Project

In the Mind, in the Body and in the World: Emotions in Ancient Greece and China

Program

Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society

Department

School of Classics, History and Archaeology

Abstract

This workshop seeks to bring together scholars of ancient China and Greece,working broadly in
the history and philosophy of emotions, to investigate the emergent discourses of emotions in ancient
philosophy, medicine and literature from c. 5th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. Recent work among
scholars working in both ancient traditions has shown that the emotions emerged as an object of inquiry
around the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, as part of a series of debates about the nature and workings of the
body, the human being more broadly, and the physical world. The goal of this workshop is to explore,
from a cross-cultural framework, how and why certain accounts of emotions may have emerged in China
and Greece during the most formative period of their cultural and intellectual development.