Literature Brown Bag: Clara Bosak-Schroeder

Speaker: Clara Bosak-Schroeder, PhD Candidate, Classical Studies
Title:  "Classical Antiquity Without Nature"

Abstract:
Environmental historians and ecocritics in Classical studies often assume that ancient writers thought of "nature" as a space -- i.e. "the natural world" -- from which human beings have been separated by culture. In this paper I investigate Greek physis and Roman natura in natural scientific writers from Aristotle to Pliny the Elder, arguing that these words denote a force and its effects rather than a romanticized space. I also consider the implications of my argument for studies of Greek and Roman "environmentalism" and the pastoral or rural ideal in ancient poetry.