Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China (Antiquity in Global Context)

This book examines the construction of space and place in early China and the ancient Mediterranean through the lens of performances conducted in specific locations. It highlights conceptions of place and performance, seeing both as crucial to the production of cultural meaning and communal cohesion, and as heavily dependent on the prevailing political culture. Whether urban or rural, global or local, central or fringe, public or private, real or imagined, theatrical or ritual, the places and performances highlighted serve to show both commonalities and differences between the ancient Mediterranean and early China. The range of places of comparison is also very diverse, including roads, gardens, neighbourhoods, hydraulic infrastructures, funerary performance, spectacles at court, and the everyday display of authority through clothing and fashion. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

HANS BECK is Professor and Chair of Greek History at the University of Münster and Adjunct Professor at McGill University, Montreal. He has published widely on local and global constellations in the ancient world, including Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China (Cambridge, co-edited with Griet Vankeerberghen). Among other distinctions, he is the recipient of the Anneliese Maier Research Prize, an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute.

GRIET VANKEERBERGHEN is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies of McGill University. She is co-editor of Chang'an 26 BCE: an Augustan Age in China (2015) and Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China (Cambridge, 2021).