Classics 24, Section 2
Psyche: Ancient Greek Ideas of the Soul, the Mind, and the Afterlife (P/NP)
Professor Mark Griffith
Monday 1:00-2:00, 211 Dwinelle Hall, CCN: 14730In this seminar, we will read some Greek literary, philosophical, medical, and religious texts spanning the period c. 750 BCE to the early Christian era, with a view to exploring the changing-and often conflicting-ideas that they reveal as to how people feel and think, and what makes them alive. What goes on inside us, or outside us, as perceptions, decisions, emotions, etc. take place? What happens to those thinking/feeling parts of us, and those processes, when we die? And above all, how can we make those processes, and those parts, better and less mortal? All readings will be in English and will include short excerpts from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, selected bits from Presocratic philosophers and Hippocratic medical texts, funerary epitaphs, Plato's Phaedo, parts of Aristotle's On the Soul (De Anima), a few short passages from tragedy and comedy, Lucretius' (Latin) version of the Democritean/ Epicurean theory of the soul (De Rerum Natura Book 3), and a few passages from Hellenistic (and in some cases Jewish and/or Christian) religious texts concerning the afterlife or kingdom of heaven or everlasting life. Students will be required to present two short response papers, one to two pages each, to a couple of the ancient Greek views that we examine.
Mark Griffith is a Professor of Classics and of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. His publications have focused primarily on Greek tragedy.
