Articles and Chapters by David Smith
R.F. Kennedy (ed.), Brill's Companion to the Reception of Aeschylus, 2017
F. De Angelis (ed.) Regionalism and Globalism in Antiquity: Exploring their Limits (Colloquia Antiqua 7), 2013
K. Bosher (ed.) Theater Outside Athens (Cambridge), 2012
This volume brings together archaeologists, art historians, philologists, literary scholars, poli... more This volume brings together archaeologists, art historians, philologists, literary scholars, political scientists, and historians to articulate the ways in which western Greek theater was distinct from that of the Greek mainland, and, at the same time, to investigate how the two traditions interacted. The chapters intersect and build on each other in their pursuit of a number of shared questions and themes: the place of theater in the cultural life of Sicilian and South Italian "colonial cities"; theater as a method of cultural self-identification; shared mythological themes in performance texts and theatrical vase-painting; and the reflection and analysis of Sicilian and South Italian theater in the work of Athenian philosophers and playwrights. Together, the chapters explore central problems in the study of western Greek theater. By gathering a range of perspectives and methods, this volume offers a wide-ranging examination of this hitherto neglected history.
Ancient West & East, 2010
The validity of comparing colonial contexts is problematised by a failure to agree on appropriate... more The validity of comparing colonial contexts is problematised by a failure to agree on appropriate theoretical models. However, a comparison of material constraints, social developments and native relations in the early colonial establishments of, for example, Greek Sicily and British North America reveals a number of empirical similarities and differences in the lived conditions within these (and presumably other) colonial settlements. Re-centring this debate allows assumptions about the secondary status of colonial narratives, histories and experiences which have sometimes guided scholarship to be reassessed 1
Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 2009
Syllecta Classica, 2004
Thucydides' claim that most Athenians were ignorant of the size and inhabitants of Sicily before ... more Thucydides' claim that most Athenians were ignorant of the size and inhabitants of Sicily before the Sicilian Expedition is demonstrably false. He is keenly aware that Athens has a great deal of information about Sicily, but its main sources are hearsay, gossip, and the poetic topoi that have been circulating on the dramatic stages. The historian uses this claim of ignorance as a rhetorical device to recreate in his readers, and thereby comment upon, the dangerously democratic epistemological conditions under which the Expedition was discussed and launched.
Book Reviews by David Smith
Ecokritike, 2024
From this book (a translation by Cory Stockwell of the 2022 French original), I was keen to absor... more From this book (a translation by Cory Stockwell of the 2022 French original), I was keen to absorb the mountain thoughts of a celebrated essayist expressed, I hoped, with the gravitas customary of the French theoretical perspective. I expected it would join the ranks of Marjorie Hope Nicholson's Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory, Susan Schrepfer's Nature's Altars, and Debarbieux and Rudaz's The Mountain, which have kindled a discussion on the relative role these alpine environments play as subjects and objects of different human perspectives. Pascal Bruckner's The Friendship of a Mountain brings that circle of altitude inquiry back round again to explore the modernist sensibilities of the older, white, well-off, cis-male mountaineer, presenting a sort of 'all climbers matter' autobiographical manifesto with something to offer academics and nonacademics alike. Within this enquiry, driven by the author's experience of mountain life, unfold glimpses into his rumination on several topics. These coalesce loosely into thirteen chapters on snow, climbing, cows, Switzerland (i.e., yodeling and watches whose "exorbitant price" prevents the author's collection from "acquiring too many"), tourism, tourists, alpine clothing and equipment, mountaineering emotions, wildlife, climate change, mortality, environmentalism, and the sublime. Recursive elements lead these themes to echo each other throughout the text, as when the author repeatedly evinces condescension towards crowds of amateur visitors or elite athletes. Interspersed passim are sudden, fascinating digressions into plants, animals, weather, and other aspects of natural history. A reluctant cohabitation with culture remains in tension with an irrepressible draw towards nature throughout. The book unfolds partially like what one would imagine of a conversation between John Muir and Edward Abbey if they met at a Swiss ski lodge: penetrating perspectives, aloofness, appreciation for the landscape, but most of all insightfulness into the environment's impact on and transformation of the human soul, all captured with a soaring, insistent lyricism that vibrates between macro and micro. Vignettes on alpine precipitation lead to marvel at the sound of snowflakes falling, processes of glaciation are compared to digestive mechanisms that spit out again what was taken in before, and the emotional contradictions involved in alpinism -where the
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Articles and Chapters by David Smith
Book Reviews by David Smith