Achilles’ psyche

Lecture in Classics and Ancient History 

Did Achilles suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome? Is that even a validly formed question or does it border on the meaningless? Did Sophocles anticipate Stanley Milgram’s infamous ‘Experiments in Obedience to Authority’ in his Philoctetes?

This lecture will explore how the humanities have their own ways of investigating questions of the (social) psychology of a historical period. A keen understanding of the nature of the evidence afforded by literary representation is an essential element, as is the intersection of the humanities and insights from cognition studies.

Speaker:
Professor Ineke Sluiter FBA, Professor of Greek, Leiden University
Ineke Sluiter is Professor of Greek at Leiden University, and Academy Professor on behalf of the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Her work focuses on ancient ideas on language, ancient values, ‘anchoring innovation’, and currently also the intersection of the humanities and cognition studies. She was the recipient of the 2010 Spinoza Prize.

Chair:
Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill FBA, Honorary Professor of Roman Studies and Director of Research in Classics, University of Cambridge

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Image Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus © National Museums Scotland