As usual, there will be no Book Club meeting in December, to allow for the holiday season. But here is a preview of what will be coming up in the new year. In keeping with the expansive ideals of Kosmos Society where we have read works from related languages and societies, we will be reading primary sources not only from the ancient Greek world, but also from other premodern cultures,… Read more
During the summer of 2023 the Kosmos book club read Chapter 17 of Diodorus Siculus’s Library[1], which described the career of Alexander the Great. I began to research more widely the women mentioned in the account, which involved researching Alexander’s family, background and contexts. Plutarch was also a useful source for this[2]. The first blogpost told of the sources and methodology I used and described some of the social and… Read more
We were delighted to welcome Andrew Szegedy-Maszak (Wesleyan University) for an Open House discussion entitled “Silver and Stone: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey.” The event was live-streamed on Friday, November 17, at 11 a.m. EST, and was recorded. You can watch on the Kosmos Society YouTube channel or below. In preparation for the event, you might like to read the following: “Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey”… Read more
We have now discussed the physical characteristics of animals and their methods of generation. Their habits and their modes of living vary according to their character and their food…. Opening of Book 8, translation by D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson. For November, we will read selections from Aristotle’s History of Animals. In the Prefatory Note to his translation[1], D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson puts the composition of these studies in Aristotle’s middle age, started… Read more
This series of blogposts originated in the Kosmos Society’s Book Club reading, in the summer of 2023, of Diodorus Siculus’ Library, Book 17, which concerns the campaigns of Alexander the Great[1] in the fourth century BCE. As we read, it became evident that more contextual material was available in Books 16, 18, 19 and 20 of the Library, and also in the works of Plutarch[2] and Arrian[3]. Wikipedia dates Diodorus… Read more