Doing things with Thucydides: a global approach
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This introduction explores Thucydides’ reception in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, combining theoretical and more creative and experiential approaches, examining the dynamic relationship between the two. ‘Doing things with Thucydides’ is used as a conceptual framework which reflects the emphasis on active engagement with the text. The five articles included in this collection concentrate on politics, education, and performance as three interconnected areas of the text's reception and are associated with the international workshop ‘Thucydides Global: Teaching, Researching, and Performing Thucydides’, which took place at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in 2019. In addition to the five articles published in this cluster, further presentations were delivered at the workshop, some of which were creative and practical in character, while others were experimental or work-in-progress, at early stages of research. This introduction situates the five articles in the ‘Doing Things with Thucydides’ conceptual framework, also expanding on themes and questions investigated at the workshop as a meaningful context. Additional research material is provided selectively, aiming to supplement and illuminate further key questions addressed in both the articles and the workshop: Why is ‘doing things with Thucydides’ a suitable conceptual framework for exploring the text's modern reception? How is it differentiated from ‘reading’ or ‘thinking with’ Thucydides, which have been the more dominant forms of engagement with this historical text? The letter and the spirit of Thucydides’ text have occupied ancient authors such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, and Sallust, in more or less traceable ways, have shaped school curricula from the Byzantine period until today, and have intrigued translators and scholars since the Renaissance.1 The consistent authorial flagging of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War as a written account (1.1; cf. 2.70, 2.103, 3.25) or other statements about method and aims, the handling of causes, observations about human nature, might vs right, national security, leadership and characterization, along with the narratological and rhetorical intricacies of the text have influenced the way human history is understood and written as least in the Western tradition. Thucydides has had a formative influence on modern disciplines such as political theory and philosophy, history of ideas, international relations, and war studies. In turn our understanding of Thucydides has been shaped by the evolution of these disciplines in the modern era.2 The role of Thucydides in these areas has been studied extensively, whereas cultural, creative and practical environments of the text's reception remain underexplored. This introduction offers a reappraisal of the current field of research, aiming to redress the imbalance and bridge the distance between theoretical and practical approaches. ‘Doing things with Thucydides’ alludes to ‘Doing Things with Words’, a seminal study by the philosopher and classicist J. L. Austin, written over half a century ago. Austin theorized ‘action’ and ‘performance’, by arguing that utterances do not only say things or provide information, but also perform actions (‘speech acts’).3 Austin's book has spurred a range of ‘Doing things’ discussions in performative linguistics and translation studies, literary criticism, philosophy and intellectual history, material culture, game and play theory (ludo-literacy, ludology), and last but not least classics and ancient history.4 ‘Doing Things with Thucydides’ calls for active reception, that is, an exploration of not just how Thucydides has been read, but how it has been used, repurposed, and made to speak to new audiences, genres, ideological, cultural, and political moments. It underscores the importance of experience in the process of reception and the need for interaction among different disciplines, groups, and individuals; political scientists and philosophers, sociologists, translators, playwrights, novelists, artists, digital medialists, public discourse analysts, and so on. It broadens the scope by creating a dynamic space, where academic disciplines and creative industries can meet and share knowledge, skills, experiences, and methods. Crossing boundaries and an ‘anarchic’5 intermingling of academic and non-academic environments inspired ‘Thucydides Global: Teaching, Researching, and Performing Thucydides’, the international workshop from which the present collection of articles arises. The workshop took a global or decompartmentalized approach, allowing for fresh and unexpected encounters, meanings and forms to emerge by not only readers and theoreticians, but also by listeners, viewers, translators, and theatrical practitioners of Thucydides’ text.6 ‘Global’ and ‘globalism’ have entered popular discourse since the 1990s and have been associated with both negative and positive connotations and values.7 In the context of Thucydides’ reception, where connections matter, they underscore chronological and geographical coverage, dialogue across disciplines, comparative discussion, a multicentric, non-hierarchical, and decolonizing approach to the classics and humanities at large.8 ‘Thucydides Global’ and ‘Doing Things with Thucydides’ are inspired by the same holistic and active mindset, and in this discussion they are treated as two associated concepts. The workshop brought together academics and non-academics from different disciplines and backgrounds, who came together to share knowledge, skills, experiences, and methods and to explore questions such as: Why is Thucydides’ so present today?’9 Why does Thucydides matter so much? Why and how does this text continue to invite dialogues between past, present and future? How do different societies, educational systems, groups and individuals respond to it and receive its historical lessons? Does Thucydides’ History owe its lasting value and relevance to its ability to resonate with global and local crises? Concentrating on politics, education and performance the five articles published in this collection explore these questions and reception environments of Thucydides, which repurpose, reshape, and reinvent the text for twentieth and twenty-first century audiences and historical circumstances. The articles by Christian Wendt, Hans Kopp and Carlotta Voss sit in the wider area of active political and ideological readings. Wendt challenges the validity of ‘Thucydides’ Trap’, a notion from the field of International Relations, which has used, and misused as Wendt argues, Thucydides’ intellectual capital to explain the shifts in global power dynamics between USA (as classical Sparta, an established power) and China (as classical Athens, a rising power). Kopp probes into the power of Thucydides as an all-time model, and the text's ability to inspire historical analogies, concentrating on Hartvig Frisch, a Danish politician and man of letters, operative in the Second World War. Voss turns the focus to Hannah Arendt, a political philosopher, and her framing of an active—and performative—life in politics (Vita Activa) through a political, philosophical, and poetical reading of Thucydides. Voss also as to of history as experiential and the educational of Thucydides, the of Thucydides by the educational and its in the of the Second World War and the of the War. politics and rhetorical discourse are in her as Thucydides’ into theory through the on creative and performative of Thucydides, which creative and and two theatrical of the in which took as an and and translation play a role in in to not only the reception in but also the used in Thucydides’ more which provide a theoretical framework for the discussion of and of translation are to the discussions in this into connections across disciplines, and approaches. is the of the ancient text's and in different reception of performance across politics and education, in more and less ways, connections across the three areas in this The relationship between translation and performance has the more in the turn in Studies since the Thucydides has been read, and used as a of political which can historical with other classical such as and has been in the of a education In translation of Thucydides to the readers of of as a that illuminate current history and as a of political is in the of of the Peloponnesian War into the of the do an active and on the and of the text. in the translation at and an in and who to in Thucydides’ the of political the at the translation a It this that used in the of the Western a of over of and which the for the education in the to a of the in the the classical were to in translation so that they understood by Thucydides’ role in education and in the of International in the in the historical of the War is the focus of education in the of the War between USA and the the two global in the and in the the of the Second World War. The between and as ancient of USA and has been used in War political and Hans and who shaped the field of International in the and on Thucydides, in to the Western and its of dialogue and so It is through the of the argues, that Thucydides into the of International as its Thucydides has not to International as an of political the of the twentieth century dominant role as a global power has been by Thucydides’ ancient the ‘Thucydides in by the of International in to explain the shifts in the current between USA and as an established and a rising power or at least an established and a rising power in book for and China Thucydides’ How has Thucydides been by China with classical as rising the across the two and political and questions are by Wendt in which ‘Thucydides’ as a of the ancient text and a of academic in this Wendt argues, it is a of Thucydides’ for the of that have or to do with has Thucydides through to its historical in Thucydides’ of the of war as a and has had in the way the text has been and at of political and of political vs national security, and leadership have inspired historical analogies, by readers who a classical education and political readers to with the text and combining intellectual and practical it as scholars and with the of its meaningful to audiences, at of of such a the Danish and classical Hartvig who is the of in this had of classical and of Classical at the of the Second World War. and the with Thucydides’ political in and into and how the power of the is by also Thucydides’ ancient questions in modern theory of politics, philosophy and such as or reading of Thucydides concentrating on and and The that of can only power is between or that on the is a for have had wider in Thucydides’ the had of place as a text of political in Kopp argues, it is not the of of Thucydides that but the way in which Thucydides’ to on the of the Second World War. an historical between and of the of the more for and other The ancient and to the to to remain in the war provided with the ancient of a which used to for in the of the to the Second World War. the Danish Hartvig Frisch, the a political and intellectual of modern a classical education, and political Frisch, had studied and not had a for the ancient classical which had Thucydides and had a influence on as both and with Thucydides as a and as a and at of history, the of the World War. the of Thucydides a period of from active politics in The translation by to and to active politics to as a but it published by engagement with the translation to have more is not It of and with had to with of and political both at the international and for and is a of political and intellectual a and of a to for a place on the of which were at a were The of by is as the between the and the had and to the the War which in for the as the in history and national the and educational the about which of the the education and for two centuries, until its by in This also as of two further for among the who or the other of the two the and of and the used in and of It public the and had human The into a in the from the to the twentieth on a to translation of Thucydides as a to and translation of Thucydides, in addition to a political also an educational and as it with the The of used by for translation reflects to provide with a national at the Thucydides workshop on of a at to translation in a of that this the of Thucydides’ the of in the of written The of can on the of and method of on It is at a letter of to of at the of Athens, a and of from on that for a of that to the between the written and also that with the and of Thucydides to with a translation by the of the on a to a between in the of the text by to on the and a of in the text for the of but for a twenty-first century theatrical of on the other so that its political and historical meanings can to and the of a as both a politician and a of Thucydides. 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The reception of Thucydides is an expanding and new and of the which the focus from the text to and In the of digital and Thucydides’ and in public discourse on is an are the of Thucydides and other ancient How do these inspire and with current of and are in with ancient and questions new dialogues across classics and ancient history, modern and popular history, studies, and so on in and creative
DOI: 10.1093/bics/qbaf024
Author: Maria Fragoulaki
Institution: Cardiff University
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,285
OpenAlex ID: W4415990116