Inventing Ancient Culture
Subtitle: Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient World
Publisher: Routledge
Published: December 24, 1996
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780415099608
First sentence: Whether it is bodies or boredom (Laqueur 1990, Spacks 1995), there is a tendency these days for those interested in the broader field of Cultural Studies to claim that modern perceptions of self (Taylor 1989), modern affectivities (Aries 1981, Foucault 1978, 1985, 1986), modern societal and institutional structures (Aries 1962 and 1981, Foucault 1967, 1973, 1977) date from the century beginning with the Enlightenment (compare Saul 1992).
Description: Inventing Ancient Culture discusses aspects of antiquity which we have tended to ignore. It asks the reader how far we have reinvented antiquity, by applying modern concepts and understandings to its study. Furthermore, it challenges the common notion that perceptions of the self, of modern societal and institutional structures, originated in the Enlightenment. Rather, the authors and contributors argue, there are many continuities and marked similarities between the classical and the modern world.

Mark Golden and Peter Toohey have assembled a lively cast of contributors who analyse and argue about classical culture, its understandings of philosophy, friendship, the human body, sexuality and historiography.