Polis Histories and Local Identities: Historiographical and Philosophical Innovations in the Age of Glocalization, c. 400-200 BCE
Name of applicant
Benjamin Pedersen
Institution
University of Glasgow
Amount
DKK 850,000
Year
2020
Type of grant
Internationalisation Fellowships
What?
This project investigates and re-evaluates ancient Greek local history, aiming to explain how the concept of localism was applied to historiography and to what extent this type of writing was grounded in the wider intellectual framework of Classical and Hellenistic thought. By placing this practice in the context of the historiographical and philosophical innovations of the fourth and third century BCE, the project will show how local history emerged organically from its historical and intellectual context. The project is based on the hypothesis that local historians constructed a local identity within the framework of the city state constantly blending objectives of preservation and (re)invention of the past.
Why?
While research into the city state as an institution has been carried out (e.g. The Copenhagen Polis Centre), scant attention has been paid to those narratives examining the history of individual city states. The project addresses this lack by offering an innovative research program that carries out a comprehensive and much-needed reinterpretation of the most important historiographical genre of the Hellenistic age. The project makes two important contributions that will profoundly change how the genre is perceived: 1) it applies a modern theoretical approach to interpret the ancient fragmentary material and 2) it advances the field of Greek historiography by connecting localism to the innovations of Aristotle, antiquarians, and chronographers.
How?
By drawing on the interdisciplinary theoretical concept of Intentionale Geschichte - i.e. the idea that every generation form a concept of their own history that supports their understanding of their own identity in the present - the aim is to examine how collective identity was constructed through the interpretation of decisive historical periods, events and individuals. The project is part of a new wave of memory studies focusing on how historical texts constructed a local community, how a group related its inner coherence to other entities, and what a society thought was important to pass on to the next generation. This approach will significantly improve our understanding of the numerous ways historians reassessed the past to construct an identity centered around the city state.