The conference Thucydides beyond Politics – Between Nature and Supernature was held in Bochum on July 3-4, 2025. Its central aim was the discussion of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War with a special focus on aspects which usually stand back behind other prominent elements of scholarly engagement with the subject. This text is known for being one of the most influential works of ancient historiography, what depends foremost on the notion that its author, Thucydides, introduces a kind of lasting model of rational argumentation and historical analysis. In contrast to his predecessors, he is believed to exercise restraint when it comes to irrational speculations and excessive narration. Instead of this, he is frequently credited with explaining historical processes throughout his text based on a political and realistic outlook on interstate relations, underscored by a rational view on human nature.
The conference in Bochum aimed at further establishing aspects like nature, supernatural allusions and the divine as relevant parts of Thucydides’ analysis of the world around him and therefore as rewarding objects of scholarly engagement with the History. A special emphasis on these aspects would help to widen the general view on Thucydides as an author and bolster the discussion of the text as a complex literary product which is also embedded in coeval intellectual discourses on the relationship between human beings, their environment and the cosmos. These aspects are also central parts in the PhD-projects of both organisers of the conference, which consequently offered a huge opportunity to present and discuss the own approaches. Four different sessions covered the diverse topics of the conference – natural factors and their force, different actor’s individual behaviour towards (potentially) supernatural entities, diverse approaches to interpreting uncertainties and unfathomable allusions in the text, and contexts of potential interpretative options to approximate the text and its intellectual environment.
In order to realise the conference’s goal, an interdisciplinary mixture of approaches from different academic fields was undertaken, in which Thucydides’ History plays a prominent role. Thus, a broad range of readings from various disciplines was included, from political sciences to classical philology and ancient history. During the conduct of the conference, this approach turned out to be very fruitful, yielding talks with heterogenous conceptions of the text and theoretical groundings, which in juxtaposition to one another offered productive insights and chances for discussions.
Also, a joint discussion of papers by internationally established scholars who have already dealt with similar aspects, as well as of papers by scholars in their earlier career stages, was implemented. Especially for early career scholars, the programme posed a unique chance to present their own approaches, receive valuable feedback and participate in the ongoing discourses in Thucydidean scholarship. Thanks to the funding by RUB Research School, the conference was carried out successfully and turned out to be an effective attempt to cover the variety of relevant aspects of the History and the various readings. Above all, it became apparent how directly the question for factors in the interplay between nature and supernature is intertwined with the gist of understanding the text more detailed. These are questions stretching to the very heart of Thucydides’ conception of history and the world.
This conference was oranized by Bianca Baum and Jano Meyer. If you have any questions about the conference, they will be happy to hear from you via e-mail.
Conference announcement on H-Soz-Kult:
https://www.hsozkult.de/searching/id/event-155550?title=thucydides-beyond-politics-between-nature-and-supernature&recno=2&q=Jano+Meyer&sort=&fq=&total=190
Conference report on H-Soz-Kult:
https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-157272?utm_source=hsozkult&utm_medium=htmlnl&utm_campaign=mailings-2025-9&utm_content=readon
