Eros and Polis
Subtitle: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: October 21, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 412
ISBN-13: 9780521810654
Subjects: History of ideas, intellectual history; Political science & theory; BCE to c 500 CE; Philosophy; Homosexuality; Politics / Current Events; Sex; Political science; Political; Ancient - Greece; History & Theory - General; Literary Collections / Ancient, Classical & Medieval; History; Movements - Humanism; Greece; Political aspects; General
First sentence: For many of Plato's modern readers, Aristophanes' encomium of eros is the most memorable speech in the Symposium.
Description: "Eros and Polis examines how and why Greek theorists treated political passions as erotic. Because of the tiny size of ancient Greek cities, contemporary theory and ideology could conceive of entire communities based on desire.

A recurrent aspiration was to transform the polity into one great household that would bind the citizens together through ties of mutual affection.

In this study, Paul Ludwig evaluates sexuality, love, and civic friendship as sources of political attachment and as bonds of political association."

"Studying the ancient view of eros recovers a way of looking at political phenomena that provides a bridge, missing in modern thought, between the private and public spheres, between erotic love and civic commitment.

Ludwig's study thus has important implications for the theoretical foundations of community."--Jacket.