Dynamic Reading Studies in the Reception of Epicureanism

Dynamic Reading examines the reception history of Epicurean philosophy through a series of eleven case studies, which range chronologically from the latter days of the Roman Republic to late twentieth-century France and America. Rather than attempting to separate an original Epicureanism from its later readings and misreadings, this collection studies the philosophy together with its subsequent reception, focusing in particular on the ways in which it has provided terms and conceptual tools for defining how we read and respond to texts, artwork, and the world more generally. Whether it helps us to characterize the "swerviness" of literary influence, the transformative effects of philosophy, or the "events" that shape history, Epicureanism has been a dynamic force in the intellectual history of the West. These essays seek to capture some of that dynamism.

Introduction, Brooke Holmes and W. H. Shearin; 1. Haunting Nepos: Atticus and the Performance of Roman Epicurean Death, W. H. Shearin; 2. Epicurus's Mistresses: Pleasure, Authority, and Gender in the Reception of the Kuriai Doxai in the Second Sophistic, Richard Fletcher; 3. Reading for Pleasure: Disaster and Digression in the First Renaissance Commentary on Lucretius, Gerard Passannante; 4. Discourse ex nihilo: Epicurus and Lucretius in Sixteenth-century England, Adam Rzepka; 5. Engendering Modernity: Epicurean Women from Lucretius to Rousseau, Natania Meeker; 6. Oscillate and Reflect: La Mettrie, Materialist Physiology, and the Revival of the Epicurean Canonic, James Steintrager; 7. Sensual Idealism: The Spirit of Epicurus and the Politics of Finitude in Kant and H?lderlin, Anthony Adler; 8. The Sublime, Today?, Glenn Most; 9. From Heresy to Nature: Leo Strauss's History of Modern Epicureanism, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft; 10. Epicurean Presences in Foucault's The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Alain Gigandet; 11. Deleuze, Lucretius, and the Simulacrum of Naturalism, Brooke Holmes; Bibliography; Index

Brooke Holmes is Assistant Professor of Classics at Princeton University W. H. Shearin is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Miami