Cosmopoetics: Three Lectures on the Ecologies of Nature, Poetry, and Ethics – No. 1

Lecture No. 1: Introduction: Kosmopoiia + Biorhythms: The Bow and the Lyre (Heraclitus)

James Porter’s teaching and research has followed a few different trajectories. One is a study of Nietzsche’s thought, early and late (Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future and The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ (both Stanford University Press, 2000). Another is a study of models of aesthetic sensation, perception, and experience in ancient Greece and Rome, which he explored in The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece: Matter, Sensation, and Experience (Cambridge University Press, 2010; pbk. 2016). A continuation of this inquiry is The Sublime in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2016; pbk. 2020), which received the C. J. Goodwin Award of Merit from The Society for Classical Studies (2017). A further strand is Jewish literary and critical thought in authors from Spinoza to Freud, Adorno, and Arendt. His most recent book is Homer: The Very Idea  (University of Chicago Press, 2021; pbk. 2023), which captures some of his interest in classical reception studies. He is co-editor of the preeminent series in this field, “Classical Presences

Image credit: Bronze Figurine of a Kitharode (lyre player). Geometric Period 900-800 BC. Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Heraklion – Crete, Greece.