Fellow Lecture: The Aesthetics of Being a Citizen: Habitus and Political Imagery in Classical Athens

This paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the representations of citizens and the normative discourses about their habitus and comportment in literary and some visual sources of Classical Athens. It argues that these representations had elitist connotations that where in conflict with egalitarian ideals developed in fifth-century Athens, and it explores some consequences this had for the political culture in the Athenian polity. In doing so, it contributes to current debates about the different conceptions of citizenship in Athens and other Greek poleis, to the much-debated interaction between elites and non-elites in Athenian democracy, and to the exploration of the political imaginary in contemporary political discourse.