Below are links to recent talks and essays, listed in descending chronological order. All items are copyright but may be quoted if credit is given. View my CV for a full list of my publications. You can contact me with any questions at wrconnor1@gmail.com.
Despite much argument we still do not know for sure where the Greek hexameter came from. But some ancient Greeks did, or thought they did. Pausanias the periegete leads us on the trail to an answer, and along the way introduces us to some not-to-be-forgotten poets.
Hyperbole seems to rule the roost these days, not least in American politics. How does this ancient and “figure of speech” work; what are its effect; and what are the most effective responses to it? It’s a case where ancient can learn from modern and vice versa.
Until the 1960s or so “populism” was restricted to a agrarian movement in late nineteenth century America. In recent years, however, it has eclipsed an older and, in my view, indispensable term, “demagogy,” to describe a form of political leadership now very much in evidence in the United States and abroad.
This essay looks at demagogy as it was understood by Aristophanes and Thucydides, the earliest writers to use the term, and explores the metaphor of the typhoon used for this type of leadership. That, I argue, helps explain the oscillations in policy of a modern demagogue such as Donald Trump.
Ancient writers, the authors of the Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and others recognized the tendency of demagogy to turn into autocracy. That is why a careful examination of demagogy is so important in our present situation.
"Pericles on Athenian Democracy." Classical World 111, no. 2 (2018): 165-175.
Understanding the role of democracy in Thucydides’ history depends to a large extent on 2.37.1 in the Periclean Funeral Oration. Four ostensibly minor stylistic features of the passage show that Thucydides represented Pericles as praising Athenian democracy but carefully embedding his comments in a wider discussion of Athenian mores (epitēdeumata) and characteristics (tropoi). These account for much of Athens’ endurance and resilience during the war but have the ironic effect of prolonging the war and increasing the loss and suffering it caused.
" …we...risk replicating, validating, and promulgating one of the gravest failings of the humanities as currently practiced – "presentism," that is, an exclusionary focus on the most highly modernized societies of the contemporary world, and the uncritical judging of the past by today’s interests and standards...."
Review of PacheA Moment's Ornament: The Poetics of Nympholepsy in Ancient Greece Mnemosyne 65 (2012) 882 - 84 ". . . Do such stories provide … a model for the actions of real-life nympholepts? . . . "
The Pygmies in the Cage: The Function of the Sublime in Longinus in D. Heiland and L. Rosenthal Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime: Disciplinary Assessment, The Teagle Foundation 2011