identity

Curated Articles

Poetics of authorial, rhythmic, and gendered identities: The subject of discourse in Pindar’s Theban partheneion

École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Centre AnHiMA, Paris (translated by Sean Harrigan, Yale University) 1968: key-date in the development of the humanities among francophone scholars. In 1968 Roland Barthes publishes a brief essay on literary texts in modernity under the heading “la mort d’auteur.” In literature, in the act of writing, it is now “le langage qui parle, ce n’est pas l’auteur”; “écrire, c’est, à travers une impersonnalité… Read more

Curated Articles

Achilles and Patroklos as Models for the Twinning of Identity

[Forthcoming in Gemini and the Sacred: Twins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology, edited by Kimberley C. Patton (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).] Twinning in myth is a way to think about identity. As Douglas Frame shows in his essay, which is a twin to this one, mythical twins share one identity, but this identity is differentatiated. [1] That is, the fused identity of mythical twins… Read more

Curated Articles

Achilles and Patroclus as Indo-European Twins: Homer’s Take

[Forthcoming in Gemini and the Sacred: Twins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology, edited by Kimberley C. Patton (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).] There are two forms of the Indo-European twin myth relevant to the story of Patroclus and Achilles in the Iliad. In one the twins remain together, in the other they separate. The Greek Dioscuri remain together, and the dynamic between them is the following: Castor, who is mortal,… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Who Am I? (Mis)Identity and the Polis in Oedipus Tyrannus

Oedipus’s major handicap in life is not knowing who he is–and both parricide and incest result from his ignorance of his identity. With two questions—”Who am I?” and “Who is my father?”—on his mind (and on his lips), the obsessed Oedipus arrives at the oracle of Delphi. Unlike the majority of modern and postmodern readings of Oedipus Tyrannus, Efimia Karakantza’s text focuses on the question of identity. Identity, however, is… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Comparative Anthropology of Ancient Greece

Comparative Anthropology of Ancient Greece looks at the anthropology of the Greeks and other cultures across space and time, and in the process discovers aspects of the art of comparability. Historians and ethnologists can pool a wealth of knowledge about different cultures across space and time. Their joint task is to analyze human societies and to understand cultural products. Comparative analysis involves working together in an experimental and constructive enterprise. Marcel Detienne,… Read more