Humans, among Other Classical Animals

161 Pages·2022·2.826 MB·English

by  Ashley Clements

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 23/09/21, SPi
Humans, among Other
Classical Animals
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 23/09/21, SPi
POSTCLASSICAL INTERVENTIONS
General Editors: Lorna Hardwick and James I. Porter
Postclassical Interventions aims to reorient the meaning of antiquity across and
beyond the humanities. Building on the success of Classical Presences, this
complementary series features shorter- length monographs designed to provoke
debate about the current and future potential of classical reception through
fresh, bold, and critical thinking.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 23/09/21, SPi
Humans, among Other
Classical Animals
ASHLEY CLEMENTS
1
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1
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Preface
Thirty years ago, James Redfield’s quasi- biographical comparison of Classics
and anthropology briefly advocated in closing the need for anthropology
to ‘come to terms’ with its Greek sources or risk ‘inhabit[ing] a cultural
illusion’.1 For the sake of throwing its subjects into starkest relief, his
article was unashamedly anchored to disciplinary caricatures (particu-
larism vs. generalism, philological detail vs. holistic systems and struc-
tures), but it thereby anticipated a significant aspect of anthropology’s
own programme of self- criticism of the last two decades.2
This small book might be read as developing Redfield’s enjoinder
both within, but now also beyond the academy, wherever understand-
ings of humans and the world we share with other animals are at stake.
It is not an introductory history of interaction between academic dis cip-
lines. Unlike the story that is most commonly told about the Classics’
entanglements with anthropology, it is not a brief history of borrowing.3
It is a book of encounters. It offers readings of just four moments in
which the dynamics of Western figurations informed by Classical con-
cepts are visible. Those moments can be connected in a variety of ways.
But they are presented here only with enough historical context to sup-
port our larger narrative arc. They are all, in different ways, exemplary.
1 Redfield (1991) 23. 2 Programme of self- criticism, see my Chapter 4.
3 Brief history of borrowing narratives or analyses, see e.g. Kluckhohn (1961); Finley
(1975); Cartledge (1994); Ackerman (2007); Kindt (2009); Siapkas (2012). The Classical inter-
est in using anthropology to explain or defamiliarize the Greeks or in the ‘comparative anthro-
pology’ of the ancient world: explaining ancient cultures, see e.g. Humphreys (1978) 21; Sissa
(1997); Martin (2008); defamiliarization, see e.g. Humphreys (1993) 1 (but also emphasizing
self- reflexive defamiliarization), Cartledge (1993) 201; ‘comparative anthropology’ of ancient
cultures, see e.g. Detienne (2007), (2008); recent resurgent Classical interest in ‘comparativism’
(self- aware comparison as a disciplinary and historical practice), see e.g. Lloyd (2015); Holmes
(2016); Gagné, Goldhill, and Lloyd (2018). Nineteenth- century disciplinary entanglements
between Classics and anthropology of the sort exemplified by e.g. J.G. Frazer, J.E. Harrison,
R.R. Marett and many of their contemporaries, and typically studied in existing scholarship on
Classics and early anthropology, see e.g. Ackerman (2002); cf. Varto (2018) for a recent contri-
bution with broader scope.
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vi Preface
But our contention is that any four moments of European engagement
with the question of the human could be found from our selected his-
torical periods and, read from the perspective of this book, would reveal
similar dynamics.4
They will take us on a journey through history and between worlds.
And here is their promise. For those who follow them attentively, the
modern world to which they will return us will not quite be as familiar
as it once was, the lives we lead, not quite as necessary as they once felt,
the ways of thinking we thoughtlessly reduplicate, not quite as essential.
Their end is to reveal the insidious implication of the Classics in the
concepts and structures of thought that have led us to our present his-
torical moment. But their journey is equally our own and its full impli-
cations are deliberately left open.
They extend their invitation to all, both the Classically and the
anthropologically inclined. But against those who comfortably celebrate
the Classics while decrying the modern world they have helped make,
they will most reward those excited to think new vistas within and
beyond the Classical and open to being persuaded of the need to do so.5
They will turn us to the past worlds implicit in our present horizons, but
they are really a primer for futures as yet uncharted, for new prospects,
new peculiarities, new possibilities.
4 Many other ‘moments’ of European anthropological Classical entanglement would be
possible to explore (perhaps especially from the nineteenth century on); and our earlier
‘moments’ are not selected as mere teleological antecedents of those historically later. History
of the idea of the ‘West’ and ‘Western’ and its relation to the European, see Hall (1992).
5 Here and throughout, the ‘Classical’ is necessarily broadly defined; for a critical discussion
of the (constructed and multivalent) concept, see Porter (2006), esp. 52: ‘the classical is neces-
sarily a moving object constituted by its interpreters, variously and over time’.
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Acknowledgements
Twenty five years ago in London Charles Stewart taught me that anthro-
pology is ‘a world of many worlds’ and that anthropology and Classics
have always been entwined. Everything here is indebted to him. My col-
leagues and students have been as inspirational in their enthusiasm for
an untraditional pluriverse of Classics as they have been in their demon-
strations of the anthropological lives one can go on to live from Classical
beginnings. The excellent work of a host of scholars across several dis-
cip lines has been essential to this project: Tim Ingold, John Miller,
Richard Nash, Kate Nichols, Rachel Poliquin, Sadiah Qureshi, Efram
Seri- Shriar, especially. Professor Harold J. Clark generously shared his
research on Jacob de Bondt (or ‘Bontius’). Anna Chahoud, Monica Gale,
Brian McGing, and Robin Osborne all shared sage approaches to publi-
cation. Anna Chahoud, Monica Gale, and Christine Morris all very
kindly suffered early chapter drafts and snippets, while Olaf Almqvist,
Tim Hill, Pete Liddel, and Brian McGing offered extremely helpful com-
ments on the entirety. Anonymous Press readers had astute criticisms
and Charlotte Loveridge and the series editors had the courage and
vision to back the idea when no one else did. Céline Louasli, Vasuki
Ravichandran, and Ian Brookes (whose copy-e diting has manifestly
improved the final thing) gracefully guided me through production, and
my dad, Alan Clements, expertly came to my rescue with the illustra-
tions. Kate has had the particular pleasure of microscopically seeing the
whole thing develop. She continues to enjoy hearing me talk at very
great length about the peculiar advantages of a very short book.
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Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Prologue 1
1. Horsing around the Americas 5
2. Analogous Apes 35
3. Breathless Beasts and Stuffed Savages 54
4. From Organic Societies to Unnatural Lives 98
Epilogue 121
Bibliography 125
Index 143