Leslie Kurke
Biographic Data
| ID | 993544 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leslie Kurke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leslie |
| FAMILY NAME | Kurke |
| SIGNATURE | KURKE L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 122 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Epinikion , Kudos , and Criticism
This chapter considers the genre of professional epinikion (choral poems composed on commission to celebrate athletic victories), inquiring into the socio-cultural motivations for the development of this strange hybrid genre c.550 bce and relating it to a broader set of practices commemorating athletic victory in ancient Greece (including victor statues). Epinikion in performance and victor statues alike served as sites for negotiation between pr…
Genre in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry: Theories and Models
Two more volumes are in preparation: one on the reception and transmission of Greek lyric poetry from 600BCE
Pindar, Song, and Space: Towards a Lyric Archaeology
"In this volume, Richard Neer and Leslie Kurke develop a new, integrated approach to classical Greece: a "lyric archaeology" that combines literary and art-historical analysis with archaeological and epigraphic materials. At the heart of the book is the great poet Pindar of Thebes, best known for his magnificent odes in honor of victors at the Olympic Games and other competitions. Unlike the quintessentially personal genre of modern lyric, these …
Gendered Spheres and Mythic Models in Sappho’s Brothers Poem
What is striking to me about the newest Sappho, the Brothers Poem, is its complex combination or interpenetration of two levels or spheres.1 For here, we find the quotidian-we might even say, a view 'behind the scenes'-progressively infused with mythic models or resonances. We see something of the same interpenetration of the individual with the divine or with epic or mythic resonances in several of Sappho's love poems. Thus Sappho fr. 1 combines…
A Dedicated Theory Class for Graduate Students
A required literary-theory class for classics graduate students was introduced at the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1980s. So how do we get beginning graduate students “from zero to 60” in a one-semester theory proseminar? This paper considers the content, structure, pacing, and pedagogical strategies of one version of such a course, including sample syllabuses and different writing and in-class projects. In particular, I address…
Imagining Chorality: Wonder, Plato’s Puppets, and Moving Statues
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Aesopic Conversations
The Economy of kudos
Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose
Examining the figure of Aesop and the traditions surrounding him, Aesopic Conversations offers a portrait of what Greek popular culture might have looked like in the ancient world. What has survived from the literary record of antiquity is almost entirely the product of an elite of birth, wealth, and education, limiting our access to a fuller range of voices from the ancient past. This book, however, explores the anonymous Life of Aesop and offer…
Counterfeit Oracles" and "Legal Tender: The Politics of Oracular Consultation in Herodotus
This paper attempts to account for an odd expression Herodotus uses three times in all-"counterfeit oracles"-by a consideration of analogies between the Greek coinage system and the Greek imaginary of oracular consultation and decision-making. Particular attention is paid to the narrative sequence in Hdt. Book 5 in which the Spartans, encouraged by "counterfeit oracles" (as they claim), liberate Athens and then attempt to undo that liberation (Hd…
Archaic Greek Poetry
“Not for me are the things of Gyges, rich in gold, a concern, / Nor has envy yet taken me, nor do I resent / The works of the gods, and I do not desire great tyranny; / For [these things] are far from my eyes.” Archilochus fr. 19 W [= 122 W2] / “Eros again the limb-loosener whirls me, / sweet-bitter, impossible, creeping thing...” Sappho fr. 130 LP / Archaic Greek poetry confronts the reader with a sudden explosion of distinctive, individual voic…
Plato, Aesop, and the Beginnings of Mimetic Prose
This paper traces out the lineaments of a popular Aesop tradition behind and within Plato's characterization of Socrates in his dialogues. It attempts thereby to expose the mimetic origins of philosophic prose writing (at least partly) in the lowly and abjected fabular discourse of Aesop, which Platonic dialogue strategically appropriates and disavows to constitute "philosophy" as an autonomous, transcendent domain of inquiry
Money and Mythic History: The Contestation of Transactional Orders in the Fifth Century BC
Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece
Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece
The invention of coinage in ancient Greece provided an arena in which rival political groups struggled to imprint their views on the world. Here Leslie Kurke analyzes the ideological functions of Greek coinage as one of a number of symbolic practices that arise for the first time in the archaic period. By linking the imagery of metals and coinage to stories about oracles, prostitutes, Eastern tyrants, counterfeiting, retail trade, and games, she …
Ancient Greek Board Games and How to Play Them
Crisis and Decorum in Sixth-Century Lesbos: Reading Alkaios Otherwise
Cultural poetics in Archaic Greece: Cult, performance, politics
1. Introduction 2. Poetics of Power: The Interpretation of Ritual Action in Archaic Greece 3. The Archaeology of Ancestors 4. Divine Selection: Epiphany and Politics in Archaic Greece 5. Hipparchos and the Rhapsodes 6. The Seven Sages as Performers of Wisdom 7. The Economy of Kudos 8. Hero Cult and Politics in Herodotus: The Bones of Orestes 9. It's Murder to Found a Colony 10. Thucydides' Solonion Reflections 11. The Athenian Revolution of 508/7…
The traffic in praise: Pindar and the poetics of social economy
Fathers and Sons: A Note on Pindaric Ambiguity
The traffic in praise: Pindar and the poetics of social economy
Crisis and Decorum in Sixth-Century Lesbos: Reading Alkaios Otherwise
Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose
Examining the figure of Aesop and the traditions surrounding him, Aesopic Conversations offers a portrait of what Greek popular culture might have looked like in the ancient world. What has survived from the literary record of antiquity is almost entirely the product of an elite of birth, wealth, and education, limiting our access to a fuller range of voices from the ancient past. This book, however, explores the anonymous Life of Aesop and offer…
Ancient Greek Board Games and How to Play Them
Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece
Genre in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry: Theories and Models
Two more volumes are in preparation: one on the reception and transmission of Greek lyric poetry from 600BCE
Pindar, Song, and Space: Towards a Lyric Archaeology
"In this volume, Richard Neer and Leslie Kurke develop a new, integrated approach to classical Greece: a "lyric archaeology" that combines literary and art-historical analysis with archaeological and epigraphic materials. At the heart of the book is the great poet Pindar of Thebes, best known for his magnificent odes in honor of victors at the Olympic Games and other competitions. Unlike the quintessentially personal genre of modern lyric, these …
Counterfeit Oracles" and "Legal Tender: The Politics of Oracular Consultation in Herodotus
This paper attempts to account for an odd expression Herodotus uses three times in all-"counterfeit oracles"-by a consideration of analogies between the Greek coinage system and the Greek imaginary of oracular consultation and decision-making. Particular attention is paid to the narrative sequence in Hdt. Book 5 in which the Spartans, encouraged by "counterfeit oracles" (as they claim), liberate Athens and then attempt to undo that liberation (Hd…
The traffic in praise: Pindar and the poetics of social economy
Fathers and Sons: A Note on Pindaric Ambiguity
Cultural poetics in Archaic Greece: Cult, performance, politics
1. Introduction 2. Poetics of Power: The Interpretation of Ritual Action in Archaic Greece 3. The Archaeology of Ancestors 4. Divine Selection: Epiphany and Politics in Archaic Greece 5. Hipparchos and the Rhapsodes 6. The Seven Sages as Performers of Wisdom 7. The Economy of Kudos 8. Hero Cult and Politics in Herodotus: The Bones of Orestes 9. It's Murder to Found a Colony 10. Thucydides' Solonion Reflections 11. The Athenian Revolution of 508/7…
Crisis and Decorum in Sixth-Century Lesbos: Reading Alkaios Otherwise
Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece
The invention of coinage in ancient Greece provided an arena in which rival political groups struggled to imprint their views on the world. Here Leslie Kurke analyzes the ideological functions of Greek coinage as one of a number of symbolic practices that arise for the first time in the archaic period. By linking the imagery of metals and coinage to stories about oracles, prostitutes, Eastern tyrants, counterfeiting, retail trade, and games, she …
Ancient Greek Board Games and How to Play Them
Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece
Money and Mythic History: The Contestation of Transactional Orders in the Fifth Century BC
Plato, Aesop, and the Beginnings of Mimetic Prose
This paper traces out the lineaments of a popular Aesop tradition behind and within Plato's characterization of Socrates in his dialogues. It attempts thereby to expose the mimetic origins of philosophic prose writing (at least partly) in the lowly and abjected fabular discourse of Aesop, which Platonic dialogue strategically appropriates and disavows to constitute "philosophy" as an autonomous, transcendent domain of inquiry
Archaic Greek Poetry
“Not for me are the things of Gyges, rich in gold, a concern, / Nor has envy yet taken me, nor do I resent / The works of the gods, and I do not desire great tyranny; / For [these things] are far from my eyes.” Archilochus fr. 19 W [= 122 W2] / “Eros again the limb-loosener whirls me, / sweet-bitter, impossible, creeping thing...” Sappho fr. 130 LP / Archaic Greek poetry confronts the reader with a sudden explosion of distinctive, individual voic…
Counterfeit Oracles" and "Legal Tender: The Politics of Oracular Consultation in Herodotus
This paper attempts to account for an odd expression Herodotus uses three times in all-"counterfeit oracles"-by a consideration of analogies between the Greek coinage system and the Greek imaginary of oracular consultation and decision-making. Particular attention is paid to the narrative sequence in Hdt. Book 5 in which the Spartans, encouraged by "counterfeit oracles" (as they claim), liberate Athens and then attempt to undo that liberation (Hd…
Aesopic Conversations
The Economy of kudos
Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose
Examining the figure of Aesop and the traditions surrounding him, Aesopic Conversations offers a portrait of what Greek popular culture might have looked like in the ancient world. What has survived from the literary record of antiquity is almost entirely the product of an elite of birth, wealth, and education, limiting our access to a fuller range of voices from the ancient past. This book, however, explores the anonymous Life of Aesop and offer…
Imagining Chorality: Wonder, Plato’s Puppets, and Moving Statues
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
A Dedicated Theory Class for Graduate Students
A required literary-theory class for classics graduate students was introduced at the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1980s. So how do we get beginning graduate students “from zero to 60” in a one-semester theory proseminar? This paper considers the content, structure, pacing, and pedagogical strategies of one version of such a course, including sample syllabuses and different writing and in-class projects. In particular, I address…
Gendered Spheres and Mythic Models in Sappho’s Brothers Poem
What is striking to me about the newest Sappho, the Brothers Poem, is its complex combination or interpenetration of two levels or spheres.1 For here, we find the quotidian-we might even say, a view 'behind the scenes'-progressively infused with mythic models or resonances. We see something of the same interpenetration of the individual with the divine or with epic or mythic resonances in several of Sappho's love poems. Thus Sappho fr. 1 combines…
Genre in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry: Theories and Models
Two more volumes are in preparation: one on the reception and transmission of Greek lyric poetry from 600BCE
Pindar, Song, and Space: Towards a Lyric Archaeology
"In this volume, Richard Neer and Leslie Kurke develop a new, integrated approach to classical Greece: a "lyric archaeology" that combines literary and art-historical analysis with archaeological and epigraphic materials. At the heart of the book is the great poet Pindar of Thebes, best known for his magnificent odes in honor of victors at the Olympic Games and other competitions. Unlike the quintessentially personal genre of modern lyric, these …
Epinikion , Kudos , and Criticism
This chapter considers the genre of professional epinikion (choral poems composed on commission to celebrate athletic victories), inquiring into the socio-cultural motivations for the development of this strange hybrid genre c.550 bce and relating it to a broader set of practices commemorating athletic victory in ancient Greece (including victor statues). Epinikion in performance and victor statues alike served as sites for negotiation between pr…
Art (13 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (12 works) · Literature (10 works) · History (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (5 works) · History (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Greece (4 works)