Glenn Most and the accessibility of ancient Greek and Roman texts
18 september 2018The nine new volumes in the acclaimed Loeb-series on the early Greek philosophers constitute a landmark for modern-day knowledge of pre-Platonic philosophy. Their aim: to make ancient texts more accessible to a larger audience. Tuesday 18 September (20.00) Spui25 will organise an evening dedicated to Greek philosophy at the Doelenzaal.
Early Greek philosophy had always been the domain of the scholar in the higher tiers of academic life. With this ambitious new collection, Harvard University Press has made sure the Loeb Classical Library realises what it set out to do: to proliferate knowledge of the entirety of ancient literature in Greek and Latin. At the same time, the editors of the new volumes had to make important choices in the presentation of the material. Choices that perhaps shed new light on a literary debate hitherto hidden in academic obscurity. One of these revolutionary stances has been to treat Socrates as a Sophist.
This, amongst a broader variety of subjects, we’ll expound in discussion with co-editor of the Loeb series and professor Glenn Most, Mirte Liebregts and Hugo Koning. The evening will be moderated by Diederik Burgersdijk.
About the speakers
Glenn Most is an American classicist and comparatist, teaching as a Professor of Ancient Greek at the Scuola Normale at Pisa. He is co-editor of the nine new instalments of the Loeb Classical Library we’ll be discussing the 18th of September.
Diederik Burgersdijk is lecturer Latin at Radboud University and researcher at the Allard Pierson Museum, University of Amsterdam. His most recent book about religious matters from Late Antiquity up to the present time, De Sluipwesp en de Lelien, was published in Dutch at Athenaeum Publishers.
Mirte Liebregts is PhD Candidate in Cultural and Literary Studies at Radboud University. She works on the sociocultural history of the Loeb Classical Library, basing her research on unpublished documents that are held by the Harvard University Archives.
Hugo Koning teaches classics at Leiden University and Stanislascollege in Delft. He took his PhD in 2010 on the antique reception of Hesiod. His main field of interest is epic, myth and classics receptions. Recently, his Dutch translation of the poems by Theognis appeared. He is presently working on an edited volume about the relations between presocratics and Hesiod, in cooperation with Leopoldo Iribarren.
You can sign up for this program for free on the Spui25's website.
