New Worlds from Old Texts: Revisiting Ancient Space and Place
Elton Barker, Stefan Bouzarovski, Christopher Pelling, and Leif Isaksen
Abstract
Despite earlier expectations that globalization would eradicate the need for geographical space and distance, ‘maps matter’ today in ways that were unimaginable a mere two decades ago. In contrast to the traditional ‘topographic’ perspective, the territorial extent of economic and political realms is being increasingly conceived though a ‘topological’ lens, in which the nature and frequency of links among different sites matter more than the physical distances between them. This book responds to these analytical and methodological challenges by focusing on the ancient Greek experience, conceiv ... More
Despite earlier expectations that globalization would eradicate the need for geographical space and distance, ‘maps matter’ today in ways that were unimaginable a mere two decades ago. In contrast to the traditional ‘topographic’ perspective, the territorial extent of economic and political realms is being increasingly conceived though a ‘topological’ lens, in which the nature and frequency of links among different sites matter more than the physical distances between them. This book responds to these analytical and methodological challenges by focusing on the ancient Greek experience, conceived of in terms of both its literature and material culture remains. The chapters explore the rich array of representational devices employed by authors from this era, whose narrative depictions of spatial relations defy the logic of images and surfaces that dominates contemporary cartographic thought. There is a particular focus on Herodotus’ Histories—a text that is increasingly taken up by classicists as the example of how ancient perceptions of space may have been rather different to the cartographic view that we tend to assume. However the book also considers the spatial imaginary through the lens of other authors (e.g. Aristotle), genres (e.g. hymns), cultural contexts (e.g. Babylon), and disciplines (e.g. archaeology), with a view to stimulating a broad-based discussion among readers and critics of Herodotus and ancient Greek literature and culture more generally.
Keywords:
geography,
space,
Herodotus,
mapping,
topological,
Greek literature,
Greek history,
digital humanities,
spatial humanities
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199664139 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199664139.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Elton Barker, editor
Reader in Classical Studies, The Open University
Author Webpage
Stefan Bouzarovski, editor
Professor of Geography, University of Manchester
Christopher Pelling, editor
Professor of Greek, University of Oxford
Author Webpage
Leif Isaksen, editor
Senior Lecturer in History and Digital Humanities, Lancaster University
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