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CLST 273 / WSGS 297 - Classical Tragedy with a focus on Women's Studies and Gender
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Spring Semester 2009
This Core Literature course surveys some of the masterworks of
classical Athens' stage --a living basis of modern Western drama--
with a particular focus on concerns of women's studies and gender.
How do plays written for competition in civic
festivals, for a community that identified the capacity for full civic
participation as men's, not women's, deal with figures of women? What
capacity for action and choice do women in classical tragedy enjoy, in
comparison with men and in relationship to men? How are women's
actions and choices evaluated? Our primary material will be translated
texts of ancient tragedies; we will also assess selected pieces of
modern feminist criticism of classical tragedy and the world for which
it was initially written and performed. Discussion, research and
writing, and our own experiments in performance, will help us to see
through the female figures on the ancient stage to transcendent
concerns like women's part in justice, human dignity, the civic
community, and the cosmic order to which the dramatic
festival-competitions paid tribute.
Our work will pursue four main aims (plus the fifth, of having fun
with all of them):
- To gain familiarity with some amazingly powerful plays. They were
applauded in their own days. They have become cornerstones of Western
theatrical tradition in Europe and beyond. And they can still blow your
mind.
- To learn about feminist inquiry into cultural artifacts like plays,
and to practice it on this inspiring material. We will consider how the
tensions between women's position in the mythology the plays depict, in
ancient Athenian traditions of theatrical representation and in real
Athenian life, compare with tensions in women's lives and artistic
representations in other cultures, including our own.
- To extend literary understanding by recognizing how literary techniques
shape the plays, and thus also the ways the plays present traditional stories
in their cultural contexts. Similar techniques continue to operate.
- To practice critical thinking by exploring the resonances of the plays,
especially as they relate to concerns of women and gender. We will investigate
texts' indications of how poets and their audiences lived in their world,
what they understood and believed about it, and the values they thought important.
Literature, legend, religion, history, and art operate all together, in
Classical antiquity just as they do now. Classical Studies foster skills of
multidimensional inquiry and integrative analysis; feminist criticism calls for
application of such skills to relationships of power and identity that
shape every aspect of our lives.
Monday - Wednesday - Friday, 10:25-11:15 AM
Crown Center 140
Dr. Jacqueline Long
Office Hours: Crown Center 579, TTh 10:00-11:00 AM, or by
appointment
e-mail:
jlong1@luc.edu
Texts
- Robert Fagles, tr., Aeschylus: Oresteia (Penguin Classics, 1966, 1967, 1975,
1977)
- David Franklin and John Harrison, ed. and tr., Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge
Translations from Greek Drama, 2003)
- E. F. Watling, tr., Sophocles: Electra and Other Plays (Penguin Classics, 1953)
- James Morwood, tr., Euripides: Bacchae and Other Plays (Oxford World's
Classics 1999)
- James Morwood, tr., Euripides: Medea and Other Plays (Oxford World's
Classics 1997)
- James Morwood, tr., Euripides: The Trojan Women and Other Plays (Oxford World's
Classics 2000)
- additional resources on-line and in the library
Policies and Assessment
Schedule of Reading Assignments and Topics
Reading Journal
Performances and Performance-Essays
Additional Resources
Writing
Women and Gender, Drama and Theaters in the ancient Greek and Roman world
- Diotima: a clearing-house of resources
on the Internet for the study of women and gender in the ancient world,
including much specifically relevant to Classical Athenian tragedy.
- Didaskalia: Ancient
Theatre Today: a web-site and journal dedicated to the study of
ancient Greek and Roman theatre in performance, and to the legacy of
ancient theatre.
Editorial Board of
scholars in Classics and Theater. Published in association with
King's College London.
- Dates of extant Classical Athenian tragedies.
- Dr.
J's Illustrated Greek Theater: images and explanation of the parts
of a Greek theater, by Dr. Janice Siegel of Illinois State University.
- Index of Vital Information on
Roman
Theatres, including a rich array of links; all highly relevant to
us, since the Greek world became part of the Roman world and many
Greek theaters continued to be used and were rebuilt during the Roman
period. Part of
Lacus
Curtius, a treasurehouse of on-line resources for Roman
archaeology, compiled by Bill Thayer.
- Perseus Project:
an evolving digital library for the study of the Greek and Roman worlds, especially
texts, language, and visual representations.
Revised 7 January 2009 by
jlong1@luc.edu
http://www.luc.edu/classicalstudies/