The mirror and the senses : reflection and perception in classical Greek thought
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In contrast to glass mirrors today, which embody and signify accuracy in the creation of images, the earliest Greek mirrors were made of bronze. This dissertation looks at how this particular and very different type of reflective medium affected discourses about visual experience in ancient Greece. I focus on the material, literary, scientific, and philosophical evidence from the 6th to the 4th centuries BCE, when bronze mirrors proliferated in production and popularity. The dissertation falls into two parts. Part One (chs.1-2) focuses on the mirror as a material object. Here, my research yields an important discovery about Greek mirrors: bronze, as a reflective medium, would have produced what I term a "dynamic" perceptual experience for an ancient viewer, characterized by emission of light, contrasts in color, changes in texture, and variations in perspective. Part Two (chs. 3-4) then demonstrates how bronze mirrors influenced the intellectual work on vision and perception in this period. I argue that as Greek thinkers theorized the dynamic reflections produced on bronze mirrors, they turned discourses on vision towards issues of representation more broadly, so much so that by the 4th century BCE, the mirror emerges as a key epistemological tool for thinking about the production, perception, and the very nature of images.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Shirazi, Ava |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Classics. |
| Primary advisor | Nightingale, Andrea Wilson |
| Primary advisor | Peponi, Anastasia-Erasmia |
| Thesis advisor | Nightingale, Andrea Wilson |
| Thesis advisor | Peponi, Anastasia-Erasmia |
| Thesis advisor | Lissarrague, F. (François) |
| Thesis advisor | Martin, Richard P |
| Thesis advisor | Netz, Reviel |
| Advisor | Lissarrague, F. (François) |
| Advisor | Martin, Richard P |
| Advisor | Netz, Reviel |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Ava Shirazi. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Classics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by Ava Shirazi
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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