Radical Formalisms
Reading, Theory, and the Boundaries of the Classical
Published on 24. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
312 pages
978-1-350-37747-9 (ISBN)
Description
The term "radical formalism" refers to strategies aimed at defamiliarising and revitalising conventional modes of formalistic reading and theorising form. These strategies disrupt and unsettle established norms while incorporating a metadiscursive awareness of their broader political implications. This volume presents a radical reconceptualisation of literary works from Greek and Roman antiquity. Engaging in an ongoing dialogue with critical theory and postcritique, as well as drawing inspiration from traditions rooted in Black art, poetry and philosophy-both directly and indirectly connected to the classical tradition-the essays in this collection explore subversions of canonical norms and resistances to the hegemony of textual order.
This collection not only provides new, provocative insights into a corpus of texts that has exerted a lasting impact on modern literature and philosophy, but also challenges current interpretive methods, recasting the very practice of reading in relation to form, poetics, language, sound, temporalities and textuality.
This collection not only provides new, provocative insights into a corpus of texts that has exerted a lasting impact on modern literature and philosophy, but also challenges current interpretive methods, recasting the very practice of reading in relation to form, poetics, language, sound, temporalities and textuality.
Reviews / Votes
This volume provocatively explores the aesthetic and political possibilities of deconstructionist and postcritical approaches to form in ancient texts. While readers may variously be stimulated, challenged, or infuriated by its close and transparently subjective engagement with phenomenological aspects of reading, Radical Formalisms offers classical studies a fresh critical path forward. -- David Christenson, Professor of Classics, University of Arizona, USA A joyous collection by a constellation of star scholars. Mind-expanding, political and systematically committed to the affordances of literary form from the roots: a veritable wake-up call to classical philology. -- David Fearn, Professor of Greek, University of Warwick, UKMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
10 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
460 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-37747-9 (9781350377479)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€31.99
Available for download
E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€31.99
Available for download
Persons
Sarah Nooter is Professor of Classics, Theatre, and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago, USA.
Mario Telo is Professor of Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Mario Telo is Professor of Rhetoric, Comparative Literature, and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Content
List of Illustrations
Foreword: A Word Besides, Sarah Nooter (University of Chicago, USA)
Introduction, Mario Telo (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Part I: Shaping Forms
1. Myth Formalism and Black Expression: The Case of Icarus, Patrice Rankine (University of Chicago, USA)
2. What Was Classics? Shane Butler (John Hopkins University, USA)
3. Mixed Media: Two Black Artists and the Icons of Classical Antiquity, Allannah Karas (University of Miami, USA)
Part II: Proximate Forms
4. Two Ways of Being Alone: Dual Form in Sappho Fragment 168b, Alex Purves (UCLA, USA)
5. Aristophanes and the Flying Sound, Sarah Nooter (University of Chicago, USA)
6. What Thou Art We Know Not: Pindar and Romanticism, Tom Phillips (University of Manchester, UK)
7. "I'm sorry about the poem"; 'Narcissi' and Incommensurability in Jamaica Kincaid's 'Lucy', Ren Ellis Neyra (Wesleyan University, USA)
Part III: Forms (Un)becoming
8. Heraclitus Stuttered, Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto, Canada)
9. Electra, Again, Sarah Olsen (Williams College, USA)
10. A Poetics of Imperceptibility in Statius's 'Thebaid', Efrossini Spentzou (Royal Holloway University, UK)
11. Form as Precarious Shelter: Gwendolyn Brooks' 'In the Mecca', Lucy Alford (Wake Forest University, USA)
Part IV: Forms Unfurling
12. Formalizations at the Threshold: Introductions to Horace, Victoria Rimell (University of Warwick, UK)
13. Quite a Bind: Couplet, Constraint, Claustrophobia, i.e., Ovid's 'Ibis', Tom Geue (Australian National University, Australia
14. Open Form in Nathaniel Mackey, Sean Alexander Gurd (University of Texas, Austin, USA)
15. 'Chal Chal Chal': Apollonius's Talos Tales (and Medea's), Mario Telo (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Foreword: A Word Besides, Sarah Nooter (University of Chicago, USA)
Introduction, Mario Telo (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Part I: Shaping Forms
1. Myth Formalism and Black Expression: The Case of Icarus, Patrice Rankine (University of Chicago, USA)
2. What Was Classics? Shane Butler (John Hopkins University, USA)
3. Mixed Media: Two Black Artists and the Icons of Classical Antiquity, Allannah Karas (University of Miami, USA)
Part II: Proximate Forms
4. Two Ways of Being Alone: Dual Form in Sappho Fragment 168b, Alex Purves (UCLA, USA)
5. Aristophanes and the Flying Sound, Sarah Nooter (University of Chicago, USA)
6. What Thou Art We Know Not: Pindar and Romanticism, Tom Phillips (University of Manchester, UK)
7. "I'm sorry about the poem"; 'Narcissi' and Incommensurability in Jamaica Kincaid's 'Lucy', Ren Ellis Neyra (Wesleyan University, USA)
Part III: Forms (Un)becoming
8. Heraclitus Stuttered, Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto, Canada)
9. Electra, Again, Sarah Olsen (Williams College, USA)
10. A Poetics of Imperceptibility in Statius's 'Thebaid', Efrossini Spentzou (Royal Holloway University, UK)
11. Form as Precarious Shelter: Gwendolyn Brooks' 'In the Mecca', Lucy Alford (Wake Forest University, USA)
Part IV: Forms Unfurling
12. Formalizations at the Threshold: Introductions to Horace, Victoria Rimell (University of Warwick, UK)
13. Quite a Bind: Couplet, Constraint, Claustrophobia, i.e., Ovid's 'Ibis', Tom Geue (Australian National University, Australia
14. Open Form in Nathaniel Mackey, Sean Alexander Gurd (University of Texas, Austin, USA)
15. 'Chal Chal Chal': Apollonius's Talos Tales (and Medea's), Mario Telo (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Contributors
Index