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Every week by Thursday, the GIS papers will be uploaded here for pre-reading
On Friday at 4.30pm we will hold GIS online
The speaker will give their presentation, followed by discussion
The video recording will then be uploaded to the Forum below to allow for comment and discussion after the event
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Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed the paper :)
These are such interesting parallels. Neoplatonist reception of the more mystical elements of Plato is really useful.
The truth vs fiction in Apuleius is something I should really look into. How mysticism, folk-religion and the supernatural are treated in philosophy and interact with rationalism is an aspect of Plato's dialogues (and ancient philosophy more broadly) I think is bizarre and very cool.
Thanks so much for such an engaging paper! Your mention of the river in the dialogue's setting and Phaedrus' rationalised/demythologised explanations of Oreithyia's death made me think of a scene in the opening book of Apuleius' Met. (1.19). Aristomenes is recounting how (in a setting thought by commentators to be parodying the one in the Phaedrus) his friend 'Socrates' died (a sponge put there by a witch falls out of his neck and his lifeless body almost keels over into the river, but is grabbed by Aristomenes).... a bit gross but hopefully of interest in terms of the reception of this dialogue's setting by a Neoplatonist author! (also - Apuleius' opening book is rife with discussion of truth vs fiction, and whether one should believe in the supernatural/magic etc so maybe also echoes the Phaedrus in that regard?) Thanks again, I really enjoyed listening to your paper :)
Great paper, Melissa, thank you.
Re cicadas,
They reminded me of a few lines in Iliad book 3, 149-153:
ἥατο δημογέροντες ἐπὶ Σκαιῇσι πύλῃσι,
γήραϊ δὴ πολέμοιο πεπαυμένοι, ἀλλ᾿ ἀγορηταὶ
ἐσθλοί, τεττίγεσσιν ἐοικότες, οἵ τε καθ᾿ ὕλην
δενδρέῳ ἐφεζόμενοι ὄπα λειριόεσσαν ἱεῖσι·
τοῖοι ἄρα Τρώων ἡγήτορες ἧντ᾿ ἐπὶ πύργῳ.
[the men around Priam] sat as elders of the people at the Scaean gates. Because of old age they had now ceased from battle, but they were good speakers, like cicadas that in a forest sit on a tree and pour out their lily-like voice; such were the leaders of the Trojans who were sitting on the wall.
Notably, the old men/cicadas are spectators here, just as they are in the Phaedrus; but Homer's 'cicadas' are good (civic) speakers who are the 'commentators and judges' on the battles of the war, which they are watching from the vantage point of the wall. That said, you probably wouldn't want to push the comparison too far: the heat of Homeric battle is quite a long way from the picture of dialectic tranquillity that Plato portrays!
Thankyou so much Melissa - All this natural and productive imagery was v interesting to me as I am researching depictions of the city as an organism (in the 19thc). They get many of their ideas from ancient philosophical writings. If the space outside the city is fertile, green, true, productive.. is the city ever contrasted in such biological terms (arid..)? It struck me that here the over cultivated city mechanically gives birth to dead subjects (am I right?)