Narrative Aspects of Herodotus' Genealogy-Making

• Grant number: 16/02310-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: July 01, 2016
• End date: August 21, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Norberto Luiz Guarinello
• Grantee: Camila da Silva Condilo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 16/18710-2 - Narrative Aspects of Herodotus' Genealogy-Making, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This research proposal aims to investigate narrative aspects of Herodotus' genealogies, focusing on the relationship between genealogy and focalisation (in order to understand how focalisation impacts on the presentation of genealogies) and on the relationship between genealogy and narrative estructure (genealogies connecting peoples and events across time and space). It is part of a major project initiated with my PhD at Cambridge University, whose main objective is to analyse the various aspects of genealogy-making in Herodotus' work as well as in the development of ancient historiography. As such, its purpose is to complement and deepen that study, which revealed the rhetorical role of genealogy in the narrative, by shedding light on aspects of the genealogical evidence in the Histories that were not explored in that occasion. The objective of this research, therefore, is to comprehend how/whether both focalisation and the cases in which genealogies appear as structuring elements of the text articulate with genealogy's rhetorical function predominant in the text, and what are their repercussions on our understanding of genealogy-making in the narrative. In this way, the contribution of this research to classical scholarship is to expand our comprehension of the articulation between genealogy and history, with aims at presenting a more accurate and comprehensive view of this relationship in the writing of ancient history as written by the ancient themselves.