The Trauma at Home: Wives of Returning Veterans in Greek Tragedy

Drawing on feminist theory and recent research on the psychological effects of war trauma (especially PTSD), this study recovers a neglected aspect of women’s experiences of war in fifth-century Athens. Three plays by the three Athenian playwrights depict the social and personal concerns of veterans’ wives in ways that other evidence from the ancient world does not. By investigating the depiction of wives’ experiences of their husbands’ homecoming, this dissertation illuminates important aspects of the plays themselves, such as their themes, characters, and structure, as well as Athenian views on war and its potential to disrupt marital relationships. This study devotes a chapter each to Penelope in the Odyssey, Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Deianeira in Sophocles’ Trachiniae, and Megara in Euripides’ Heracles. Each work addresses a different scenario of the veteran’s return and examines potential problems for the family from the perspective of the wife. Chapter 1 situates the project within the framework of existing scholarship on epic and tragedy. In addition, it examines evidence for the military revolution in fifth-century Athens, which allowed large-scale mobilization of troops for the first time in Greek history. Chapter 2, on Penelope, surveys the importance for later tragedies of the epic paradigm of the waiting wife. Chapter 3 explores the perspective of Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon. Although Clytemnestra is portrayed as monstrous in her vengeance, she also articulates clearly the waiting wife’s concerns, drawing on tropes from the Odyssey, in her parody of a faithful wife’s speech. Chapter 4 analyzes the Trachiniae and shows how Deianeira’s past incidents of sexual trauma continue to affect her as she works to heal the rift between herself and her veteran husband. Chapter 5 argues that Euripides’ Heracles dramatizes veteran domestic violence and the lack of cause and effect between the actions of a heroic waiting wife, Megara, and the death of her and her children at her husband’s hands. Chapter 6 surveys the conclusions of the study with a discussion of waiting wives’ concerns in both comedy and tragedy.Doctor of Philosoph

Climate, Environment and Food Connections – Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Societal Resilience. International Workshop 19–21 September 2023, Uppsala University

The workshop aims at interdisciplinary exchange concerning the drivers of climate and environmental change as well as the societal responses towards these changes across time and space. Through land use and food production human societies have been transforming their environments at least since the transition to agriculture (Southwest Asia/Europe ca. 9000-3500 BC). At the same time food production systems have always been vulnerable to climate and environmental change, which might alter important variables such as the availability of water, the presence of pests or other crucial ecosystem services. Understanding the causes and effects between the different factors of change, however, is far from straightforward and requires interdisciplinary research. Today, there is an unprecedented amount of data on past climate change, on human cultural evolution and human-environment interactions in different fields. Climate and environmental indicators (so called proxies) preserved in e.g., sediments, ice cores or speleothems help to trace past climate and environmental change. Archaeological data offers understandings of human behaviour and bio-cultural interactions in the deep past. Case studies and forecasts might reveal current and past vulnerabilities, mitigation strategies and adaptations to environmental change. Understanding the drivers of such dynamics and how human societies responded might help build resilient pathways for the future. The workshop seeks to address questions, such as: - What can we learn about the past climate from natural archives and what are their limitations? - How can human impact on the environment be disentangled from other drivers of environmental change? - How did and do societies react towards climate and environmental change and what helps to build resilience? - How did and does climate change affect food-systems and what can be learned from past and present examples

Realising consilience: How better communication between archaeologists, historians and natural scientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean

This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there are a number of similarities in the fundamental methodology between history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past (“palaeoenvironmental sciences”), due to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist. The three research traditions, for instance, employ specific narrative structures as a means of communicating research results. We thus present and compare the narratives characteristic of each discipline; in order to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary exchange, we must first understand how each deals with the societal impacts of climatic change. In the second part of the paper, we focus our discussion on the four major practical issues that hinder communication between the three disciplines. These include terminological misunderstandings, problems relevant to project design, divergences in publication cultures, and differing views on the impact of research. Among other recommendations, we suggest that scholars from the three disciplines should aim to create a joint publication culture, which should also appeal to a wider public, both inside and outside of academia.This paper emerged as a result of a workshop at Costa Navarino and the Navarino Environmental Observatory (NEO), Greece in April 2014, which addressed Mediterranean Holocene climate and human societies. The workshop was co-sponsored by IGBP/PAGES, NEO, the MISTRALS/PaleoMex program, the Labex OT-Med, the Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University, and the Institute of Oceanography at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research. We also acknowledge funding from the National Science Centre, Poland, within the scheme of the Centre's postdoctoral fellowships (DEC-2012/04/S/HS3/00226 (A.I)); the Swedish Research Council (grant numbers 421-2014-1181 (E.W.) and 621-2012-4344 (K.H.)); CSIC-Ramón y Cajal post-doctoral program RYC-2013-14073 and Clare Hall College, Cambridge, Shackleton Fellowship (B.M.); the EU/FP7 Project ‘Sea for Society’ (Science and Society - 2011-1, 289066)

Samhällsomdaning – kris,kollaps eller möjlighet?

Domesticated Landscapes of the Peloponnese (DoLP

Samhällsomdaning – kris,kollaps eller möjlighet?

Domesticated Landscapes of the Peloponnese (DoLP

Thinking the Bronze Age : Life and Death in Early Helladic Greece

This is a study about life and death in prehistory, based on the material remains from the Early Bronze Age on the Greek mainland (c. 3100-2000 BC). It deals with the settings of daily life in the Early Helladic period, and the lives and experiences of people within it. The analyses are based on practices of Early Helladic individuals or groups of people and are context specific, focussing on the interaction between people and their surroundings. I present a picture of the Early Helladic people living their lives, moving through and experiencing their settlements and their surroundings, actively engaged in the appearance and workings of these surroundings. Thus, this is also a book about relationships: how the Early Helladic people related to their surroundings, how results of human activity were related to the natural topography, how parts of settlements and spheres of life were related to each other, how material culture was related to its users, to certain activities and events, and how everything is related to the archaeological remains on which we base our interpretations. Life and death in Early Helladic Greece is the overall subject, and this double focus is manifested in a loose division of the book into two halves. The first deals primarily with settlement contexts, while the second is devoted to mortuary contexts. After an introduction, the study is divided into three parts, dealing with the house, the past in the past and the mortuary sphere, comprising three stops along the continuum of life and death within Early Helladic communities. Subsequently, mortuary practices provide the basis for a concluding part of the book, in which the analysis is taken further to illustrate the interconnectedness of different parts of Early Helladic life (and death)