The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

Edited by William A. Johnson and Daniel S. Richter

Oxford Handbooks

Offers a diversity of scholarly voices seeking to define a rapidly developing field of study
Chapters offer textual materials core to areas of current interest (gender studies, history of the body, etc.)

The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

Edited by William A. Johnson and Daniel S. Richter

Description

Focusing on the period known as the Second Sophistic (an era roughly co-extensive with the second century AD), this Handbook serves the need for a broad and accessible overview. The study of the Second Sophistic is a relative new-comer to the Anglophone field of classics and much of what characterizes it temporally and culturally remains a matter of legitimate contestation. The present Handbook offers a diversity of scholarly voices that attempt to define, as much as is possible in a single volume, the state of this rapidly developing field. Included are chapters that offer practical guidance on the wide range of valuable textual materials that survive, many of which are useful or even core to inquiries of particularly current interest (e.g. gender studies, cultural history of the body, sociology of literary culture, history of education and intellectualism, history of religion, political theory, history of medicine, cultural linguistics, intersection of the Classical traditions and early Christianity). The Handbook also contains essays devoted to the work of the most significant intellectuals of the period such as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Lucian, Apuleius, the novelists, the Philostrati and Aelius Aristides. In addition to content and bibliographical guidance, however, this volume is designed to help to situate the textual remains within the period and its society, to describe and circumscribe not simply the literary matter but the literary culture and societal context. For that reason, the Handbook devotes considerable space at the front to various contextual essays, and throughout tries to keep the contextual demands in mind. In its scope and in its pluralism of voices this Handbook thus represents a new approach to the Second Sophistic, one that attempts to integrate Greek literature of the Roman period into the wider world of early imperial Greek, Latin, Jewish, and Christian cultural production, and one that keeps a sharp focus on situating these texts within their socio-cultural context.

The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

Edited by William A. Johnson and Daniel S. Richter

Oxford Handbooks

I. Introductory
1:Periodicity and Scope, William A. Johnson & Daniel S. Richter
2:Greece: Hellenistic and Early Imperial Continuities, Tim Whitmarsh
3:Was There a Latin Second Sophistic?, Tom Habinek
II. Language and Identity
4:Atticism and Asianism, Lawrence Kim
5:Latinitas, Martin Bloomer
6:Cosmopolitanism, D. S. Richter
7:Ethnicity, Culture and Identity, Emma Dench
8:Retrosexuality: Sex in the Second Sophistic, Amy Richlin
III. Paideia and Performance
9:Schools and Paideia, Ruth Webb
10:Athletes and Trainers, Jason Koenig
11:Professionals of Paideia? The Sophists as Performers, Thomas A. Schmitz
12:Performance Space, Edmund Thomas
IV. Rhetoric and Rhetoricians
13:Greek and Latin Rhetorical Culture, Laurent Pernot
14:Dio Chrysostom, Claire Jackson
15:Favorinus and Herodes Atticus, Leofranc Holford-Strevens
16:Fronto and his Circle, Pascale Fleury
17:Aelius Aristides, Estelle Oudot
V. Literature and Culture
18:Philostratus, Graeme Miles
19:Plutarch: Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics
20:Plutarch's Lives, Paolo Desideri
21:Lucian of Samosata, Daniel S. Richter
22:Apuleius, S. J. Harrison
23:Pausanias, William Hutton
24:Galen, Susan Mattern
25:Chariton and Xenophon of Ephesus, J.R. Morgan
26:Longus and Achilles Tatius, Froma Zeitlin
27:The Anti-Sophistic Novel, Dan Selden
28:Miscellanies, Katerina Oikonomopoulou
29:Mythography, Stephen Trzaskoma
30:Historiography, Sulo Asirvatham
31:Poets and Poetry, Manuel Baumbach
32:Epistolography, Owen Hodkinson
VI. Philosophy and Philosophers
33:The Stoics, Gretchen Reydams-Schils
34:Epic ureanism Writ Large: Diogenes of Oenoanda
35:Skepticism, Richard Bett
36:Platonism, Ryan C. Fowler
37:The Aristotelian Tradition, Han Baltussen
VII. Religion and Religious Literature
38:Cult, Marietta Horster
39:Pilgrimage, Ian Rutherford
40:Early Christianity and the Classical Tradition
41:Jewish Literature, Eric Gruen
42:The Creation of Christian Elite Culture in Roman Syria and the Near East, William Adler
43:Christian Apocrypha, Scott Fitzgerald Johnson

The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

Edited by William A. Johnson and Daniel S. Richter

Oxford Handbooks

Author Information

Edited by William A. Johnson, Professor in Classical Studies, Duke University, and Daniel S. Richter, Assistant Professor of Classics, The University of Southern California

William A. Johnson is Professor in Classical Studies at Duke University and the author of Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus (Toronto, 2004), Ancient Literacies (co-editor, OUP, 2009), and Readers and Reading Culture in the High Empire (OUP, 2010).

Daniel S. Richter is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California and the author of Cosmopolis (OUP, 2011).

Contributors:

Daniel S. Richter
William A. Johnson
Tim Whitmarsh
Tom Habinek
Lawrence Kim
Martin Bloomer
D.S. Richter
Emma Dench
Amy Richlin
Ruth Webb
Jason Koenig
Thomas A. Schmitz
Edmund Thomas
Laurent Pernot
Claire Jackson
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
Pascale Fleury
Estelle Oudot
Graeme Miles
Fred Brenk
Paolo Desideri
S.J. Harrison
William Hutton
Susan Mattern
J.R. Morgan
Froma Zeitlin
Dan Seldon
Katerina Oikonomopoulou
Stephen Trzaskoma
Sulo Asirvatham
Manuel Baumbach
Gretchen Reydams-Schils
Pamela Gordon
Richard Bett
Ryan C. Fowler
Han Baltussen
Marietta Horster
Ian Rutherford
Aaron P. Johnson
Eric Gruen
William Adler
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson

The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

Edited by William A. Johnson and Daniel S. Richter

Oxford Handbooks

Reviews and Awards

"... this handbook covers an unusually wide range of topics that are relevant to Hellenic culture under Rome in the first three centuries AD. Those teaching courses on any aspect of this period will consult the volume with much benefit and might even consider putting selected chapters on the syllabus." - Silvio Bär, Classics for All

"The volume offers a central-ized resource for scholars of imperial literature and culture with chapters by many of the most respected scholars in the field. Moreover, it succeeds in illustrating that many aspects of the Second Sophistic are apparent and relevant across boundaries of time, space, ethnicity, and culture." - Brandon Jones, New England Classical Journal

"One might almost call this valuable volume Forty Three Ways of Thinking about the So-called 'Second Sophistic'. All chapters evidence solid scholarship; some give substantial overviews of designated subject matter, others are more argumentative ... This is a truly valuable and complex volume that gives a detailed overview of the 'state of the question' regarding the Second Sophistic and its penumbra. It certainly expanded my understanding of the movement." - Jean Alvares, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"This volume constitutes an impressive testimony to the breadth, depth, and vivacity of contemporary research in the field ... In sum, I warmly recommend the Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic to anyone looking for up-to-date information on a broad range of aspects of imperial literature and culture." - Martin Korenjak, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"This book constitutes a rich source of information and good judgment on a wide range of Greek and Latin literature, and for such a well-edited and well-printed volume it is relatively inexpensive. It can be recommended." - Christopher P. Jones, Sehepunkte

"this book constitutes a rich source of information and good judgment on a wide range of Greek and Latin literature, and for such a well-edited and well-printed volume it is relatively inexpensive. It can be recommended." - Christopher P. Jones, Sehepunkte