Johan Heldt lägger fram kärnan i sin doktorsavhandling om The Life of Nicholas of Stoudios: en preliminär textkritisk utgåva och engelsk översättning. Vincent Déroche (Paris) kommer att delta som särskild granskare.

Tid: torsdag 16 december, kl. 15.15-18 (senast)
Plats: 4-2007

För material, kontakta Johan.

Otto Linderborg presenterar pågående avhandlingsarbete. Material skickas ut separat till ordinarie seminariebesökare, och övriga intresserade kan kontakta Otto direkt. Nedan följer Ottos egen beskrivning av materialet.

Tid: måndag 12 december, kl. 10-12
Plats: 9-3042 (stora seminarierummet)

This is the third and last preliminary chapter for my upcoming thesis, bearing the title ‘Herodotus and the Origins of Political Philosophy’. In the final thesis, my intention is to place this chapter first. The theoretical background to the chapter is largely centered in two major political theorists of the 20^th century, namely in the works of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss. The chapter begins with an explication of Schmitt’s notion of genuine politics as excluding the alleged hypocrisy inherent in a liberal idea of a society based on rationalized relations. After this Strauss’ view of the development, or decline, of political thinking and political philosophy from classical antiquity to the beginnings of modernity is presented as having embraced Schmitt’s notion of genuine politics as presupposing a pre-moral “decisive decision” on part of a sovereign. The chapter continues with an account of some pivotal criticisms of Strauss’ own work, as well as of his ongoing influence. This section culminates in the raising of the question whether or not autonomous political thinking really is desirable. In the following passage Strauss is recovered to the extent that an extreme conception of autonomous political thinking is constructed with its basis in his theories. However, a more moderate version is then offered as an alternative to Straussian extremism. Through a reading of the famous Mytilenean Debate in the third book of the History of Thucydides this moderate view is shown to actually have operated in at least some city-states of 5^th century B.C. Greece. Finally, the presupposition for the rise of the moderate form of autonomous political thinking is examined in light of the Deioces-episode in the so called Medikos logos in the first book of the Histories of Herodotus from Halicarnassus.

På torsdag den 24 november presenterar vår doktorand Antonios Pontoropoulos delar av sitt avhandlingsarbete om Filostratos erotiska brev.

Tid: torsdag 24 november, 16.15
Plats: 4-2007

Notera att tid och plats inte är de vanliga! För material kontakta Antonios.

Den som vill fördjupa sig vidare i Andra sofistikens brevlitteratur m.m. kan fortsätta till fredagens workshop om ”Letters and Communication in Imperial Greek Literature” (se separat anslag).

Sandro Nikolaishvili presenterar sitt pågående avhandlingsprojekt. Sandro är doktorand vid Central European University (Budapest) och tillbringar en del av denna termin hos oss i Uppsala. Hans projekt handlar om den georgiska receptionen av politisk panegyrik från den bysantinska kultursfären under titeln ”The reception of the Byzantine political culture and literary traditions in medieval Georgia, c. 1030-1213.

Tid: to den 10 november, kl. 13.15-15
Plats: 9-3042 (Stora seminarierummet)