Questions of how and why individuals mattered, even of what constituted an individual, are among the most complicated and challenging asked of Greco-Roman civilization. Our seminar considers the historical development of biography from the pre-Hellenistic Greek world to late Antiquity. Through studying the representation of individual lives and asking what makes them worth narrating and what ancient discourses shape their reception, we aim to develop a better understanding of both the texts within this tradition and the changing conceptions of identity and social agency that inform them.
