Memories of Odysseus: Frontier Tales From Ancient GreeceUniversity of Chicago Press, 2001 - 258 pages The conception of the Other has long been a problem for philosophers. Emmanuel Levinas, best known for his attention to precisely that issue, argued that the voyages of Ulysses represent the very nature of Western philosophy: "His adventure in the world is nothing but a return to his native land, a complacency with the Same, a misrecognition of the Other." In Memories of Odysseus, François Hartog examines the truth of Levinas' assertion and, in the process, uncovers a different picture. Drawing on a remarkable range of authors and texts, ancient and modern, Hartog looks at accounts of actual travelers, as well as the way travel is used as a trope throughout ancient Greek literature, and finds that, instead of misrecognition, the Other is viewed with doubt and awe in the Homeric tradition. In fact, he argues, the Odyssey played a crucial role in shaping this attitude in the Greek mind, serving as inspiration for voyages in which new encounters caused the Greeks to revise their concepts of self and other. Ambitious in scope, this book is a sophisticated exploration of ancient Greece and its sense of identity. |
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Contents
Travellers and Frontiermen | 3 |
The Return of Odysseus | 15 |
Anthropology | 21 |
The return to Ithaca | 26 |
The voyages of a name | 36 |
Egyptian Voyages | 41 |
Seeing Egypt | 42 |
Greek Views | 47 |
Greek Voyages | 107 |
The voyages of the elder Anacharsis and frontiers forgotten | 108 |
Frontiers within or ordinary kinds of discrimination | 116 |
The limits of Arcadia | 133 |
Alexander between Rome and Greece | 150 |
Roman Voyages | 161 |
The voyages of Polybius | 163 |
The voyages of Dionysius of Halicarnassus | 171 |
Egypt the first civilizing power? | 64 |
From Thrice Greatest Hermes to Champollion | 73 |
The Invention of the Barbarian and an Inventory of the World | 79 |
Representing the world | 88 |
Centre and extremities | 95 |
Viewing the world from Alexandria | 103 |
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Memories of Odysseus: Frontier Tales from Ancient Greece Hartog Francois Hartog Limited preview - 2019 |
Common terms and phrases
according Aelius Aristides agroikos Alexander Alexandria already Anacharsis ancient animals antiquity Apollonius Apollonius of Tyana Arcadia Aristotle Asia Athenians Athens Barbarians became Boeotian Cambridge century certainly civilization constitution cult death declares Detienne Diodorus Diogenes Laertius Dionysius of Halicarnassus Droysen Egypt Egyptian Europe eyes famous frontiers geography gods Grèce Greece Greek city Greek culture Greek identity Hartog Hecataeus Hellenism Hermes hero Herodotus historian Homer honour human Ionians Isocrates Ithaca journey king knowledge land living London Lucian memory Menelaus myth nature never Odysseus origins Paris particular Pausanias Peloponnese Persian Phaeacians philosopher Philostratus Plato Plutarch political Polybius Porphyry present priests Pythagoras question repr Roman Rome sacrifice sage Scythian simply Solon space Sparta speak story Strabo stupid Thucydides tradition trans translation traveller treatise Trojan Troy Tyana University Press Vernant VIII voyage whole Winckelmann wisdom words writing