Memories of Odysseus : frontier tales from ancient Greece
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-- Provided by Publisher
History
xiv, 258 pages ; 24 cm
9780226318523, 9780226318530, 0226318524, 0226318532
46784936
Odysseus in Auschwitz / Paul Cartledge
Travellers and frontier-men
1. The return of Odysseus
A voyage and a return journey
Anthropology
The return to Ithaca
The voyages of a name
2. Egyptian voyages
Seeing Egypt
Greek views
Egypt, the first civilizing power?
From thrice greatest Hermes to Champollion
3. The invention of the Barbarian and an inventory of the world
Barbarians and Greeks
Representing the world
Centre and extremities
Viewing the world from Alexandria
4. Greek voyages
The voyages of the elder Anacharsis and frontiers forgotten
Frontiers within, or ordinary kinds of discrimination
The limits of Arcadia
Alexander between Rome and Greece
5. Roman voyages
The voyages of Polybius
The voyages of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
The voyages of Strabo and Aelius Aristides
Memories of Apollonius and the name of Pythagoras