Ancient Athens Research Articles

DEMOCRACY AND WAR IN ANCIENT ATHENS AND TODAY

Ancient Athens developed democracy to a higher level than any other state before modern times. It was the leading cultural innovator of its age. This state is rightly revered for its political and cultural achievements. What is less well known is its extraordinary record of military success. Athens transformed ancient warfare and became one of the ancient world's superpowers. There is a strong case that democracy was a major reason for this success. The military impact of Athenian democracy was twofold. The competition of elite performers before non-elite adjudicators resulted in a pro-war culture, which encouraged Athenians in increasing numbers to join the armed forces and to vote for war. All this was offset by Athenian democracy's rigorous debating of war, which reduced the risks of Athenian cultural militarism. It also made military reforms easier and developed the initiative of the state's generals, hoplites, and sailors. Political scientists have long viewed Athenian democracy as a source of fresh ideas. At present they cannot satisfactorily explain the war-making of modern democracies. Consequently ancient history can provide political science with new lines of enquiry into how democracy affects international relations today.

Building Legal Order in Ancient Athens

How do democratic societies establish and maintain order in ways that are conducive to growth? Contemporary scholarship associates order, democracy, and growth with centralized rule of law institutions. In this article, we test the robustness of modern assumptions by turning to the case of ancient Athens. Democratic Athens was remarkably stable and prosperous, but the ancient city-state never developed extensively centralized rule of law institutions. Drawing on the “what-is-law” account of legal order elaborated by Hadfield and Weingast (2012), we show that Athens’ legal order relied on institutions that achieved common knowledge and incentive compatibility for enforcers in a largely decentralized system of coercion. Our approach provides fresh insights into how robust legal orders may be built in countries where centralized rule of law institutions have failed to take root. 1. I NTRODUCTION

Rhetoric Tradition and Democracy: Isocrates’ Role in Ancient Greek Political Idea. Start Point of Western Political Philosophy

Abstract Political participation and the public education that have always been deployed to support the incipient progress of the civic life are revived in the modern political discourses. It has been believed that the age of pre-Socrates was the age of the Sophists whose acrid fallacy works occupied the political sphere, a malaise in government. However, speaking non-traditionally in the modern pedagogical system, there were some pre-Socratic thinkers and political philosophers/orators who’s works are the backbone of modern discourse on this matter. It will be examined whether any part of the classical rhetoric apparatus can be recovered and put to a good practice in the modern education and modern political participation. This point will be illustrated, furthermore, in this paper by alleging the importance of rhetoric, its role in Ancient Greek Democracy, and its influence on the modern concepts of power and democracy, as a continual element in a historical-political life. The further consideration is whether there was any democratic Polis existed in Ancient Athens and then, if there was, what characteristics it consisted of. Moreover, whether such concept can or should be considered in modern political discourses. In this sense, the liberal, non-dogmatic strain of the sophistry of Isocrates tradition urges us to indicate that the findings of this educational principles are, if not necessary, but adjutant complementary metes to our modern political knowledge of the states. In the end, it is inquired to see comparatively that how the tradition of rhetorical art and the concept of power in the Ancient Greek society have pertained to the modern democratic elements and whether we are able to empower this influential element in modern states.

Democracy and Aristocracy in Ancient Athens: Deformation or Adaptation

The article analyzes the role of the aristocracy in democratic Athens, i.e. in the Vth Century B.C. What happened to the aristocracy in democratic Athens? Whether the aristocrats were able to adapt themselves to new social and political realities? It is suggested that there took place their division into democratic and aristocratic politicians, a separation of democratically-oriented leaders (prostates tou demou), who managed to adapt to democratic institutions. The political actions of prostatai had features of demagogy. Thus we can assume that such a phenomenon as demagogy appeared much earlier than previously thought. The other part of aristocracy was not alien to demagogy as well. Suffice it to mention the efforts made by Thucydides son of Melesias, who created a political hybrid, of an aristocratic hetaireia which did not shun demagogic techniques.

Book review: Law of Ancient Athens. Law and Society in the Ancient World, written by David D. Phillips

Book review: Law of Ancient Athens. Law and Society in the Ancient World, written by David D. Phillips

Laurie Shannon The Accommodated Animal: Cosmopolity in Shakespearean LocalesThe Accommodated Animal: Cosmopolity in Shakespearean Locales. Laurie Shannon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Pp. vii+290.

<i>Laurie Shannon</i> The Accommodated Animal: Cosmopolity in Shakespearean Locales<i>The Accommodated Animal: Cosmopolity in Shakespearean Locales</i>. Laurie Shannon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Pp. vii+290.

The Concept of Liberal Education: A History of the Decline

오늘날 자유교육은 위기에 봉착하였다. 그 위기의 실체는 학교교육의 목적은 직업을 갖도록 하는 것이라는 통념이 이제 학교의 존재이유를 설명하는 유일한 관점으로 자리잡아가고 있다는 데 있다. 말하자면 직업교육은 자유교육을 대치하는 개념으로 그 위세를 떨치고 있다. 고대 아테네에서 시작된 자유교육 또한 사실상 직업교육이었고 결국 모든 교육은 직업교육이라는 듀이의 주장은 교육에 관한 기존의 통념을 더욱 부추기고 강화시키는 데 영향을 미쳤다. 서양교육의 역사는 이러한 통념이 서서히 교육의 정설로 자리매김하는 과정이라고 할 수 있다. 자유교육의 이념이 어떻게 직업교육에 의하여 그 왕좌를 찬탈 당하는가를 살펴봄으로써 오늘날 자유교육의 위기가 정확히 무엇인가를 이해하는 일은 희미해져가는 자유교육의 이상을 되살리는 단초가 될 수 있을 것이다.Nowadays liberal education is facing a crisis of its own decline. The reality of this crisis is from the general notion that education as providing students job qualification is becoming the sole purpose of school. In other words, job education is a dominant concept of today that is replacing liberal education. Dewey’s assertion that, liberal education itself born in ancient Athens was actually job education, has encouraged and reinforced such general notion. The history of western education is a gradual process of such general notion becoming widely-accepted theory. Having scrutinized how liberal education is deprived of its crown by the job education, we will be able to understand where and what exactly is the crisis of liberal education and therefore find a clue to give birth to the idea of liberal education that today is fading away.

Education of Ancient Athens featured in Aristophanes’ Nephelai

Education of Ancient Athens featured in Aristophanes’ Nephelai

A Hierarchy of Violence?: Sex Slaves, Parthenoi , and Rape in Menander’s Epitrepontes

Scholarship on prostitution in ancient Greece, specifically classical Athens, commonly ignores the violence surrounding sexual labor. Whereas violence is central to discussions of prostitution in the modern context, the focus on the ancient hetaira as a courtesan has obscured the reality of Greek prostitutes, many of whom were slaves and vulnerable to abuse. (1) It is not just the obvious fact that prostitution could at times be violent--women, girls, and household slaves in general were at risk for sexual violence more broadly (as comic plots attest and as ancient warfare demonstrates (2))--but that such violence was constructed differently for sex laborers than other social groups: the prostitute body is deemed an accessible body and that accessibility normalizes sexual violence against it and creates a double standard of violence. (3) It is this construction of violence that I begin to explore here by comparing two narratives of sexual assault as recounted by the sex slave Habrotonon in Menander's Epitrepontes. In comparing the two narratives, I place special emphasis on the narrative voice (a shift from third person to first person), the intended context for the narrative (a private conversation between slaves versus a conversation at the symposium), and the identity of the (a citizen girl versus a sex slave). Also important is the fact that the narrator of both accounts is the same person, the sex slave Habrotonon. The plot of Menander's Epitrepontes (The Arbitrators) is typical of New Comedy in that the plot hinges on the of a young citizen woman by an unknown and inebriated assailant at a night festival (in this case the Tauropolia). (4) The becomes pregnant from the rape. The rapist, discovered to be a wealthy young citizen, does the right thing by acknowledging his child and uniting with the mother. All ends happily. Specific to the plot of this play is the fact that when the action begins, the victim, Pamphile, is unknowingly married to her assailant. Charisius, her husband, has discovered the pregnancy, though not his role in it, and left the marriage to take up with a slave prostitute, Habrotonon. Habrotonon, in turn, discovers that the father of the child is Charisius. Hoping to acquire her freedom, she reveals the child to Charisius, who then happily reunites with his wife. As noted by Hunter Gardner (2013) and Sharon James (2014), the Epitrepontes is unique in that it presents details of a sexual assault and its effect on the victim. (5) Habrotonon recounts the as follows (486-90): [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Although being there with us, she [Pamphile] wandered off. Then suddenly she ran up alone crying and pulling out her hair [in grief]. Oh gods--she had totally ruined her light cloak, very beautiful and fine; for the whole thing was a tattered rag. Pamphile is described here as hysterical after the encounter, crying and pulling out her hair. The violence of the and its effect on the are further highlighted by her torn clothing. This vivid account leads Gardner and James to conclude that Menander and most likely Athenian society more broadly recognized a rape victim and acknowledged sexual violence as an embodied event (Gardner 2013, 134; James 2014, 33). Ancient Athenians, they argue, had a concept of sexual assault akin to our modern understanding of rape. In addition to the absence of descriptive accounts, discussions of in classical Athens are hindered by the lack of specific terminology referring to it. (6) There is no single term for 'sexual violence' in classical Greek: bia (force), (7) hubris (outrage), and moicheia (adultery) are the legal categories under which sexual offences might fall. (8) Bia and hubris, however, also refer to other forms of violence and other types of crimes. In addition, victims are never noted as 'victims of hubris,' only the kurios (guardian) is. …

Elite Citizen Women and the Origins of the Hetaira in Classical Athens

Introduction If you open the Liddell-Scott-Jones dictionary to look up the word hetaira, you find the definition courtesan. The recognizable English word provides a reassuring sense of comprehension, a sense that is unfortunately false. Greek does not always translate easily into English and often readers are compelled to examine cultural, political, or socio-historical contexts for a word before making a decision on how to translate it. Some words, therefore, have extensive entries in our dictionaries. Words that denote women's social statuses, however, typically do not. Rather, LSJ, assuming that the social statuses of women are transparent and obvious, hides the complexities that surround the words applied to these women or how they are represented generally in image and text. When scholars see an image of a woman or read the name of a woman in a forum for public audiences, like comedy or oratory, they immediately make a series of assumptions about the woman's identity, including her social position, occupation, and legal status. In images, a woman is immediately deemed a prostitute, if nude, or if dressed but playing a flute, or if handed a change purse. (1) If pictured at a symposium, she is a hetaira. The term has a basic meaning of 'companion' (on analogy with hetairos) (2) and is almost always, except in limited cases, translated as courtesan. (3) Courtesan is itself a vague and culturally contingent word, especially in the nineteenth century when our lexicon was produced. According to LSJ, it is to be neither a common prostitute nor a married woman but something in between. How scholars have dealt with this ambiguity has varied, but interpretation has fallen strongly on the side of closer to prostitute than to and many scholars consider hetaira a synonym for prostitute, especially since they believe that only prostitutes attended symposia. (4) The ancient sources, however, tell a different story from the narrative driven by these lexical assumptions. The term hetaira was used in archaic and classical Athens to designate both a status and a set of behaviors. For example, there is evidence that the status of hetaira designated a woman who could not, for a variety of reasons, contract a formal marriage. This use of hetaira to designate marriageability occurs only in the fourth century. (5) In the late sixth century, in Athens and in some Ionian Greek poleis, I will argue that the word hetaira designates not a status but a person associated with a set of behaviors typical of the sympotic culture of the Greek elite. When scholars collapse these historically distinct uses of the term hetaira, they imagine a social world based on a strict wife-whore dichotomy. The mechanical application of this dichotomy has created basic misunderstandings of the position of some women, particularly noncitizen women, in classical Athens. The wife-whore dichotomy underlies many approaches to women in Athens and intersects with scholars' use of the language of respectability. They typically label a woman as disreputable if she is named in the courts, on the comic stage, or appears on a sympotic imaged. It is a short step to labeling her a prostitute, which then is assumed to exclude her from the category of wife and citizen. (6) Scholars identify this strong wife-whore dichotomy in a variety of ancient sources and claim that it is an unbreachable ideological barrier for the ancient Athenians. As Madeleine Henry writes, Erotic pleasure and legitimate marriage are classified into categories of thought ... which are firmly separated from one another. (7) This dichotomy exists in some of the language of Athenian orators and comedy. But not every woman in Athens was either a citizen wife or a foreign prostitute in reality (or even, I would argue, ideologically). Recent scholarship has questioned this dichotomy. (8) Unfortunately, these discussions have frequently started from the assumption that noncitizen women were mostly sexual laborers. …

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS: MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA

This article reflects on how ancient Athens - in its historical as well as metonymic sense — has been employed as an education for the world and for all time to come. In a broad sweep through history, it has little pretention to be either a disinterested or an in-depth historical enquiry. Rather, it presents yet another attempt to come to terms with the current position of the Classics in academia, taking its cue from the saying of Confucius that ‘one who understands the present by reviewing antiquity is worthy to be a teacher'. Simultaneously, it aims to remind us, albeit obliquely, of aspects of a humanities education which are currently neglected or perhaps even forgotten. It will be shown that Thucydides already connected the idea of Athens as a school to democratic ideology, a link still present in later associations between the liberal arts and a classical education.

Building Legal Order in Ancient Athens

Building Legal Order in Ancient Athens

Gentrifying the demos: Aristocratic principles and democratic culture in ancient Athens

Gentrifying the demos: Aristocratic principles and democratic culture in ancient Athens

Xenophon the Socratic Prince: The Argument of the Anabasis of Cyrus by Eric Buzzetti

BOOK REVIEWS 379 Salisbury uses Galla Placidia as a focal point to explore the massive political, religious, and cultural shift that the Roman Empire underwent during this transitional period in Rome’s history. The result is a prosopological history of the Roman Empire from the time of Theodosius to the fall of the Western Empire with a strong emphasis on the development of church doctrine as it affected Late Antique law and culture. The language of the book lacks the precise diction of high scholarship, but the resulting exoteric text is pleasantly accessible. It makes this book an ideal text to supplement the standard Peter Brown textbooks for an undergraduate class on the Late Antique, especially one with a women’s studies emphasis. KRISHNI BURNS University of Akron, kburns1@uakron.edu * * * * * Xenophon the Socratic Prince: The Argument of the Anabasis of Cyrus. By ERIC BUZZETTI. New York: Pallgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. xviii + 337. Hardcover, $110.00. ISBN 978-1-137-33330-8. In this book Eric Buzzetti proposes a Straussian reading of Xenophon’s Anabasis. Followinga line of approach familiar from Christopher Nadon’s interpretation of the Cyropaedia,14 Buzzetti argues that the Anabasis reflects a critique of the political life. But he goes even further than Nadon by suggesting that this work ultimately invites its readers to consider the philosophical life of Socrates as an alternative to politics. Buzzetti sees the Anabasis as a philosophical logos and an introduction to philosophyin the form of awar memoir (1–7; 295–300). The book is divided into seven chapters (devoted respectively to the seven books of the Anabasis) and is structured around three models of leaders: the Godlike king (represented by Cyrus the Younger, chapter 1); the Pious King (represented by the Spartan general Klearchos, chapter 2); and the Socratic King (represented by Xenophon the character, chapters 3–7). It also contains three 14 Christopher Nadon, Xenophon. The Socratic Prince, Berkeley, 2001. 380 BOOK REVIEWS appendices and a short bibliography (121–126). Buzzetti’s main assertion, which he unfolds in a linear analysis (often intermingled with too much paraphrasing) throughout his book, is that Cyrus, Klearchos, and Xenophon endeavor but fail to reconcile the noble with the good, or, more specifically, morality with advantage . Consequently, according to Buzzetti, readers who will perceive this failurewill be led to consider “the success embodied bySocrates” (299). Buzzetti offers numerous interesting analyses: he views Cyrus’ death as a “cautionary tale” against his recklessness (68–72) and he offers a nuanced analysis of the obituaries of the Greek generals (104–108). He rightly stresses the occasional blurring of boundaries between Greeks and barbarians (152, 222), he underlines the problems posed by the greediness and lack of order of the soldiers (188) and he illuminates the complexity of motives that underlies Xenophon’s decision to found a colony in Asia (211–217). Buzzetti also presents subtle analyses of the speeches of Greek leaders (especially of Klearchos, and Xenophon, 96–103, 132–137, 277–289). Τhe main problem posed by this study is methodological. Buzzetti follows and expands on the methodological principles set by Leo Strauss.15 Like Strauss, he treats Xenophon asa philosopher who insinuates “the truth” between the lines (the title of the Anabasis is also interpreted “philosophically”, as an “ascent” to the noble, to leadership, an interpretation, however, not corroborated by the text itself). This esoteric writing is justified by fear of persecution (Buzzetti goes so far as to compare ancient Athens with “the contemporary Islamic world”, 8). However , this idea would have made sense only if Buzzetti could prove that this work was written soon after Xenophon left Athens (around 401 BCE); fear of persecution would have seemed then perhaps a plausible political stance. But the evidence about the date of composition does not point towards this direction.16 Furthermore, Buzzetti’s contention about the Anabasis being pervaded by a tension between philosophy and politics (113, 201, 228, 299) and his conception of Socrates as an advocate of the “philosophical life” disregards the fact that the Xenophontic Socrates is a political figure par excellence who embodies a peculiar combination of philosophy with politics, rather than a disjunction 15 The starting point for Buzzetti’s...

Demokracja bezpośrednia i partycypacja polityczna – mit czy rzeczywistość?

The main aim of this article is to examine the question of direct democracy and political participation in modern societies in order to answer the question whether it is really an important part of the political reality of modern societies. The direct democracy dates back even to the ancient Athens of fifth and fourth centuries BC. But in this case the democracy had been limited to the citizens only (it means mature males of citizen families) and this group formed as little as at about 10% of the population of Athenian state. Nowadays, the question of the so-called “participatory budget” forms rather part of propaganda (mainly before the local election) and not part of the political reality. And so, the question of political participation ofcitizens canbedescribed rather interms ofpolitical myths thanpolitical reality.

Epigraphic Bulletin for Greek Religion 2011 (EBGR 2011)

The 24th issue of the Epigraphic Bulletin for Greek Religion presents epigraphic publications of 2011 and additions to earlier issues (publications of 2006–2010). Publications that could not be considered here, for reasons of space, will be presented in EBGR 2012. They include two of the most important books of 2011: N. Papazarkadas’ Sacred and Public Land in Ancient Athens, Oxford 2011 and H.S. Versnel’s Coping with the Gods: Wayward Readings in Greek Theology, Leiden 2011. A series of new i...

Slaves, Women, and War! Engaging Middle School Students in Historical Empathy for Enduring Understanding

Research has demonstrated the benefits of using historical empathy in history classrooms to encourage historical inquiry and understanding. This article chronicles the experiences of one middle school teacher as she integrates an updated theoretical and practical model of historical empathy into an existing instructional unit on Ancient Athens to help her students develop enduring understandings of social control. Students investigate primary sources, take part in group activities, and engage in Socratic dialogue to unpack the historical context, perspectives, and affective considerations of Athenian citizens who faced propositions revolving around slavery, the rights of women, and the prospect of war with Sparta. The culmination of their efforts is a simulated debate in the Athenian Assembly in which students display their newfound understanding of Ancient Athens and the human phenomena of social control gained through historical empathy.

The Two Noble Kinsmen by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (review)

Reviewed by: The Two Noble Kinsmen by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich The Two Noble Kinsmen Presented by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Cincinnati, Ohio. May 2–25, 2014. Directed by Brian Isaac Phillips. Stage management by Justin McCombs. Sound by Douglas J. Borntrager. Fights by Drew Fracher. Set and lighting by Andrew Hungerford. Costumes by Heidi Jo Schiemer. With Sara Clark (Emilia/Nell), Charlie Cromer (Artesius/Wooer), Giles Davies (Theseus), Jim Hopkins (Gaoler), Justin King (Valerius), Matt Lytle (Palamon), Miranda McGee (Gaoler’s Daughter/Queen), Caitlin McWethy (Country Girl/Woman/Queen #2), Kelly Mengelkoch (Hippolyta), Maggie Lou Rader (Country Girl/Doctor/Queen #3), Paul Riopelle (Schoolmaster), Zach Schute (Arcite), Brent Vimtrup (Prithius), and others. With its 2014 production of The Two Noble Kinsmen, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company became one of five American theaters to complete a 38-play canon. Set in ancient Athens with modest costumes and set, this production focused on complicated personal relationships. It foregrounded strong women and presented a group of likeable characters’ comical and devastating attempts to find love. The production began not with the text’s prologue but with a radiant Emilia scattering rose petals and singing about virginity at her sister’s wedding. Theseus and Hippolyta held hands and exchanged loving looks, and with no others present but Prithius (as the name was spelled by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company), the moment seemed intimate and without pomp. It highlighted Emilia’s single state and the widowed queens’ amplified role. The latter entered wearing black shawls and with thick mascara streaks from their eyes to their jaws—a striking contrast to the other characters, who wore light, airy togas. Moving together across the stage, they forced Theseus into a corner, and later they controlled the fates of Palamon and Arcite. During the battle in act one, they stood on a raised platform upstage and directed the action with sweeping gestures. As the battle drew to a close, they painted Palamon and Arcite’s faces with blood. Meanwhile, the actresses playing Emilia and Hippolyta donned armor and marched in the battle, an action that alluded to their Amazonian past. Surrounded and led by these powerful women, Theseus appeared neither harsh nor unwavering, but simply one of many characters trying to navigate a perplexing world. Although we first met Palamon and Arcite in a bathhouse wearing only towels, their interactions exhibited little of the homoeroticism hinted at in the playtext. They stood apart while lamenting their fate in prison, [End Page 503] imbued their lines with irony, and embraced only with the occasional one-armed hug or manly hand clasp. Because the production omitted their most suggestive language, such as Arcite’s line, “We are one another’s wife” (2.2.80), they seemed comforted more by escaping Creon than by each other. Yet the production represented other same-sex encounters as erotically charged. Prithius demonstrated his love for Theseus with devoted looks and strong embraces. The effeminate First Countryman screwed up his face in disgust when mentioning his wife and gaped at Arcite while talking heatedly about his body. Emilia and her maid shared the most erotic moment. The maid stroked Emilia’s hand as she said, “I could lie down, I am sure” (2.2.152). Emilia gently placed a flower between her breasts, and they eagerly ran off together. Emilia had earlier spoken of Flavinia with similar playfulness and joy. The actors playing Palamon and Arcite worked to distinguish them from one another. Both fell for Emilia with the same dumbstruck expression and afterwards spoke with exaggerated anger that made many lines comic, such as Arcite’s “You are mad” and Palamon’s absurdly defiant “I must be” (2.2.204). But Palamon especially appeared as a petulant boy as he whined and flailed his arms, and Emilia preferred Arcite. She flirted at their initial meeting and watched him with bemusement and intrigue. She did not display the same interest in Palamon. When Palamon burst into the scene and declared his love, Theseus turned to Emilia quizzically, and she shook her head, indicating that she did not know him and was puzzled by his behavior. The omission of Emilia’s speech about her slight...

No Poetry From the Past: The Archaeology of Moses Finley’s Ancestral Constitution

Moses I. Finley’s Cambridge Inaugural Lecture, The Ancestral Constitution (1971), contains unexpected and significant traces of Moses Finkelstein’s collaboration with Frankfurt School intellectuals and of his political activity on the American left. Thus, we learn that Max Horkheimer’s analysis of political authority in "Egoism and the Freedom Movement" (1936) influenced The Ancestral Constitution ’s grim portrayal of historical misrepresentation in ancient Athens, seventeenth-century England, and the United States. Equally, the lecture provides glimpses, perhaps unintended, of Finley’s left-wing political activity in the 1930s.

Provocation: James Ahnt Aune, Master Rhetorician

Part of what made James Arnt Aune's scholarship so compelling was its style as well as content. Academic writing tends to be impersonal, only occasionally acknowledging the author, and creates its ethos through a formal, somewhat literary style. To be accepted and understood as academic writing, and to generate the ethos appropriate to such writing, the style needs to be serious and formal. And often pretty boring. However, there are a few--very few--academic writers who manage to flout these stylistic constraints, producing writing that is simultaneously formal and casual, closely argued, yet utilizing the callbacks of the standup comedian and the riffing of the rock guitarist. Jim Aune's prose did all of these things. He produced scholarship that was as rigorous and insightful as it was engaging and entertaining. In his work, the personal, pedagogical, and political came together as one, offering readers the chance to know him through his prose. One distinctive aspect of Aune's prose style was its movement between high and low cultural references. In the realm of high culture, for example, he pulled lessons on the democratic political style from musings on the period styles of classical music--baroque, romantic, and modern--nodding to Beethoven's and Schoenberg's use of dissonance along the way (Aune, 2008a). In the realm of low culture, he began a chapter in his 2001 book Selling the Free Market with an imaginary, Libertarian-themed episode of Star Trek: Next Generation: Captain's Log: Stardate 13256.8. Enterprise is on its way to Planet Libertas in the Hobbesian system. We have received a distress call from a Robert Nozick, who claims to be a professor at a Harvard University, and he is demanding that we rescue him. (p. 77) Of course, to appreciate the richness of this reference, one needs to have some knowledge of Star Trek, Thomas Hobbes, and Robert Nozick. Indeed, this is where Aune's cultural references truly displayed their brilliance. He adeptly blended high and low culture into often-humorous, always-revealing scholarly insights. Consider the movement of his essay The Politics of Rhetorical Studies: Piacular Rite (Aune, 2006), which positioned the study of rhetoric as a form of mourning for the failed quest to incorporate the lost desire signified by the Athenian polis (p. 69). On the second page of the essay, Aune captured the Romantic longing for ancient Athens by quoting--first in the original German, then in English translation--Friedrich von Schiller's The Gods of Greece. presence of the German verses (not to mention the unusual word in the title) mark the essay as a formal, refined, perhaps even elitist take on nostalgia. quotation from Proust on the following page reinforces this appearance. But by the end of the essay, Aune had trodden from the snobbish to the familiar, as his insights on the status anxiety of rhetorical studies culminated with a personal reference and a set of song lyrics. A few weeks ago, when turned fifty, Aune recounted, I ran across the following song from Bob Dylan's Love and Theft, entitled 'Mississippi.' In its mature acceptance of mourning and loss, Dylan's song captures something of a fitting mood for the piacular rites of the rhetorician facing the uncertainties of a new century and a radically changing university context. Aune then demonstrates how weaving works, by offering twenty lines from Dylan's song and changing the chorus slightly to make his point: Well got here following the southern star / crossed that river just to be where you are / Only one thing did wrong / Stayed in rhetorical studies a day too long (p. 75). To Aune, academic writing was supposed to be continuous with one's life--close to the rhythms, peculiarities, sorrows, and joys that one experienced on a daily basis. Humor was one of the many stylistic tools he used to tie his scholarship to the rhythms of life, and his humor was often dry and biting, in a typically Scandinavian way. …