Overview

Situated within contemporary posthumanism, this volume offers theoretical and practical approaches to materiality in Greek tragedy. Established and emerging scholars explore how works of the three major Greek tragedians problematize objects and affect, providing fresh readings of some of the masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The so-called new materialisms have complemented the study of objects as signifiers or symbols with an interest in their agency and vitality, their sensuous force and psychosomatic impact—and conversely their resistance and irreducible aloofness. At the same time, emotion has been recast as material “affect,” an intense flow of energies between bodies, animate and inanimate. Powerfully contributing to the current critical debate on materiality, the essays collected here destabilize established interpretations, suggesting alternative approaches and pointing toward a newly robust sense of the physicality of Greek tragedy.

Full Product Details

Author:   Professor Mario Telò ,  Professor Melissa Mueller
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Weight:   0.445kg
ISBN:  

9781350143593

ISBN 10:   1350143596
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   26 December 2019
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Greek Tragedy and the New Materialisms - Mario Telò, University of California, Berkeley, USA and Melissa Mueller, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA 1. Stone into Smoke: Metaphor and Materiality in Euripides’ Troades - Victoria Wohl, University of Toronto, Canada 2. Morbid Materialism: The Matter of the Corpse in Euripides’ Alcestis - Karen Bassi, University of California, USA 3. Orestes' Urn in Word and Action - Joshua Billings, Princeton University, USA 4. Weapons as Friends and Foes in Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles - Erika Weiberg, Florida State University, USA 5. The Familiar Mask - Al Duncan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA 6. The Other Side of the Mirror: Reflection and Reversal in Euripides’ Hecuba - Ava Shirazi, Princeton University, USA 7. Memory Incarnate: Material Objects and Private Visions in Classical Athens from Euripides’ Ion to the Gravesite - Seth Estrin, University of Chicago, USA 8. The Boon and the Woe: Friendship and the Ethics of Affect in Sophocles’ Philoctetes - Mario Telò, University of California, Berkeley, USA 9. Noses in the Orchestra: Bodies, Objects, and Affect in Sophocles’ Ichneutae - Anna Uhlig, University of California, Davis, USA 10. Speaking Sights and Seen Sounds in Aeschylean Tragedy - Naomi Weiss, Harvard University, USA 11. Electra, Orestes, and the Sibling Hand - Nancy Worman, Barnard College and Columbia University, USA 12. Materialisms Old and New - Edith Hall, King's College London, UK Bibliography Index

Reviews

This valuable collection almost without exception succeeds brilliantly in exemplifying the exhilarating range of potential in critical applications of the new materialisms to Athenian tragedy. At the same time, it does not shy away from some frank expressions of discomfort with the ethical risks inherent in the idea of matter as almost subjectively `vibrant' or in the notion of the destabilising `in-between-ness' of affect, theorising that could seem to justify the alleviation of human responsibility for our material and social environment. * The Classical Review *

This is an enormously engaging book, full of subtle and imaginative treatments of tragedy ... What it offers most clearly is a taste of the great variety of modern materialisms and also a sharp sense of what these movements disavow: explorations of the soul, the spirit, transcendence, language as a transparent or logical system, transparency or logic, human agency, consciousness, intentionality, or authorship. Engaging with the volume is an extraordinarily useful way to understand the many potentials, and the constraints, of this varied set of intellectual movements. I can well imagine teaching with these essays, if only to prod my students to excitement, irritation, and ideas. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * This valuable collection almost without exception succeeds brilliantly in exemplifying the exhilarating range of potential in critical applications of the new materialisms to Athenian tragedy. At the same time, it does not shy away from some frank expressions of discomfort with the ethical risks inherent in the idea of matter as almost subjectively 'vibrant' or in the notion of the destabilising 'in-between-ness' of affect, theorising that could seem to justify the alleviation of human responsibility for our material and social environment. * The Classical Review * This collected edition is at the cutting edge of theoretical engagements with Athenian tragic drama, and showcases world leading scholars teasing out the implications of the tragedians' obsession with objects and their connections to emotional experience. * Classics for All * The studies contained in this volume show that the remit of new materialism is broad and generous, that it can be mobilised in all sorts of ways. * Hermathena * This valuable collection almost without exception succeeds brilliantly in exemplifying the exhilarating range of potential in critical applications of the new materialisms to Athenian tragedy. At the same time, it does not shy away from some frank expressions of discomfort with the ethical risks inherent in the idea of matter as almost subjectively 'vibrant' or in the notion of the destabilising 'in-between-ness' of affect, theorising that could seem to justify the alleviation of human responsibility for our material and social environment. These readings of the Greek tragedies' own complex engagement with matter and affect further suggest that some of the 'new' materialisms are not entirely as new as they may seem. * The Classical Association *

Author Information

Mario Telò is Professor of Classics at University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is author of Aristophanes and the Cloak of Comedy: Affect, Aesthetics, and the Canon (2016) and an edition and commentary of Eupolis's Demes (2007). Melissa Mueller is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. She is author of Objects as Actors: Props and the Poetics of Performance in Greek Tragedy (2016).

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions