This volume presents an essential but underestimated role that Dionysus played in Greek and Roman political thought. Written by an interdisciplinary team of scholars, the volume covers the period from archaic Greece to the late Roman Empire. The reader can observe how ideas and political themes rooted in Greek classical thought were continued, adapted and developed over the course of history. The authors (including four leading experts in the field: Cornelia Isler-Kerényi, Jean-Marie Pailler, Richard Seaford andRichard Stoneman) reconstruct the political significance of Dionysus by examining different types of evidence: historiography, poetry, coins, epigraphy, art and philosophy. They discuss the place of the god in Greek city-state politics, explore the long tradition of imitating Dionysus that ancient leaders, from Alexander the Great to the Roman emperors, manifested in various ways, and shows how the political role of Dionysus was reflected in Orphism and Neoplatonist philosophy. Dionysus and Politics provides an excellent introduction to a fundamental feature of ancient political thought which until now has been largely neglected by mainstream academia. The book will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars interested in ancient politics and religion.

First published in 2000. Although frequently invoked by philosophers and political theorists, the theory of negativity has received remarkably little sustained attention. Negativity and Politics: Dionysus and dialectics from Kant to poststructuralism is the first full length study of this crucial problematic within philosophy and political theory. Diana Coole clearly and skilfully shows how the problem of negativity lies at the heart of philosophical and political debate. First, she explores the meaning of negativity as it appears in modern and postmodern thinking. Second, she sets out the significance of negativity for politics and our understanding of what constitutes the political. A key theme of Negativity and Politics is the recurring hostility between the dialectical use of negativity found in Hegel and running through Marxism and critical theory, and the Dionysian use of negativity as developed by Nietzsche and found in important strands of French thought. Diana Coole shows how the appropriation of negativity in both cases threatens but also informs our understanding of politics and the political. A fascinating and bold intervention in political theory and philosophy, Negativity and Politics will be of interest to all those in politics, philosophy and contemporary social theory.

Reconstructs the origins of the idea that social conflict, and not concord, makes political communities powerful.

Friedrich Nietzsche has had an enormous influence on the arts, politics, and even the occult realm. Moreover, this influence has not waned in the contemporary era. Despite this, Nietzsche remains widely misunderstood, primarily when he discusses religion and politics. Nietzsche: The Antichrist & the Antipolitical highlights the finer points of Nietzsche's opinions on religion, culture, and politics from an unbiased and neutral perspective. The first section of the book explores the specific significance of Dionysus in both Greek mythology and the works of earlier German authors. For Nietzsche, Dionysus is not just a pagan god, but a symbol of the Will, a primordial power that is eternally reborn, which Nietzsche identifies with the Antichrist. Nietzsche: The Antichrist & the Antipolitical then explains how Nietzsche's portrayal of Dionysus is integral to understanding his opinions on religion and how it has altered Western culture. The second half of the book concentrates on how Nietzsche's views on religion and mythology extend into political issues, and ultimately, his antipolitical philosophy. Walter Kaufmann once described Nietzsche as an "antipolitical individual who seeks self-perfection far from the modern world." However, Nietzsche's antipolitical individualism entails much more than merely abstaining from politics and being an individualist. Nietzsche's antipolitical stance is part of his broader cultural agenda, which Georg Brandes referred to as aristocratic radicalism.

This book provides a unique panorama of this challenging area of Greek literature, combining literary perspectives with historical issues and material culture.

"Who is Dionysus? The god of ecstasy and terror, of wildness and of the most blessed deliverance, and the mad god whose appearance sends mankind into madness. In this classic study of the myth and cult of Dionysus, Walter F. Otto recreates the theological world of ancient Greek religion. Otto's provocative starting point is to accept the immanent reality of the gods. To understand the cult of Dionysus, it is necessary to reimagine the original vision of the god. Otto challenges us to understand the power of this vision not as a bloodless abstraction but as a force animating belief, to see the myth and art of Dionysus as a passionate search to regain the power of the lost gof."--Back cover.

This classic work of creative criticism from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argues that ancient Greek drama represents the highest form of art ever produced. In the first section of the book, Nietzsche presents an in-depth analysis of Athenian tragedy and its many merits. In the second section, Nietzsche contrasts the refinement of classical tragedy with what he regards as the cultural wasteland of the nineteenth-century.

Because the histories of theater, politics, art, poetry, athletics, and philosophy tend to be studied separately, it is easy to forget how interconnected they were in Western Greece--the coastal areas of Southern Italy and Sicily settled by Hellenes in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. Hieron I of Syracuse may be remembered as a tyrant, but his political power was inseparable from the theater. Hieron was the patron of the dramatist Epicharmus, who was as much a philosopher as Xenophanes, who was a poet in his own right like Pindar, who was also supported by the tyrant and whose work---like all the others'--was performed for political ends. Even Plato's adventures in Syracuse can be seen as a performance of his own political poetry. This collection of essays from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including archaeology, classics, philosophy, and art history, offers a refreshing new outlook on the ancient cultural interactions of politics and performance in Western Greece.

While most work on Dionysus is based on Greek sources, this collection of essays examines the god’s Roman and Italian manifestations. Nine contributions address Bacchus’ appearance at the crossroads of Greek and Roman cultures, tracing continuities and differences between literary and archaeological sources for the god. The essays offer coverage of Dionysus in Roman art, Italian epigraphy; Latin poetry including epic, drama and elegy; and prose, including historiography, rhetorical and Christian discourse. The introduction offers an overview of the presence of Dionysus in Italy from the archaic to the imperial periods, identifying the main scholarly trends, with treatment of key Dionysian episodes in Roman history and literature. Individual chapters address the reception of Euripides’ Bacchae across Greek and Roman literature from Athens to Byzantium; Dionysus in Roman art of the archaic and Augustan periods; the god’s relationship with Fufluns and Liber in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE; Dionysian associations; Bacchus in Cicero; Ovid’s Tristia 5.3; Bacchus in the writings of Christian Latin writers. The collection sheds light on a relatively understudied aspect of Dionysus, and will stimulate further research in this area.

Presents a landmark study combining key specialists around the region with well-established international scholars, from a wide range of disciplines.