CRGR - Classics between...

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CRGR Project:
Classics between National,
European and World Cultures

Greek Euro Coin

The lack of an ancient symbol stronger than a maiden abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull underlines the fragility as well as the relatively recent emergence of the concept of Europe. With a number of European and Russian partners we are developing a project that addresses the question of how countries in Europe have used the Greek and Roman past to define or subvert regional, national, and pan-European identities. The current expansion of Europe–whether conceived economically, politically, or geographically–has profound implications for the study of Classics and Ancient History and the purposes it serves, and this project is intended to create a dialogue between classicists in all European traditions on their shared subject-matter and objectives. The culture and texts of ancient Greece were rediscovered, and the texts of both Greece and Rome first printed at a crucial moment in the history of European colonial enterprise and the formulation of the idea of Europe as a Christian entity. Once a cultural language in which a pan-European discourse could be conducted, knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome began to serve very different purposes with the emergence of the nation-state as the dominant model of political organisation, and the invention of historical traditions to legitimise the identities it required. But the idea of a collective European cultural heritage now has an equally problematic status in the light of postcolonial challenges to the artistic and intellectual canon and the emergence of the discipline of 'World Literature' on the theoretical scene. Can, should, and how will the 'European' Classics adapt to play a role in the globalisation of culture?

Vase Painting: Europa and Zeus