Comedy and Platonic Interpretation

Dear Colleagues,

Nietzsche describes the Platonic dialogues as the lifeboat on which Socrates rescues the drowning, older forms of poetry, only to finish off comedy. Comedy thus appears as the lone form of poetry abolished, rather than resuscitated, by these dialogues. Recent and forthcoming works counter this, addressing questions regarding the status of comedy in these dialogues by centering on Plato’s use of humor and Platonic critiques and appropriations of comedy. One of the challenges that acknowledging comedy in these dialogues poses is how this affects the interpretation. Thus, the aim of this Special Issue of Humanities is to provide a multi-disciplinary approach focusing on how comedy in the Platonic dialogues impacts how we interpret them. Papers concerning all aspects of the Platonic dialogues and their reception are welcome, including, but not limited to, the following:

• How comical content and/or comical form (comical structure, multigenericism, metatheatrical elements, etc.) change and possibly even constitute a form of philosophical thinking or argument;
• How reading comical dimensions impacts issues of gender;
• Affective work on comical aspects in the dialogues;
• How Platonic dialogues engage with (the works of) Aristophanes and other comical poets;
• The reception of dialogues, including how later ancient thinkers (Cicero, Quintilian, Plutarch, etc.) interpreted comical matters in the dialogues;
• How comical dimensions in the dialogues have impacted determinations of their authenticity. 

Prof. Dr. Sonja Tanner
Guest Editor

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