Antiquities Lecture: Citizen Participation in Ancient Athens
October 13 @ 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Date: Sunday October 13, 2024
Time: 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Location: Tampa Museum of Art
Classical Antiquities Lecture: Citizen Participation in Ancient Athens
With the U.S. Presidential Elections in November 2024, it is fitting to return to the birthplace of democracy, Athens, around the 6th through 4th century bce. Keynote speaker Dr. Jennifer Roberts traces the political reforms that led to the breakdown of the power of the nobility and the rise of popular government within the larger context of ancient Greek history. As well as discussing the women and the enslaved population excluded from participation in government, Dr. Roberts will explore the Athenians’ rationale for denying citizenship to immigrants and their descendants in the context of anxiety about immigration in the United States, beginning with the founding era. Among those who did belong to the citizen body, she will ask how the Athenians arranged to involve men (not women) of all social classes in government. Identifying eight strategies for maximizing citizen participation, she will explore how the Athenians’ approach might be adapted to the large nation-states of the modern world, the United States in particular.
Lectures are offered:
- Art+ Museum Members: Free
- Not-Yet-Members: $25
- College Students: Free
Dr. Jennifer Tolbert Roberts is Professor of Classical Languages and History in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures at the City College of New York and the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is particularly interested in ancient political theory, both democratic and anti-democratic, war and peace in antiquity, as well as Greek historiography, including authors such as Herodotus and Thucydides. Among her most significant publications are Accountability in Athenian Government (Wisconsin, 1982), Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton, 1994), The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece (Oxford, 2017), and most recently Out of One Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture (Princeton, 2024). Additionally, she is co-author of the popular textbook Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History (4th ed., Oxford, 2018).
Presenting Sponsors: Bill Zewadski and Belinda Dumont
Exhibition Sponsor: Duckwall Foundation
Athenian Acropolis
Unknown photographer, 1875
Albumen print, 8 × 10 ¼ inches
Tampa Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. William Knight Zewadski, 1999.093