Video #18: Athenian Democracy with Chandra Giroux

In the eighteenth instalment of the Peopling the Past video series, we are joined by Dr. Chandra Giroux who discusses Athenian Democracy, including how decisions were made, who got to participate, and the challenges and criticisms that this system faced.

Chandra Giroux is an ancient historian based in Ottawa, Ontario. Her research focuses on Plutarch and the moral messages he imparts to his reader through his two works, the Moralia and the Parallel Lives. Specifically, she asks how Plutarch uses the past, themes, and local places to comment upon his contemporary world. Her PhD thesis, Plutarch’s Chaironeia: The local horizon of world empire (2021) took a close look at these questions through the lens of Plutarch’s hometown of Chaironeia and its region of Boiotia. Dr. Giroux holds a PhD from McGill University (2021), an MA in Classics from the University of Ottawa (2016), an MA in Greek and Roman Archaeology from Newcastle University (2010), and a BA in Classics and History from the University of Ottawa (2009). She has worked as a contract archaeologist in Ottawa, Ontario as well as a contract instructor at Carleton University. When she isn’t researching and teaching, she is the proud Mama of 2 kids and 2 senior dachshunds.

Interested in learning more? Check out these relevant publications from Dr. Giroux.

Forthcoming. C. Giroux (ed.). Plutarch: Cultural Practice in a Connected World. Teiresias Supplements Online.

2021. Plutarch’s Chaironeia: The local horizon of world empire. PhD Thesis. McGill University.

2020. “The Power of Bones: An Intertextual Reading of the Retrieval of Theseus’ Bones in Plutarch’s ‘Life of Cimon’,” in T. Schmidt, M. Vamvouri, and R. Hirsch-Luipold (eds.) The Dynamics of Intertextuality in Plutarch. Brill.