Routledge Handbook of Classics, Colonialism, and Postcolonial Theory

This handbook explores the ways in which histories of colonialism and postcolonial thought and theory cast light on our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean world and the discipline of Classics, utilizing a wide body of case studies and providing avenues for future research and discussion.

It brings together chapters by a wide, international, and intersectional range of scholars coming from a variety of backgrounds and sub-disciplinary perspectives, and from across the chronological and geographical scope of Classics. Chapters cover the state of current research into ancient Mediterranean and South, Central, and West Asian histories. They provide case studies to illustrate both how postcolonial thought has already illuminated our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond, as well as its potential for the future. Chapters also provide opportunities for reflection on the current state of the discipline. An introduction by the volume editors offers a survey of the development of postcolonial theory, its relationship to other bodies of theory, and its connections to Classics. Toward the end of the book, three scholars with different career and disciplinary perspectives provide short reflections on the themes of the volume and the directions of future research.

The Routledge Handbook of Classics, Colonialism, and Postcolonial Theory offers an impressive collection of current research and thought on the subject for students and scholars in classical studies understood in its larger sense as well as in related disciplines such as Archaeology, Ancient History, Imperial History and the History of Colonialism, Reception Studies, and Museum Studies. For anyone interested in classical antiquity, it provides an engaging introduction to a potentially bewildering, but ultimately vital and enriching, body of thought and theory.

Katherine Blouin is a twelfth generation French settler born and raised in Québec City. She is currently Associate Professor of History and Classics at the University of Toronto and the lead editor of Everyday Orientalism. Her publications include Le conflit judéo-alexandrin de 38-41: l'identité juive à l'épreuve (2005), Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule (2014), as well as The Nile Delta: Histories from Antiquity to the Modern Period (editor, 2024). She is currently working on a book project entitled Inventing Alexandria.

Ben Akrigg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is the author of Population and Economy in Classical Athens (CUP 2019) and co-editor of Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Greek Comic Drama (CUP 2013).