The Oxford Handbook Of Ancient Biography

This Handbook presents the first wide-ranging survey on biography in Antiquity from its earliest representations to Late Antiquity. It offers in-depth readings of key texts and diachronic studies, examines biographical depictions in different textual and visual media, and deals with the reception of ancient biography across multiple eras.

Late antiquity extends from the accession of the Christian emperor Constantine to the rise of Muhammad and early Islam (ca. 300-700 AD). This volume takes account of the scholarship published in the last 30 years and provide a foundational synthesis for students of late antiquity.

The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides contains newly commissioned essays on Thucydides as an historian, thinker, and writer. It also features chapters on Thucydides' intellectual context and ancient reception. The creative juxtaposition of historical, literary, philosophical, and reception studies allows for a better grasp of Thucydides' complex project and its intellectual context, while at the same time providing a comprehensive introduction to the author's ideas. The volume is organized into four sections of papers: History, Historiography, Political Theory, and Context and Reception. It therefore bridges traditionally divided disciplines. The authors engaged to write the forty chapters for this volume include both well-known scholars and less well-known innovators, who bring fresh ideas and new points of view. Articles avoid technical jargon and long footnotes, and are written in an accessible style. Finally, the volume includes a thorough introduction prefacing each paper, as well as several maps and an up-to-date bibliography that will enable further study. The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides offers a comprehensive introduction to a thinker and writer whose simultaneous depth and innovativeness have been the focus of intense literary and philosophical study since ancient times.

An indispensable guide to the latest scholarship in the field of Roman Studies. Over fifty distinguished scholars elucidate the contribution of material as well as literary culture to our understanding of the Roman world, and suggest pathways for fresh investigations.

Throughout the "quest for the historical Jesus," there has been a parallel quest aimed at discovering new and improved methodologies for studying his life. This methodological quest was originally driven by the belief that the Gospels are so unique (even sui generis) among the literary works of their time that such "historical experimentation" (to use Schweitzer's words) is necessary for the task of reconstructing Jesus's life. Although most scholars today characterize the Gospels as a form of Graeco-Roman biography rather than sui generis literature, they nevertheless have continued this quest for new methodologies. This has left historical Jesus studies in a problematic methodological state. In this book, Zolondek argues that if the Gospels are indeed types of Graeco-Roman biographies of Jesus, then no such experimentation is necessary. Rather, historical Jesus scholars should instead be adopting the standard methodological practices that historians and classicists have for decades used to effectively reconstruct the lives of other ancient persons who were also the subjects of Graeco-Roman biographies. After providing examples of three such methodological practices, Zolondek goes on to offer suggestions as to how scholars might apply them to the study of Jesus and, in doing so, end their long-running methodological quest.

A collection of essays and primary sources devoted to the tradition, methods, and functions of collective biography in early modern Europe.

Given that strong asymmetrical dependencies have shaped human societies throughout history, this kind of social relation has also left its traces in many types of texts. Using written and oral narratives in attempts to reconstruct the history of asymmetrical dependency comes along with various methodological challenges, as the 15 articles in this interdisciplinary volume illustrate. They focus on a wide range of different (factual and fictional) text types, including inscriptions from Egyptian tombs, biblical stories, novels from antiquity, the Middle High German Rolandslied, Ottoman court records, captivity narratives, travelogues, the American gift book The Liberty Bell, and oral narratives by Caribbean Hindu women. Most of the texts discussed in this volume have so far received comparatively little attention in slavery and dependency studies. The volume thus also seeks to broaden the archive of texts that are deemed relevant in research on the histories of asymmetrical dependencies, bringing together perspectives from disciplines such as Egyptology, theology, literary studies, history, and anthropology

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia is a unique blend of comprehensive overviews on archaeological, philological, linguistic, and historical issues at the forefront of Anatolian scholarship in the 21st century. Anatolia is home to early complex societies and great empires and was the destination of many migrants, visitors, and invaders. The offerings in this volume bring this reality to life as the chapters unfold nearly ten thousand years (ca. 10,000-323 BCE) of peoples, languages, and diverse cultures who lived in or traversed Anatolia over these millennia. The contributors combine descriptions of current scholarship on important discussion and debates in Anatolian studies with new and cutting edge research for future directions of study. The 54 chapters are presented in five separate sections that range in topic from chronological and geographical overviews to anthropologically-based issues of culture contact and imperial structures and from historical settings of entire millennia to crucial data from key sites across the region. The contributers to the volume represent the best scholars in the field from North America, Europe, Turkey, and Asia. The appearance of this volume offers the very latest collection of studies on the fascinating peninsula known as Anatolia.