Chameleonic Paideia: immigrant experience and the "Acceptable Other" in Heliodorus' Aethiopica

Anna Coopey

Chameleonic Paideia: immigrant experience and the "Acceptable Other" in Heliodorus' Aethiopica

Anna Coopey^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Classics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Heliodorus’ Aethiopica is a text that wrestles with cultural identity and performance in a world in which identity formation was rapidly changing and morphing in unexpected ways. The emergence of paideia as a form of “Greekness” that resisted this change became extremely important, and allowed those who were not “traditionally” Greek to assert their “Greekness”, and, thus, to become “Greek”. In Heliodorus’ novel, the “Other” characters seek to perform “Greekness” through their paideia, but equally to perform their “acceptable” difference as foreigners for the gratification and enjoyment of the Greek “Self”, too. This can be seen comparatively to chime with immigrant experience up to the modern day in the “West”, and thus a continuum of immigrant experience can be seen to reach from the distant past right up to the present day.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-23
Number of pages	23
Journal	New Classicists
Issue number	12
Publication status	Published - 29 Jan 2025

Keywords

Heliodorus
Second Sophistic
Immigration
Greek literature
Aethiopica

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Cite this

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Chameleonic Paideia: immigrant experience and the "Acceptable Other" in Heliodorus' Aethiopica

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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