The Representation of Otherness in the 'Imagines' of Philostratus

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My project will explore representations of 'otherness' in the 'Imagines' of Philostratus, an ecphrasticGreek text (II-III century CE) that provides descriptions of ancient paintings displayed in a fictionalNeapolitan gallery. The project will offer a new perspective among current scholarly debates on culturalidentity in the Second Sophistic.The importance of otherness in the construction of identity is a relevant field of study for classicists (Hall,1989; Gruen, 2011) and scholars have recently started to concentrate on diversity during the Imperialperiod (e.g. Pandey, 2021). My project will join such debates and enter into dialogue especially with thestudies of Goldhill, 2001 and Whitmarsh, 2011, that highlight the interconnections between literaryhistoricism and literary criticism for understanding Greek identity. I will push these investigations forwardinto an unexplored context, Philostratus' 'Imagines', to address not only the representation of foreigners,but also those of characters who are portrayed as 'different' in a broader sense, whether with regard tophysical features or behaviour. I will pay special attention also to these characters' artisticrepresentations, as the 'Imagines' is a unique case-study for exploring how identity formation works notonly in textual, but also in visual dynamics