Giovanna Ceserani

Giovanna Ceserani works on the classical tradition with an emphasis on the intellectual history of classical scholarship, historiography and archaeology from the eighteenth century onwards. She is interested in the role that Hellenism and Classics played in the shaping of modernity and, in turn, in how the questions we ask of the classical past originate in specific modern cultural, social and political contexts.

Her book Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Graecia and the making of modern archaeology is to appear for OUP in June 2011. Her current book project concerns the emergence of modern histories of ancient Greece; she is now also writing on the transformations of antiquarianism in the eighteenth century and on modern travels to ancient lands. Her interest in travel is engaging new digital approaches with a focus on the Grand Tour for the Stanford digital humanities project Mapping the Republic of Letters (http://republicofletters.stanford.edu/)

Selected Publications

‘Classical Culture for a Classical Country: Vincenzo Cuoco and the Greek past in modern Italy’ in S. Stephens and P. Vasunia eds., Classics and National Cultures, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York (2010) 59-77.

‘Wilamowitz and stratigraphy in 1873: A case study in the history of archaeology’s ‘Great Divide’’ in J. Nordblach and N. Schlanger eds., Archives, Ancestors, Practices. Archaeology in the Light of its History, Barghahn Books, Oxford and New York (2008) 75-88.

‘Narrative, Interpretation, and Plagiarism in Mr. Robertson’s 1778 History of Ancient
Greece’ in Journal of the History of Ideas 66.3 (2005) 413-436.

Publications - On the Web

‘Modern Histories of Ancient Greece: genealogies, contexts and eighteenth-century narrative histories’ in A. Lianeri ed., The Western Time of Ancient History: Historiographical Encounters with the Greek and Roman Pasts forthcoming for Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK.
http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/papers/authorAL/ceserani/ceserani.html
 

Response to J. Schnapp's "Titus Livy and the Corporativist City" in Archaeologies of the Modern special issue of Modernism/Modernity 11:1 (2004) 105-108.

Review of A. De Jorio, Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity. A Translation of La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano with introduction and notes by Adam KendonBMCR, 2003.03.34