Forgetting Classics is a must-read for scholars and practitioners teaching in the field of classical studies, and the breadth of examples also makes it an invaluable resource for anyone working on the ancient world, or on confronting Eurocentrism, within other disciplines.

John Fine offers a major reassessment of the history of Greece from prehistoric times to the rise of Alexander. Throughout he indicates the nature of the evidence on which our present knowledge is based, masterfully explaining the problems and pitfalls in interpreting ancient accounts.

In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations. Scholars do little better, offering up competing definitions that include everything from steelmaking to singing. In Technology: Critical History of a Concept, Eric Schatzberg explains why technology is so difficult to define by examining its three thousand year history, one shaped by persistent tensions between scholars and technical practitioners. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scholars have tended to hold technicians in low esteem, defining technical practices as mere means toward ends defined by others. Technicians, in contrast, have repeatedly pushed back against this characterization, insisting on the dignity, creativity, and cultural worth of their work. ​The tension between scholars and technicians continued from Aristotle through Francis Bacon and into the nineteenth century. It was only in the twentieth century that modern meanings of technology arose: technology as the industrial arts, technology as applied science, and technology as technique. Schatzberg traces these three meanings to the present day, when discourse about technology has become pervasive, but confusion among the three principal meanings of technology remains common. He shows that only through a humanistic concept of technology can we understand the complex human choices embedded in our modern world.

An accessibly-written survey of the origins and growth of the discipline of medievalism studies.

This volume begins with the rise of German Idealism and Romanticism, traces the developments of naturalism, positivism, and materialism and of later-century attempts to combine idealist and naturalist modes of thought. Written by a team of leading international scholars this crucial period of philosophy is examined from the novel perspective of themes and lines of thought which cut across authors, disciplines, and national boundaries. This fresh approach will open up new ways for specialists and students to conceptualise the history of 19th-century thought within philosophy, politics, religious studies and literature.