Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome: Representations and Reactions

This volume examines emotional trauma in the ancient world, focusing on literary texts from different genres (epic, theatre, lyric poetry, philosophy, historiography) and archaeological evidence. The material covered spans geographically from Greece and Rome to Judaea, with a chronological range from about 8th c. bce to 1st c. ce.

The collection is organized according to broad themes to showcase the wide range of possibilities that trauma theory offers as a theoretical framework for a new analysis of ancient sources. It also demonstrates the various ways in which ancient texts illuminate contemporary problems and debates in trauma studies.

Andromache Karanika is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Irvine, U.S.A. She is the author of Voices at Work: Women, Performance and Labor (2014) and has co-authored a textbook on Modern Greek.

Vassiliki Panoussi is Professor of Classical Studies at William & Mary, U.S.A. She is the author of Vergil’s Aeneid and Greek Tragedy: Ritual, Empire, and Intertext (2009), and Brides, Mourners, Bacchae: Women’s Rituals in Roman Literature (2019).