Joseph A Howley
Biographic Data
| ID | 5627397 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joseph A Howley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joseph A |
| FAMILY NAME | Howley |
| SIGNATURE | HOWLEY J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 6 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Despotics
How should we understand the relationship between Roman slavery and Roman literature? This essay elucidates an account of the work of mastery—“despotics”—articulated in ancient Greek and Roman sources and argues that these concerns impinge on the work of literary production and consumption in the Roman world especially. Ancient thinkers articulate strategies for the imposition of psychological control on enslaved workers and the policing of ontol…
Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean, 100 BCE–300 CE
This volume interrogates the intersections between writing and enslavement around the Roman Mediterranean. Drawing upon methods developed in studies of book history and Atlantic slavery, the essays demonstrate the myriad ways that the material and intellectual contributions of literary workers were vital to the composition, editing, copying, circulation, reading, and preservation of Roman texts. The volume exposes the way that power dynamics eras…
In Ancient Rome
The history of reading in antiquity is wholly dependent on literary sources that must be read with care; one misinterpreted passage can enable an entire misguided history. This is the case with Augustine’s account of Ambrose reading silently, and the tenacious misapprehension that such reading was impossible in antiquity. Another reading of the passage points not to reading’s physical mechanics but to its psychological unknowability, and the dist…
Writing and Power in the Roman World
Reviewed by: Writing and Power in the Roman World: Literacies and Material Culture by Hella Eckardt Joseph A. Howley Hella Eckardt. Writing and Power in the Roman World: Literacies and Material Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xvi, 268. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-108-41805-8. The survival of so much written literature defines Roman studies, but much of the infrastructure of ancient reading and writing eludes us in the material re…
Aulus Gellius and Roman Reading Culture
Long a source for quotations, fragments, and factoids, the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius offers hundreds of brief but vivid glimpses of Roman intellectual life. In this book Joseph Howley demonstrates how the work may be read as a literary text in its own right, and discusses the rich evidence it provides for the ancient history of reading, thought, and intellectual culture. He argues that Gellius is in close conversation with predecessors both…
Book-Burning and the Uses of Writing in Ancient Rome
This article examines the burning of written material at Rome from the Republican period until the rise of Christianity, using the lens of book history. It considers why and how Romans burned written material, gathering for the first time all testimony of burning any kind of writing, and examines responses to these burnings in ancient discourse. A capacious, book-historical approach to Roman book-burning shows that differences in practice and use…
Valuing the Mediators of Antiquity in the Noctes Atticae
Aulus Gellius, author of the Noctes Atticae , had a fondness for the antique. His collection of nearly 400 essays on antiquities has long been valued by modern readers for its own overt valuing of Roman antiquity. The Noctes is about valuing the antique, but even more so is it about valuing those who mediate and communicate antiquity. This chapter offers a few glimpses of the narrative and rhetorical techniques by which Gellius represents antiqui…
Book-Burning and the Uses of Writing in Ancient Rome
This article examines the burning of written material at Rome from the Republican period until the rise of Christianity, using the lens of book history. It considers why and how Romans burned written material, gathering for the first time all testimony of burning any kind of writing, and examines responses to these burnings in ancient discourse. A capacious, book-historical approach to Roman book-burning shows that differences in practice and use…
Valuing the Mediators of Antiquity in the Noctes Atticae
Aulus Gellius, author of the Noctes Atticae , had a fondness for the antique. His collection of nearly 400 essays on antiquities has long been valued by modern readers for its own overt valuing of Roman antiquity. The Noctes is about valuing the antique, but even more so is it about valuing those who mediate and communicate antiquity. This chapter offers a few glimpses of the narrative and rhetorical techniques by which Gellius represents antiqui…
Book-Burning and the Uses of Writing in Ancient Rome
This article examines the burning of written material at Rome from the Republican period until the rise of Christianity, using the lens of book history. It considers why and how Romans burned written material, gathering for the first time all testimony of burning any kind of writing, and examines responses to these burnings in ancient discourse. A capacious, book-historical approach to Roman book-burning shows that differences in practice and use…
Aulus Gellius and Roman Reading Culture
Long a source for quotations, fragments, and factoids, the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius offers hundreds of brief but vivid glimpses of Roman intellectual life. In this book Joseph Howley demonstrates how the work may be read as a literary text in its own right, and discusses the rich evidence it provides for the ancient history of reading, thought, and intellectual culture. He argues that Gellius is in close conversation with predecessors both…
In Ancient Rome
The history of reading in antiquity is wholly dependent on literary sources that must be read with care; one misinterpreted passage can enable an entire misguided history. This is the case with Augustine’s account of Ambrose reading silently, and the tenacious misapprehension that such reading was impossible in antiquity. Another reading of the passage points not to reading’s physical mechanics but to its psychological unknowability, and the dist…
Writing and Power in the Roman World
Reviewed by: Writing and Power in the Roman World: Literacies and Material Culture by Hella Eckardt Joseph A. Howley Hella Eckardt. Writing and Power in the Roman World: Literacies and Material Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xvi, 268. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-108-41805-8. The survival of so much written literature defines Roman studies, but much of the infrastructure of ancient reading and writing eludes us in the material re…
Despotics
How should we understand the relationship between Roman slavery and Roman literature? This essay elucidates an account of the work of mastery—“despotics”—articulated in ancient Greek and Roman sources and argues that these concerns impinge on the work of literary production and consumption in the Roman world especially. Ancient thinkers articulate strategies for the imposition of psychological control on enslaved workers and the policing of ontol…
Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean, 100 BCE–300 CE
This volume interrogates the intersections between writing and enslavement around the Roman Mediterranean. Drawing upon methods developed in studies of book history and Atlantic slavery, the essays demonstrate the myriad ways that the material and intellectual contributions of literary workers were vital to the composition, editing, copying, circulation, reading, and preservation of Roman texts. The volume exposes the way that power dynamics eras…
Classical Antiquity Studies (7 works) · History (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Classics (5 works) · Literature (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Linguistics (3 works) · Reading (process) (3 works) · Ancient history (2 works) · Archaeology (2 works)