Seminar: Anti-democratic Voices in Ancient Greece and Rome (and their Legacies)

"History of Political Ideas" seminar, Institute of Historical Research (part of the School of Advanced Study, University of London), Senate House, Room G35, South Block, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU,
3 March 2010, 5-7 pm

Janet Coleman: "Anti-democratic Voices in Ancient Greece and Rome (and their Legacies)"

Abstract: "Professor Coleman will discuss anti-democratic arguments found in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, to illustrate the ever-present voices of potentially or actually dispossessed elites and their attitudes to 'ordinary minds'. Beginning with what we today take equality and democracy to mean, she seeks to demonstrate the uniqueness of what Athens had as democratic with its rather startling view of the political AS emotional. She will contrast this with Roman republican and imperial attitudes to the emotions, especially as influenced by Stoic philosophy, and with reference to their views of the emotionally undisciplined mob. Developing an argument that distinguishes between social free speech and political free speech, she wants to indicate that we owe more to the Romans than to the Greeks in that we have kept alive some of the most prominent anti-democratic voices of that ancient past, in our own." (sourced from a seminar of the same title given at NYU on 17 September 2009)

Janet Coleman is Professor of Ancient and Medieval Political Thought at the London School of Economics and Global Distinguished Professor at New York University.

P.S. The announcement mentions both Room G35, South Block, and the Low Countries Room, North Block, as venue. Check for updates here:

www.history.ac.uk/events/browse/seminars/6483