Sound and the Ancient Senses

Sound and the Ancient Senses makes a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of Sense Studies and, in particular, its application to the ancient world. Sound has important relevance to scholars of ancient literature and of its well-known sonorities but Sound and the Ancient Senses goes beyond this traditional topic to engage with sound in a wide range of aspects and areas of classical culture. It offers a new set of tools and perspectives for approaching the key question of the “orality” of ancient culture and the relation of oral performance and transmission to the circulation and uses of written texts.

Shane Butler is Nancy H. and Robert E. Hall Professor in the Humanities and Professor and Chair of Classics at Johns Hopkins University, USA. He is the author of The Ancient Phonograph (2015), and editor of Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception (2016). He is also co-editor, with Mark Bradley, of this series, as well as being co-editor, with Alex Purves, of its first volume, Synaesthesia and the Ancient Senses (2013).

Sarah Nooter is Associate Professor Classics and Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago, USA. She is the author of When Heroes Sing: Sophocles and the Shifting Soundscape of Tragedy (2012) and The Mortal Voice in the Tragedies of Aeschylus (2017).