Dec 5th, 2016 - James F. McGlew, “Athenian Democratic Equality and Sortition” (Si-mian Lectures on Humanities No. 325)

2016-11-28  

Title: Athenian Democratic Equality and Sortition

Lecturer: James F. McGlew (Professor, Department of Classics, RutgersUniversity)

Chairperson: ZHANG Lili (Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University)

Date: 3 pm, December  5th, 2016 (Monday)

Venue: Room 5103, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU

Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU

  

Abstract of the Lecture:

The Athenian democracy was as much a way of distributing political power, as a way to understand (and perform) citizen identity. If democratic equality is best understood as a political cultural process in which citizens look for a significant sameness – how does that process figure into the managing of a city? To answer this question we turn to the idea of sortition (that is, the lottery) and to a new primary source – Plato’s long late work, The Laws. Josiah Ober has recently suggested that the lottery was a tool perfectly designed for practical political education: younger, less informed citizens worked side-by-side with their more experienced and older fellows; in the process, they were able to learn the workings of the democracy and how to participate effectively in the demos and council, where, for Ober, they do their really important political work.

  

Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:

Prof. James F. McGlew, born in 1955, Department of Classics, RutgersUniversity. Ph.D (1986) Social Thought, University  of Chicago. His works include Equality and the Athenian Democratic Imagination (work in progress), Citizens on Stage: Comedy and Political Culture in the Athenian Democracy, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2002; Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993 (Paperback, Nov. 1996); Performing the Politics of European Comic Drama, special issue of European Studies Journal (co-edited with Susan Carlson, 2001-2); as well as many papers.