Incompletion, Revision, and the Ethics of Reading: Cicero on Appropriate Action
By Sean Gurd
Ancient Literacy (Harris 1989) has provoked three major developments in the study of literacy and textual practice: first, an interest in the history of the book and the realia of textual dissemination (Starr 1987; Starr 1990; Small 1997; Dorandi 2007; Gurd 2010); second, an emphasis on the sociology of reading and writing, particularly among elite communities where literacy was most widespread and valued (Johnson and Parker 2009; Gurd 2011; Johnson 2012); and, third, an awareness that literacy had been deployed not only in the service of social organization, but also, in
A Further Look at Literacy and Education in Greek and Roman Egypt
By Raffaella Cribiore
Following the appearance of William Harris’ Ancient Literacy came Raffaella Cribiore's 1996 Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, which focused the papyrological evidence. These two books were the voices of authority and starting points for my life's inquiry into education and schools in Egypt.
Ancient Illiteracy
By Gregory Woolf
William Harris' Ancient Literacy established a new baseline for the study of the uses of writing in the past. It offered a view of a world in which writing was widespread but the capacity to read was severely limited, a world in which most were illiterate, a few had limited facility with letters and a tiny minority could produce and consume the kinds of texts through which classicists were accustomed to view the ancient world.