Ethos, Praxis and Poiesis in Greek Culture

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

The seminar functions in continuous assessment. The final assessment will take into consideration:

a) the students' input in distanced sessions on a platform that allows synchronous and asynchronous classes;

b) their participation in the various discussions and oral presentations in the face-to-face sessions;

c) the writing of a final essay, with viva voce presentation, prepared with direct supervision from one of the teaching staff.

Learning Outcomes

The proposed syllabus aims to encourage the students to develop the following competences:

- recognize the specific characteristics of the literary genres in question;

- stimulate an informed and wide-ranging reading of the analysed texts;

- understand and reflect on the structuring role of the constructions, values and practices that Greek texts structuring Greek Culture portray from the human pillars of the polis: the man-governor-soldier-husband-father-son; the woman-governor-wife-daughter.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1.The Homeric Poems: social rules, affective bonds and codes of values inspiring the classic “models” of the masculine and feminine.

2. Herodotus’ Histories: ethical profile and political praxis of autocratic, oligarchic and democratic rulers/regimes; survival and rupture of the epic models of the various male and female profiles.

3. Euripides’ Bacchae: sociocultural prejudices about the roles of women (wife, maiden and mother) and men (ruler, young male or adult).

4. Plato’s Republic: the polis and its exercise of political power (polythea); government (arkhē) and civil war (stasis) in the polis and soul.

5. Aristotle’s Politics: the relationship between family (oikos) and polis, family and political friendship and “a certain plurality” (plēthos ti) without which there is no political life.

6. Plutarch’s Moral Works and Lives: the importance of the ethics of affections in building family philia relationships.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Class participation: 20.0%
Synthesis work: 20.0%
Research work: 60.0%

Bibliography

Beck, M. (ed.) (2013), A Companion to Plutarch, Oxford.

Foxhall, L. (2013), Studying Gender in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge.

Minchin, E. (2007), Homeric Voices: Discourse, Memory, Gender, Oxford.

Rosen, S. (2005), Plato's Republic: a Study. New Haven & London, Yale University Press.

Sá, A. F. (2017), “Platão e a Beleza Ambígua da Democracia”, Archai, nº19, 20: 15-35, 15-38.

Schofield, M. (1999), Saving the City. London & New York, Routledge.

Soares, C. (2018), “I messaggeri di Euripide, come narratori di orrori”, in Ieranò, G. et al., Il racconto a teatro. Dal dramma antico al Siglo de Oro alla scena contemporanea. Università degli Studi di Trento, 77-88.

__,“Regimes políticos nas Histórias de Heródoto. O “Diálogo dos Persas” (3. 80-82)”, in Soares, C. et al. (ed.), Pólis/Cosmópolis, Coimbra, 43-52.

Strauss, L. (1995), City and Man, Chicago & London, Chicago University Press.

Voegelin, E. (1990), Order and History: Plato and Aristotle, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press.