Katie Ebner-Landy

An insightful exploration of the moral and political power of the character sketch in early modern Europe—and the implications for our own relationship to this genre today. In the fourth century BCE, the philosopher Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, composed thirty character sketches depicting ordinary Athenian vices: idle chatter, bad timing, cowardice, shamelessness, and superstition, among others. Centuries later, this...