Event

Speakers: Jeffrey Green, Professor of Political Science; Andrea Mitchell Endowed Director, Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania and John Mulhern, Lecturer in the Classical Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: In his remarks John Mulhern will address the following: The intersection of political science and classics/ancient history—intersection in the sense that how an ancient text is approached in one of these departments of knowledge may differ from and affect how the same item is approached in another department, perhaps in part because those in different departments will tend to begin with different questions.  His presentation will include examples.

Jeff Green's remarks will address the following: In political science and political theory, ancient authors often are invoked in schematic ways. While these ways may be reductive and simplified, they are perhaps not without important explanatory force. As examples, he attends to how students of politics and political thought have appealed to the ancients to discuss such notions as: the division between “modern” and “ancient” conceptions of justice; the heterogeneity of morality; the idea of a political life irreducible to economic concerns; the differentiation of rational vs. tragic vs. revelational worldviews; and the meaning of rationality itself.