Unit name | Communication and the Classics: Messengers, Witnesses, Parasites |
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Unit code | CLAS20038 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Michelakis |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None. |
Co-requisites |
None. |
School/department | Department of Classics & Ancient History |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
What does it mean to converse with classical texts? What does it mean to be transported by a powerful narrative? How does the transportation of information through space and the transportation of information through time relate to one another? To what extent does the movement of ideas depend on senders and receivers and to what extent on technical or other processes outside their control? What gets transmitted between sender and receiver and what gets concealed or lost in the process? And how do classical texts from different periods and genres reflect on all this? These questions will be addressed through three types of figures that can be found across classical literature: messengers, witnesses and parasites. All three types offer reflection on how we access the past and how knowledge gets transmitted, and all three of them will be used to address the question of how communication is informed and shaped not by proximity but by distance.
Aims:
On successful completion of this unit, students will:
1 x 1 hour lecture and 1 x 2 hour seminar per week
1) One coursework essay of 2,500 words (50%)
2) One exam of 90 minutes (50%)
Both elements will assess ILOs 1-4.
Homer, Iliad, Books 1&24
Homer, Odyssey, Books 21-22
Homeric Hymn to Hermes
Sophocles, Oedipus the King
Aristophanes, Birds
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2
Plato, Ion
Plato, Phaedrus
Menander, Dyskolos
Debray, R. (2000) Transmitting Culture, trans. Eric Rauth, New York: Columbia University Press
Peters, J. D. (1999) Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Krämer, S. (2015) Medium, Messenger, Transmission: An Approach to Media Philosophy, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press
Danesi, M. (ed.) (2013) Media and Communication, Toronto: University of Toronto Press
Mackay, E. A. (ed.) (2008) Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World, Leiden: Brill
Porter, J. I. (ed.) Classical Pasts: The Classical Traditions of Greece and Rome, Princeton: Princeton University Press