Browsing by Author "Oinas, Waltteri Juho Joonatan"

A prevalent narrative associated with contemporary academe in the current era of globalisation is one of constant and increasing mobility. This narrative is acutely modern and tends to obscure the ancient character of academic mobility as a phenomenon. This Master’s Thesis seeks to address a knowledge gap in existing literature by considering the development of intellectual networks in ancient Greece and analysing the movement of Hellenistic philosophers in a prosopographical study of academic mobility utilising an interdisciplinary approach, combining theories and methods of both social sciences and history. Does academic mobility as a phenomenon occur in the context of Hellenistic period, specifically relating to the philosophical schools of that era? Why did Athens become the centre of intellectual activity and philosophical mobility for most of the Hellenistic period? The theoretical framework draws from the study of mobilities, network theory, concept analysis, and (to a lesser extent) human geography. An analytical concept of academic mobility is constructed to enable historical analyses and evaluation of potential historical occurrences of academic mobility. The primary data gathering method employed is an applied form of prosopography, a micro-biographical approach to the study of socio-historical phenomena. The lives of ten Stoic philosophers are summarised in ten case studies, which help illustrate the mobility and social networks of Hellenistic philosophers by providing examples of philosophical movement and career paths. The entries are subsequently analysed in conjunction with research literature to generate answers to the research questions. The study shows that while some of the movement of Hellenistic philosophers indeed meets the criteria for academic mobility, it nonetheless constitutes only a fraction of the mobility exercised by philosophers as a part of their profession and lifestyle. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the pre-eminence of Athens as the centre of Hellenistic philosophical activity was predicated on a self-perpetuating process of social capital accumulation, as the presence of several prominent thinkers and organised schools of thought engaged in an intense dialectic attracted philosophically inclined individuals from all over the Greek world. The study concludes that the existence, development, and transformation of higher education networks is historically contingent and often affected by forces and factors external to the network(s), highlighting the need to examine occurrences and conditions of academic mobility on a case-by-case basis and suggesting further avenues of research to the study of historical academic mobility.