Epistula – Studies on Ancient Letter Writing
-
Edited by:
The Epistula book series delves into the world of ancient letters, providing a forum for monographs, collected volumes, commentaries, and editions on ancient epistles and epistolary culture. Volumes explore how epistles were written, sent, and understood in past civilizations, approaching their topic from the perspective of textual production, reception history, genre and literary history, as well as the history of ideas.
The series places special emphasis on the analysis and interpretations of Greek and Latin epistles and epistle collections, examining both their content and how they fit into the history, literature, philosophy, and religion of their time. The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on perspectives from classical philology, ancient history, papyrology, Jewish studies, New Testament studies, patristics, Byzantine studies, philosophy, and literary studies.
Topics
This commentary offers the reader a set of letters (or letter parts) written by Cicero, Paul, and Seneca, which have been selected against the Transformational Leadership categories of ‘idealised influence’, ‘inspirational motivation’, ‘intellectual stimulation’, and ‘individualised consideration’. Chapter 1 offers introduction into authors and theory: all three letter writers are considered as ancient leadership figures composing leadership letters. The letters selected are presented in original text facing a translation (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 provides analysis and discussion of each letter, and aims to introduce the reader to the historical and literary contexts before reading the letter through the lenses of Transformational Leadership theory. Chapter 4 sums up the findings on each letter and each letter writer in light of Transformational Leadership and its categories. The volume is aimed at all those who are studying the function of ancient letter-writing – especially the letters of Cicero, Paul, or Seneca.
The first volume in the new Epistula series on the topic of Letters and Education takes a transcultural and diachronic perspective to shed light on the diverse connections between the genre of letters on the one hand and education as an umbrella term for upbringing, training, science, and scholarship on the other. The chapters from numerous disciplines discuss this multifaceted subject matter from antiquity to the modern era.
