Performing citizenship in Plato's Laws

Bibliographic Information

Performing citizenship in Plato's Laws

Lucia Prauscello

(Cambridge classical studies)

Cambridge University Press, 2017

  • : pbk

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Note

"First published 2014, first paperback edition 2017"--T.p. verso

Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-260) and indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In the Laws, Plato theorizes citizenship as simultaneously a political, ethical, and aesthetic practice. His reflection on citizenship finds its roots in a descriptive psychology of human experience, with sentience and, above all, volition seen as the primary targets of a lifelong training in the values of citizenship. In the city of Magnesia described in the Laws eros for civic virtue is presented as a motivational resource not only within the reach of the 'ordinary' citizen, but also factored by default into its educational system. Supporting a vision of 'perfect citizenship' based on an internalized obedience to the laws, and persuading the entire polity to consent willingly to it, requires an ideology that must be rhetorically all-inclusive. In this city 'ordinary' citizenship itself will be troped as a performative action: Magnesia's choral performances become a fundamental channel for shaping, feeling and communicating a strong sense of civic identity and unity.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Preliminaries
  • Part I. Performing Ordinary Virtue in Plato's Utopias: Citizenship, Desire and Intention: 1. Citizenship in Callipolis
  • 2. Citizenship in Magnesia
  • Part II. Citizenship and Performance in the Laws: 3. Choral performances, persuasion and pleasure
  • 4. Patterns of chorality in Magnesia
  • 5. Comedy and comic discourse in Magnesia
  • 6. Epilogue: on law, agency and motivation.

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