Edmund Stewart
I specialise in Greek tragedy and its performance and re-performance in the classical period. I am also interested in the profession of the poet and the actor in antiquity, and the relationship between professionalism and the ancient economy and society.
I currently hold the position of Assistant Professor in Ancient Greek History at the University of Nottingham. Before coming to Nottingham, I taught on a range of modules in Greek and Latin languages, literature and ancient history at the universities of Warwick and Leeds.
My doctoral thesis (Wandering poets and the dissemination of tragedy in the fifth and fourth centuries BC), supervised by Patrick Finglass and Alan Sommerstein, was passed in May 2013 and published as 'Greek Tragedy on the Move: The Birth of a Panhellenic Art Form' by Oxford University Press in June 2017 (see https://global.oup.com/academic/product/greek-tragedy-on-the-move-9780198747260?cc=gb&lang=en&). This work represents one of the first studies of the dissemination of Greek Tragedy in the archaic and classical periods (c. 500-300 BC). Tragedy has often been viewed as a creation of the Athenian democracy. However, my research seeks to demonstrate that drama was the product of a Panhellenic culture and, in doing so, seeks to provide an alternative interpretation of the tragic texts. In particular, I draw on recent studies in network theory to show that ancient dramatists, like the heroes of tragedy themselves, travelled frequently, moving on a circuit between festivals and patrons. Thus tragedy was in its origins and its essence a Panhellenic genre directed at a Panhellenic audience.
I am also currently developing a new project on ancient professionalism. This project would be the first study of Greek professionalism, focussed on Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. From the sculptors of the Parthenon to the philosophers of the city’s colonnades, classical Athens was a magnet for those professing specialist skill or knowledge. Yet what was the role of skilled labour? How did the possession of skill (techne) affect the identity, status and income of practitioners? And how did workers demonstrate their skill in order to secure the benefits that come with acknowledged expertise? Previous scholarship has rarely considered skilled labour as an overall class or the effect of skill on the structure of ancient society and its economy. This project, however, will examine the shared aims motivating the creators of ancient literature, science, and material culture, and the common economic and social pressures to which they were subject. In the process, it aims to reveal a neglected yet crucially important social category, one distinct from the frequent opposition of mass and elite.
I organized a conference on Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome on the 29th and 30th of June 2016 at Nottingham and an edited volume based on the proceedings is in progress.
Academic Publications
Books
(2017) Greek Tragedy on the Move: The Birth of a Panhellenic Genre 500-300 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Harris, E., Lewis, D., and Stewart, E. (eds.) (Forthcoming) Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Articles
(2018) 'Ezekiel's Exagoge: a typical Hellenistic tragedy?', GRBS 58: 223-52.
(2016) ‘An ancient theatre dynastry: the elder Carcinus, the young Xenocles and the sons of Carcinus in Aristophanes’, Philologus 160: 1-18.
(2016) ‘Professionalism and the Poetic Persona in Archaic Greece’, Cambridge Classical Journal 62: 200-23.
(Forthcoming) ‘Ion of Chios: the case of a foreign poet in Sparta’, (accepted by the Classical Quarterly).
(Forthcoming) ‘Inner Nobility and Outer Appearance in Euripides Electra’, (accepted by Phoenix)
(Forthcoming) ‘“There’s nothing worse than athletes”: Criticism of Athletics and Professionalism in the archaic and classical periods’, Nikephoros 27: 155-76.
Chapters in Edited Volumes
2018 ‘Spartan choruses and foreign poets: an antidote to civil strife?’, in Brouma, V. et al. (eds.), 2018. Conflict in the Peloponnese: Social, Military and Intellectual. Proceedings of the 2nd CSPS PG and Early Career Conference. The Centre for Spartan & Peloponnesian Studies Online Publication 4, 111-32.
(Forthcoming 2019) ‘Tragedy and tyranny: Euripides, Archelaus of Macedon and popular patronage’, in Lewis S. (ed.) Tyranny: New Contexts (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Franche Comté).
(Forthcoming 2019) ‘Greek tragedy and the New Testament: the case of epiphanies’, in Deines, R. (ed.) Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and New Testament: Mutual Perspectives (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).
Encyclopaedia Entries
(Forthcoming) Articles on Carcinus, Hieron I and Dionysius I in Sommerstein A.H. (ed.) The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy (Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming 2019).
Supervisors: Patrick Finglass
Phone: 07833105029
I currently hold the position of Assistant Professor in Ancient Greek History at the University of Nottingham. Before coming to Nottingham, I taught on a range of modules in Greek and Latin languages, literature and ancient history at the universities of Warwick and Leeds.
My doctoral thesis (Wandering poets and the dissemination of tragedy in the fifth and fourth centuries BC), supervised by Patrick Finglass and Alan Sommerstein, was passed in May 2013 and published as 'Greek Tragedy on the Move: The Birth of a Panhellenic Art Form' by Oxford University Press in June 2017 (see https://global.oup.com/academic/product/greek-tragedy-on-the-move-9780198747260?cc=gb&lang=en&). This work represents one of the first studies of the dissemination of Greek Tragedy in the archaic and classical periods (c. 500-300 BC). Tragedy has often been viewed as a creation of the Athenian democracy. However, my research seeks to demonstrate that drama was the product of a Panhellenic culture and, in doing so, seeks to provide an alternative interpretation of the tragic texts. In particular, I draw on recent studies in network theory to show that ancient dramatists, like the heroes of tragedy themselves, travelled frequently, moving on a circuit between festivals and patrons. Thus tragedy was in its origins and its essence a Panhellenic genre directed at a Panhellenic audience.
I am also currently developing a new project on ancient professionalism. This project would be the first study of Greek professionalism, focussed on Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. From the sculptors of the Parthenon to the philosophers of the city’s colonnades, classical Athens was a magnet for those professing specialist skill or knowledge. Yet what was the role of skilled labour? How did the possession of skill (techne) affect the identity, status and income of practitioners? And how did workers demonstrate their skill in order to secure the benefits that come with acknowledged expertise? Previous scholarship has rarely considered skilled labour as an overall class or the effect of skill on the structure of ancient society and its economy. This project, however, will examine the shared aims motivating the creators of ancient literature, science, and material culture, and the common economic and social pressures to which they were subject. In the process, it aims to reveal a neglected yet crucially important social category, one distinct from the frequent opposition of mass and elite.
I organized a conference on Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome on the 29th and 30th of June 2016 at Nottingham and an edited volume based on the proceedings is in progress.
Academic Publications
Books
(2017) Greek Tragedy on the Move: The Birth of a Panhellenic Genre 500-300 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Harris, E., Lewis, D., and Stewart, E. (eds.) (Forthcoming) Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Articles
(2018) 'Ezekiel's Exagoge: a typical Hellenistic tragedy?', GRBS 58: 223-52.
(2016) ‘An ancient theatre dynastry: the elder Carcinus, the young Xenocles and the sons of Carcinus in Aristophanes’, Philologus 160: 1-18.
(2016) ‘Professionalism and the Poetic Persona in Archaic Greece’, Cambridge Classical Journal 62: 200-23.
(Forthcoming) ‘Ion of Chios: the case of a foreign poet in Sparta’, (accepted by the Classical Quarterly).
(Forthcoming) ‘Inner Nobility and Outer Appearance in Euripides Electra’, (accepted by Phoenix)
(Forthcoming) ‘“There’s nothing worse than athletes”: Criticism of Athletics and Professionalism in the archaic and classical periods’, Nikephoros 27: 155-76.
Chapters in Edited Volumes
2018 ‘Spartan choruses and foreign poets: an antidote to civil strife?’, in Brouma, V. et al. (eds.), 2018. Conflict in the Peloponnese: Social, Military and Intellectual. Proceedings of the 2nd CSPS PG and Early Career Conference. The Centre for Spartan & Peloponnesian Studies Online Publication 4, 111-32.
(Forthcoming 2019) ‘Tragedy and tyranny: Euripides, Archelaus of Macedon and popular patronage’, in Lewis S. (ed.) Tyranny: New Contexts (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Franche Comté).
(Forthcoming 2019) ‘Greek tragedy and the New Testament: the case of epiphanies’, in Deines, R. (ed.) Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and New Testament: Mutual Perspectives (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).
Encyclopaedia Entries
(Forthcoming) Articles on Carcinus, Hieron I and Dionysius I in Sommerstein A.H. (ed.) The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy (Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming 2019).
Supervisors: Patrick Finglass
Phone: 07833105029
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This volume argues that the story of tragedy's development and dissemination is inherently one of travel and that tragedy grew out of, and became part of, a common Greek culture, rather than being explicitly Athenian. Although Athens was a major panhellenic centre, by the fifth century a well-established network of festivals and patrons had grown up to encompass Greek cities and sanctuaries from Sicily to Asia Minor and from North Africa to the Black Sea. The movement of professional poets, actors, and audience members along this circuit allowed for the exchange of poetry in general and tragedy in particular, which came to be performed all over the Greek world and was therefore a panhellenic phenomenon even from the time of the earliest performances. The stories that were dramatized were themselves tales of travel-the epic journeys of heroes such as Heracles, Jason, or Orestes- and the works of the tragedians not only demonstrated how the various peoples of Greece were connected through the wanderings of their ancestors, but also how these connections could be sustained by travelling poets and their acts of retelling.