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Classics Series Lecture - Allannah Karas, Valparaiso University: "Not Quite Persuasion: Πειθώ and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece"

Event Type
Lecture
Sponsor
Department of the Classics
Location
Lucy Ellis Lounge, 1080 Foreign Languages Building, 707 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana
Date
Sep 6, 2019   2:00 pm  
Speaker
Allannah Karas, Valparaiso University
Cost
Free and open to the public.
Contact
Clara Bosak-Schroeder
E-Mail
cbosak@illinois.edu
Views
10
Originating Calendar
School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics Calendar

Abstract: From the fifth to the fourth centuries BCE, P/peithō (loosely translated, “persuasion”) emerges as central to early descriptions of Greek rhetoric. Gorgias and Plato use the abstract in their definitions of rhētorikē, and Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Aeschines refer to the goddess as an intercessor for civic oratory. Yet, the dramatists and poets variously stage P/peithō as a ruinous or healing force operating in both private and public situations. What, then does P/peithō precisely represent: a process of discursive reasoning, the erotic potency of a speaker or lover, or the moment of magical inducement itself? By examining her appearances in philosophical and sophistic discourses, drama, and poetry, I argue that, however we define P/peithō, the English term “persuasion” cannot adequately express her significance, nor the definitions of early Greek rhetoric of which she forms a part.

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