Cosmopoetics: Three Lectures on the Ecologies of Nature, Poetry, and Ethics – No. 2

Lecture No. 2: Love, Strife, and the Roots of All Things (Empedocles)

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” (Oxford University Press, 2005– ).

Image credit: Artus Wolffort. The Four Elements. Before 1641. Oil on canvas. 158 x 200 cm, framed.