Δοκίμιο & Πολιτισμός

Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields. It demonstrates how archaeology and concepts of antiquity have shaped, and have been shaped by colonialism, race, and nationalism. Structured as a lucid and lively dialogue between two leading scholars, the volume compares modern Greece and modern Israel – two prototypical and influential cases – where archaeology sits at the very heart of the modern national imagination. Exchanging views on the foundational myths, moral economies, and racial prejudices in the field of archaeology and beyond, Hamilakis and Greenberg explore topics such as the colonial origins of national archaeologies, the crypto-colonization of the countries and their archaeologies, the role of archaeology as a process of purification, and the racialization and 'whitening' of Greece and Israel and their archaeological and material heritage. They conclude with a call for decolonization and the need to forge alliances with subjugated communities and new political movements.

Collection of Milton's most significant prose works features the famous tract "Areopagitica," a defense of freedom of speech, plus "Of Education," "Autobiographical Extracts," "The Doctrine and Disciple of Divorce," other essays.

Bronislaw Malinowski's pathbreaking Argonauts of the Western Pacific is at once a detailed account of exchange in the Melanesian islands and a manifesto of a modernist anthropology. Malinowski argued that the goal of which the ethnographer should never lose sight is 'to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.' Through vivid evocations of Kula life, including the building and launching of canoes, fishing expeditions and the role of myth and magic amongst the Kula people, Malinowski brilliantly describes an inter-island system of exchange - from gifts from father to son to swapping fish for yams - around which an entire community revolves. A classic of anthropology that did much to establish the primacy of painstaking fieldwork over the earlier anecdotal reports of travel writers, journalists and missionaries, it is a compelling insight into a world now largely lost from view. With a new foreword by Adam Kuper.

Sophocles. Aeschylus. Euripides. Aristophanes. Their plays are still produced today - and have inspired countless playwrigths through the centuries. DramaExpress puts Greek drama at your fingertips with these capsule guides to plots and characters. Written in plain English, these shirtpocket-size guides contain all the information you need to enjoy a performance or simply brush up on the ancient masterpieces. Each series is illustrated by a different artist and make a perfect gift or collectible. Each booklet features biographical information about the playwright and travel notes on the real-life settings of each play.

A great way into one of the greatest philosophers of all time' Nigel Warburton, Five Books Why has Aristotle had such an astounding influence on the world? What are his key ideas? What can he still teach us today?The Lyceum in Athens, now a ruin, has a claim to be the most significant place in human history. It is the site of Aristotle's school. Here the philosopher taught and discussed the answers to the deepest mysteries of the human condition, and changed the way we think. Today, it can be difficult to fully comprehend the staggering influence of Aristotle's lessons. Yet his observations about the world around him and his reflections on the nature of knowledge laid the foundations for all empirical science. His study of rational thought formed the basis of formal logic, the cornerstone of philosophical investigation. His examination of Greek city-states gave us political science, while his analysis of drama remains a mainstay of literature courses around the world. Acclaimed philosopher John Sellars takes us on a journey through Aristotle's thought, vividly bringing to life his key ideas, and demonstrating that the famous philosopher's capacity for curiosity continues to offer us all a vision of more fulfilled lives. The lessons of Aristotle, he shows, still have much to teach us today.

The essays in this volume give the international academic community as broad a picture as possible of the historical development of and the main trends in the history of art in Greece, along with the level of educational achievements in that field. The study of modern European art history has been systematically developed as a specialist discipline both in academia and in the public sphere in Greece since the late 1970s onwards. In recent decades, the history of Western art has begun to be regularly taught in Greek universities, both at undergraduate level and in postgraduate and doctoral programmes. During the same period, an increasing number of Greek art historians have been trained in undergraduate and postgraduate courses at prestigious universities mainly in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, thus contributing, if they return to work in their native land, to a multifaceted updating of the theoretical and methodological tools of art history in Greece. The ideological issues and objective difficulties of establishing art history into an academic discipline in Greece are presented in great detail in the pages of this volume, while the theoretical and methodological directions taken both in historiography and in academic teaching, are also thoroughly examined. Alongside these, there is some discussion on the attempts made over the last twenty years to form a permanent academic community through positive action, such as holding regular conferences, academic colloquia and lectures, under the aegis of the Association of Greek Art Historians.

The award-winning, highly acclaimed Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as "social practice." In recent decades, the art gallery and the museum have become a place for participatory art, where an audience is encouraged to take part in the artwork. This has been heralded as a revolutionary practise that can promote new emancipatory social relations. What was it is really? In this fully updated edition, Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic.

This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Pawel Althamer and Paul Chan. Bishop challenges the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art this practise.

She not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. In response Artificial Hells calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and politics, and for more compelling, troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and criticism.

"Appiah is a writer and thinker of remarkable range... [He] has packed into this short book an impressive amount of original reflection... A rich and illuminating book."-Thomas Nagel, New York Review of BooksIdealization is a fundamental feature of human thought. We build simplified models to make sense of the world, and life is a constant adjustment between the models we make and the realities we encounter. Our beliefs, desires, and sense of justice are bound up with these ideals, and we proceed "as if" our representations were true, while knowing they are not. In this elegant and original meditation, Kwame Anthony Appiah suggests that this instinct to idealize is not dangerous or distracting so much as it is necessary. As If explores how strategic untruth plays a critical role in far-flung areas of inquiry: decision theory, psychology, natural science, and political philosophy. A polymath who writes with mainstream clarity, Appiah defends the centrality of the imagination not just in the arts but in science, morality, and everyday life. "Appiah is the rare public intellectual who is also a first-rate analytic philosopher, and the characteristic virtues associated with each of these identities are very much in evidence throughout the book."-Thomas Kelly, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews