The Trojan Horse and Other Stories: Ten Ancient Creatures That Make Us Human

What makes us human? What, if anything, sets us apart from all other creatures? Ever since Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the answer to these questions has pointed to our own intrinsic animal nature. Yet the idea that, in one way or another, our humanity is entangled with the non-human has a much longer and more venerable history. In the West, it goes all the way back to classical antiquity. This grippingly written and provocative book boldly reveals how the ancient world mobilised concepts of 'the animal' and 'animality' to conceive of the human in a variety of illuminating ways. Through ten stories about marvelous mythical beings – from the Trojan Horse to the Cyclops, and from Androcles' lion to the Minotaur – Julia Kindt unlocks fresh ways of thinking about humanity that extend from antiquity to the present and that ultimately challenge our understanding of who we really are.

• Uses some of the most famous ancient stories and the marvelous creatures at their core to address one of the biggest questions of all time: what makes us human
• Entertainingly unpacks perennially fascinating myths – such as those about the Trojan Horse, the Sphinx, and the Minotaur – to shed new light on existential discussions of 'the human' and 'the animal
• Explores the transporting power of storytelling to think about humanity while constructing its own arresting narrative of revelatory tale-telling
• Julia Kindt is a regular contributor to The Conversation and the 8 articles she has published there have been accessed 400,000 times and shared widely on social media, including on Twitter and Facebook

An aparitie	2024
Autor	Julia Kindt
Dimensiuni	157 x 235 x 25 mm
Editura	Cambridge University Press
Format	Hardback
ISBN	9781009411387
Limba	Engleza
Nr pag	372