The Department of Classics invites you to the
Twenty-Ninth Annual Carl C. Schlam Memorial Lecture
Professor Reviel Netz
Stanford University
The Lecture
Title: The Problematic Greek Miracle
Dr. Reviel Netz
Suppes Professor in Greek Mathematics and Astronomy
Professor of Classics and by courtesy of Philosophy
Stanford University
What is it that we stand to learn from the canon? According to one common answer: the canon promotes stable, eternal truths about human nature and society. It is conservative. The claim of this talk is that the canon was historically important for the opposite reason: it formed an unstable space for a continuous debate, pitting authors against each other and culture as a whole against the state. This was the Greek miracle, and it is worth preserving.
The Speaker
Reviel Netz
Prof. Netz's main field is the history of pre-modern mathematics. His research involves the wider issues of the history of cognitive practices, e.g. visual culture, the history of the book, and literacy, and numeracy. His books from Cambridge University Press include The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics: a Study in Cognitive History (1999, Runciman Award), The Transformation of Early Mediterranean Mathematics: From Problems to Equations (2004), Ludic Proof: Greek Mathematics and the Alexandrian Aesthetic (2009), Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture (2020), A New History of Greek Mathematics (2022) and Why the Ancient Greeks Matter (2025).
This event is open to the public.