Control and the Imagery of Power: The Case of Emperor Augustus
Henry Reese speaks with Dr Roslynne Bell, a classicist and art historian, about the methods used by Emperor Augustus to control his public image in Ancient Rome.
This episode marks the first instalment in the 2021 theme of ‘Control’. Each year, SHAPS adopts a special theme, which we explore from the perspectives of scholars working within different disciplines within the School and beyond. In 2020, we explored the theme of ‘Disaster & Change’ from a number of different angles. In our last episode, Professor Mike Arnold helped us wrap up this series by thinking about the past, present and future of death, mourning and the disposal of the dead. In 2021, our focus will be on the topic of Control in all its facets.
The notion of control is something that has been turning up increasingly often in all kinds of different contexts in recent years. From the Brexit campaign with its call to ‘take back control’ to cultural fashions like the Marie Kondo phenomenon, through to criminological and sociological theories on self-control and socialisation, or political discourses around borders and immigration – everywhere we look, we find evidence of an intense preoccupation with ‘control’. A desire for and a drive to control can be identified as a factor common to some of the most important processes underway in the world today.
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a number of issues around control with new urgency, highlighting tensions between personal liberty and control of public health, for example. In 2021, we will look at the new forms of control that are arising in the 21st century, from Shoshana Zuboff’s concept of ‘surveillance capitalism’, to ‘mindfulness’, which Ronald E. Purser has critiqued as a technique for social control and self-pacification. We’ll be listening to philosophers on the subject of government welfare and the drive to control the unemployed; we’ll be listening to historians on how ideas about control have been applied in the spheres of medicine and psychiatry. We’ll be tracing the long history of ideas, regimes and practices related to control.
So what better place to start than by looking right back to the ancient world and exploring an iconic historical figure and his quest to control his public image. And we have an exceptionally well qualified guide to introduce us to this topic: Dr Roz Bell, welcome to the podcast.
Disaster & Change is a podcast produced by SHAPS, the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
This podcast was produced by the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which our University operates – lands of the Kulin peoples, which includes the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung Wathaurong, Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung peoples, as well as the Yorta Yorta nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty to these lands was never ceded.
