PAW Fellow Lecture: The Aesthetics of Being a Citizen

This paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the representations of citizens and the normative discourses about their habitus and comportment in literary and some visual sources of Classical Athens. It argues that these representations had elitist connotations that were in conflict with egalitarian ideals developed in fifth-century Athens, and it explores some consequences this had for the political culture in the Athenian polity. In doing so, it contributes to current debates about the different conceptions of citizenship in Athens and other Greek poleis, to the much-debated interaction between elites and non-elites in Athenian democracy, and to the exploration of the political imaginary in contemporary political discourse.

Reception to Follow

Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Tübingen. He is a full member of the German Archaeological Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Commission for Ancient History and Epigraphy (AEK) in Munich, which he has chaired since 2023. His research focuses on the history of Late Antiquity, especially the fourth century, questions of statehood and state formation in the Roman Imperial period, Late Roman law, and spatial planning in the cultures of Archaic-Classical Greece.