The Anecdote as a Form of Knowledge

This project investigates the epistemic potential of anecdotes in different literary genres of Latin antiquity. Its focus lies on the analysis of temporal and directional patterns and their impact on knowledge, transfer and communities of knowledge. One sub-project explores anecdotal transfer of knowledge in paradoxographical writing, mirabilia and texts dealing with natural history (Valerius, Pliny the Elder, Gellius). A second, complementary sub-project focuses on the epistemological impulses of anecdotes in various corpora of Latin epistolography (Cicero, Horace, Seneca, Pliny the Younger).

A list of publications and events organized by the project can be accessed on the German CRC 980 website.