Galen and the World of Knowledge

Description

Galen is the most important medical writer in Graeco-Roman antiquity, and also extremely valuable for understanding Graeco-Roman thought and society in the second century AD. This volume of essays locates him firmly in the intellectual life of his period, and thus aims to make better sense of the medical and philosophical 'world of knowledge' that he tries to create. How did Galen present himself as a reader and an author in comparison with other intellectuals of his day? Above all, how did he fashion himself as a medical practitioner, and how does that self-fashioning relate to the performance culture of second-century Rome? Did he see medicine as taking over some of the traditional roles of philosophy? These and other questions are freshly addressed by leading international experts on Galen and the intellectual life of the period, in a stimulating collection that combines learning with accessibility.

Christopher Gill is Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter. His books include Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue (1996), which was awarded the Runciman prize in 1997; The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought (2006); and a number of edited volumes of essays. He is currently working on Naturalistic Psychology in Galen and Stoicism (2010). Tim Whitmarsh is E. P. Warren Praelector in Classics at Corpus Christi and Lecturer in Greek Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on the Greek literature of the Roman period, including Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation (2001) and The Second Sophistic (2005). He also edited Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire (with Jason Konig, 2007) and The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel (2008). John Wilkins is Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Exeter. Recent publications include The Boastful Chef (2000); Athenaeus and His World (edited with D. Braund, 2000); Food in the Ancient World (with Shaun Hill, 2006); and a number of articles and essays on food and medicine. He has also led a Wellcome Research Project on Galen's Simple Medicines.

'[This] will no doubt become an indispensable item in the bibliography of those working on second-century literature, medicine, philosophy and, more generally, culture.' The British Journal for the History of Science