Dr.Thomas Blank

As Professor of Ancient Cultural History at JGU's Department of History (since August 2016) my research is focused on the history of education and intellectuality in ancient Athens (in particular the relationship between politics, rhetoric and philosophy) and on Roman religion. In both areas, I investigate the mechanisms and dynamics of communication underlying the formation and dissolution of “third” and “separate” social spaces. This interest also inspires my current research projects on “foreignness” (as speaker of the mini-research training group “Urban Difference”), “neighbourliness” (sub-project in the LOEWE centre “DynaRel”) and on theatre as a space of public discourse (sub-project in the MSCA-DN “TheSPIS”). Other research interests include the theory of political rule, the history of historiography and the reception of antiquity in modern popular culture.