Thursday, December 01, 2005

two encyclopaedia entries on athens/attica

DEMES [*dêmoi*], local communities or parishes in Attica, eventually numbering about 170. In the reforms of Cleisthenes, they replaced kinship groups as the basis of the democratic constitution in Athens. Cleisthenes arranged the demes into ten tribes [*phulai*], and each tribe into three thirds [*trittues*]. In each tribe one *tritus* comprised demes from the city region, another demes from the interior, and the third demes from the coast. In this way each tribe was made representative of the whole. Each deme had its own finances and its 'demarch' or deme leader, elected by its assembly [*agora*] whch dealt with local affairs. After Cleisthenes, membership of a deme was hereditary and did not change with change of residence. On reaching the age of 18 every male Athenian citizen was registered in his family deme.

CLEISTHENES [died after 507 BCE], the founder of Athenian democracy, grandson of Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon. He was archon under the tyrant Hippias in perhaps 525 BCE. When Hippias was expelled by the Spartan king Cleomenes I in 510 and those exiled had returned, there was a movement in favor of oligarchy by the aristocracy in Athens, led by Isagoras and supported by Cloemenes. At this point Cleisthenes put himself forward as the champion of democracy, and overthrew the aristocrats. He then proceeded to pass far-reaching political reforms of a democratic nature. He brok up what remained of the old political organizations based on family groups, and substituted a new system based on topography. He divided the territory of Attica, including the city of Athens, into DEMES, local communities or parishes, possibly on the basis of existing demes. Cleisthenes then grouped all the demes into ten new tribes so as to ensure that no tribe had a continuous territory or represented a local interest; on the contrary, each contained groups of demes [*trittues*] from the city region, from the coast, and from the interior. By these means groups of people in various parts of Attica were brought together and required to act in common, and the old parties acting out of purely local interest were abolished. The organization of the army depended on the tribes, each of which contributed a regiment of hoplites and a squadron of cavalry. Cleisthenes subordinated the *boulê* and the Areopagus to the supreme authority of the *ekklêsia*, the 'assembly' of all the citizens, which met regularly and might deal with any important state matter.

[taken from M. C. Howatson and Ian Chilvers, The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature]

Sunday, November 06, 2005

literary darwinism?

there's a provocative article in today's NY TIMES called 'the literary darwinists.' adherents to this [admittedly very small] school of literary interpretation -- which is a subset of the [ever-so-slightly larger] field of so-called 'biopoetics' -- claim to take a biological, even a darwinian, approach to the reading and evaluation of literary works. [they see this as, among other things, a way of uniting science and the humanities.] have a look at the essay and see what you think about all this.

Friday, November 04, 2005

HUBRIS in comedy?

kyle's email also included a p.s., related to his observation in class about 'south park's' cartman character as an example of HUBRIS:

here is article about eric cartman which demonstrates how he displays hubris.

eric cartman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Cartman


on thursday we discussed HUBRIS in the context of what i call the 'calculus of moral decline' -- that gradation of human experience that can slide one into the abyss of tragic misfortune. it's worth thinking about this in the context of COMEDY, which is -- arguably -- the flip-side of tragedy. and i submit to you that cartman, like other characters on 'south park,' is a *comic* figure. how are the creators of 'south park' [trey parker and matt stone] inverting the tragic paradigm here? is it perhaps the case that the comic hero is precisely the one who can evince hubris without sliding into the abyss? and if so, does this mean that we do not take him/her seriously?

TERROR vs. HORROR

this just in, from kyle, à propos of our thursday discussions of TERROR vs HORROR as cinematic concepts/frameworks. [a word of caution: these wikipedia articles about the SAW movies are explicit and gruesome. if physical violence disgusts or upsets you, you should not click on these wikipedia URLs. NB: they also contain 'spoiler' materials for the films discussed.]

dear professor kirby,

i thought u might like to learn a little more about the saw movies just so you know how terribly creepy they are. these links will take you to the wikipedia articles about them.

saw 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw_%28film%29
saw 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw_II

these movies fit perfectly into the horror category but they are also terror movies also. i believe that the difference between horror and terror is that horror is something that is temporary like when we see a scary movie. we know that is not true but it still scares us. terror however is something that lasts for a long time, like the threat of nuclear war or terrorism (which
concidentally has the word terror in it). terror is a sustained feeling that even though the thing we are afraid of stops, we still are afraid that it might come back up.


i am fascinated by kyle's distinction between 'terror' and 'horrror' based on whether the effect is temporary. is this how others of you have distinguished between the two concepts? your reactions, please.

Friday, October 28, 2005

turner classic movies and animé

this just in, from nathaniel:

Professor Kirby,
I remember you talking about Spirited Away in class earlier in the semester and wanted to point out this article to you:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=7677
As an avid anime fan, I think this is great news. Not only will many people be able to see these films if they haven't already, but it could mean a boost for the general population's perception of legitimacy toward the animation medium. What do you think about this development?

well, i think it's great. TCM has a lot of oomph in the TV world, and whatever it acquires will see frequent airing. and miyazaki is, simply put, a genius. one of the great film-makers alive today. i believe that the first and third places on japan's list of top-grossing films -- *ever* -- are held by his SPIRITED AWAY and PRINCESS MONONOKE [#2 is, i fear, our very own TITANIC].

watching SPIRITED AWAY is truly a wondrous experience. when i saw it, i felt that the genre of cinema had actually advanced. there were times when i looked at the animation and just had to nudge myself to remember that it was, in fact, *animation* and not photography. and it's not because it's 'trompe l'oeil' realism; it transcends that entirely, somehow. chalk it up to miyazaki's particular magic.

but we're not just talking about technical mastery here. he also has a sense of the *tale*, of what it takes in terms of plot and character to make a truly superb film. i submit to you that SPIRITED AWAY is an instantiaion of the monomyth -- though, as in THE WIZARD OF OZ, the monomyth hero is a young girl.

in any case, nathaniel is spot-on about the genre of anime' receiving a big boost -- both from the very work of miyazaki, and from TCM's wholeheartedly embracing these films from studio ghibli. it will be interesting to see how many more americans know of them in a year's time.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

joss whedon's FIREFLY and SERENITY

à propos of our conversation in class today -- this just in, via email:

I was just wondering what you thought of Serenity/Firefly the TV series if you saw either of them.

as it happens, i saw the film as soon as it came out -- having already viewed the entire TV series on DVD from the public library.

as you can probably guess from that, i think it's brilliant. i'm very impressed with whedon's creativity. it may be a bit too difficult or challenging for the average viewer, for whom [particularly in the case of television] material is often pitched at the lower end of the middle of the spectrum. remember, from the point of view of a sponsor, a TV show is just a way to get the viewer to watch their commercials. if the viewer is put off in any way -- including because s/he is confused -- one risks having h/er turn the TV off -- which is, from a sponsor's point of view, fatal.

i do *not* get the sense that whedon sacrificed his art on the altar of commerce. at least not in the making of the TV series. those shows are edgy and creative and transgressive of boundaries, in a number of healthy ways. those i know who have made it through the whole series [including the pilot, which -- perversely -- was *not* shown before the other episodes] find themselves playing the 'which FIREFLY character is your favorite?' this, of course, is related to our monomyth template [item #10, 'identification']: one is far less likely to identify with a character one doesn't resonate with and care about. but whedon has succeeded in creating a whole shipful of characters with whom one tends to engage strongly, and about whom one tends to have intense opinions. that is a measure of his success.

the film, i think, differs in some predictable ways from the TV show. [1] its production values are of course higher, which reflects the bigger budget whedon had to work with. [2] it can't assume a narrative arc of many hours, the way a [putatively] season-long series can; so it has to offer a potted history of the situation for the viewer who has no prior exposure. [3] the film is measurably more *violent* than the TV series -- a reflection of the fact that, when it comes to cinema, violence sells.

whedon's shows don't seem to be the most easily-marketable material, but this may just be an index of their ingenuity and originality: the classic 'ahead-of-his-time' syndrome. i remind you of the poster that was made in the 18th century, advertising an upcoming organ recital: 'please come to the such-and-such kirche this sunday at 4 pm to hear an organ recital by johann bach. herr bach is an accomplished organist and also a very passable composer.' artists, that is, are often not recognized or fully appreciated during their own lifetimes.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

KHALEPA TA KALA

thanks to nathaniel who pointed me to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_phrases

for a handy [though very cursory] list of greek phrases. the beginnings of a greek *bartlett's familiar quotations*, if you will.

at nathaniel's encouragement, i created a wikipedia account for myself, and added my first edit of a wiki article. nathaniel had pointed out that there was no entry for khalepa ta kala; this simply would not do.

thanks moreover to matt, who had emailed separately asking for the precise citation for this proverb in plato. as you'll see from the wiki page, i've located it in book 4 of the *republic* [stephanus page 435c, at the very end of that section; he calls it to legomenon, i.e., a 'saying' -- a synonym for gnômê or 'proverb']. i'm pretty sure i've read it in the *laws* too, but i'll have to keep searching for it there [and the *laws* is a biggish dialogue].

meanwhile, this passage in the *republic* is important for other reasons: here is where plato correlates his famous tripartite division of the psukhê to aspects of a polis. [brief aside on psukhê: what is that, anyway? the 'mind'? the 'inner self'? probably 'soul' is not the best translation for psukhê in plato, as it brings with it some christian religious connotations that would have quite bewildered socrates or plato. FWIW, however, psukhê is precisely the word that early christian writers do use for 'soul'; this may, among other things, tell us something about how they read *plato*.] you can read the passage online, in english, by clicking here.

well, nobody said any of this -- least of all, plato -- was easy. but it's worth knowing. or, to put it another way: KHALEPA TA KALA.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

homeric ithaca?

here's a provocative news piece from bbc.co.uk:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4293786.stm

this is actually a brief notice about a new book, ODYSSEUS UNBOUND, by robert bittlestone, just published by cambridge university press. bittlestone's theory is that what is now a peninsula of the island of kephallenia/cephalonia was once actually a separate islet. [note that kephallenia is in any case right near what is now called 'ithaca,' off the west coast of greece.] bittlestone has put up a website for the whole project, at

http://www.odysseus-unbound.org/

he is not the first to point to kephallenia, and his is not the first book on the topic, as you can see from this web page [though most of those books listed are not in english]:

http://tinyurl.com/d4hmm

he is, however -- as far as i know -- the first to bring satellite imaging technology or modern seismology to bear upon the issue. you can read more about 'world wind,' the NASA '3D planetary visualization' software at

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/odysseus.html

another review of bittlestone:

http://tinyurl.com/9c2da

here's the fundamental issue underlying all of this: how 'real' is the odyssey? you can set aside the question of whether athena and zeus are real [or *don't* set that one aside, if you prefer], but: what about the people and palces in homer? it's not so very long ago that people would have heaped scorn upon anyone who tried to assert that there had actually been a troy or a trojan war. and yet, well, there you go. and excavations at mycenae and sparta make it pretty obvious that there were glorious and mighty kings in those places during the period homer describes. [agamemnon and menelaus? you decide.]

so the next question is: did odysseus and penelope and telemachus ever exist? and if so, where did they live? *that* is the place to which odysseus would be trying to get back, after the trojan war [and note that if there *was* a trojan war, one assumes here that odysseus did participate in it].

another book [actually a summary of three previous books] that appears to agree with the bittlestone theory:

http://tinyurl.com/aawz8

this author, gilles le noan, claims to have actually identified the palace of odysseus. you see the ramifications of such archaeological quest[ion]s? if there was a palace, was it once actually overrun by suitors? if there were suitors, was there actually once a contest of the bow and axes? and so on, and on. the boundaries between history and fiction [fantasy?] begin to blur significantly.

if you want more bittlestone, you can start by reading the cambridge UP description of the book, at

http://tinyurl.com/7cgoj

the whole book is over 600 pages! but from the link above you can get a sneak peek by downloading a 1.1 MB excerpt, in PDF format, that includes numerous illustrations and a good map.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

taste in art

daniel brought me a provocative essay by paul graham, called 'taste for makers.' you may find this piece stimulating, whether or not you agree with it. so have a look at it online at

http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html/

and, of course, post your comments *here*.

graham works as a programming-language designer, among other things, so some of his ideas are doubtless stimulated by what he thinks a good *design* is [sc. in a programming language]. but his interests, and his comments in this essay, range very widely -- over sports, architecture, and the arts generally.

you'll see that a number of his points are enumerated in a series of paragraphs beginning 'good design is --- .' you might ask yourself critically whether you agree with each of these; if so, why; and if not, why not.

and then, of course, tell us.

back yet again: a new beginning

to a certain extent, this blog has been rather desultory precisely because there was no pressing need for it. i read recently [in the NY times?] that something like 80 THOUSAND new blogs are created each day. so it stands to reason that some of them must be, to some extent at least, supererogatory [not to say gratuitous].

that said, i have been feeling a pressing need for a web-based forum in which my students can discuss topics of interest [including but not limited to topics that come up in class, for which there's not sufficient time to devote the detail they deserve]. the blog format is not the ideal medium for this -- actual bulletin-board software would be better -- but for now, this will serve.

so, as of today, i intend to devote 'coraxioms' primarily to the discussion of topics that i would like to see pursued further. only i can *post* a topic, but anyone can post a *comment* on a posted topic.

so students, read the topics as they are posted, and use the comment function to pursue [or continue, if we've begun in class] the conversation. have fun!

Thursday, September 01, 2005

study abroad fair

today was purdue's annual study abroad fair. there were a couple dozen tables out on memorial mall, each one staffed by folks eager to induce passing students to at least think about studying abroad -- for a summer, a semester, a year. there were professors who [like myself] have taught abroad on such programs. and there were the students -- milling, collecting swag, munching popcorn, and checking it all out.

i feel very strongly that the study-abroad experience is vital to the american university education. it's extraordinarily important for a purdue student, because so many of them have never left indiana, let alone the USA. the notion of doing so may never have occurred to them. their parents may initially be actively hostile to the idea. this was all already true before 9/11; the sentiments have only grown stronger since then. and of course it's a recipe for xenophobia, prejudice, and blinkered living.

all of this is *in addition to* the intrinsic value, to classical studies, of travel to greece, to italy, and to other places in the mediterranean (and britain) where there are material remains of the greco-roman world. this summer i taught a course in greece, 'land of gods and heroes: greek mythology in greece,' which was based on the concept of linking texts to places. we would read myths and legends, and then go and see where they 'happened.' i do firmly believe that there's no more powerful way to experience the classics; and that no student who spends even a few weeks abroad will ever be the same person again. it's as simple as that.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

back again

i think it's really funny that i haven't touched this blog for a whole year now. just over, actually. that should tell you what the past year has been like.

so i'm a year older, and the world has gone around the sun another time. how has the world of classics changed in the interim?

well, hmm. not sure we can measure it in cataclysmic events. but two things that i have noticed in particular:

[a] in the humanities outside of classics, people feel more than ever that theory is 'over.' [in practical terms, i think this means primarily 'poststructuralism' and in particular 'deconstruction.'] but just as it took quite awhile for literary theory to percolate into classics, i imagine it will take it awhile to leach out of it as well. [strictly speaking, i suppose, this is a way in which classics has not changed over the past year.]

[b] a trend that i think has continued [and in fact burgeoned] in classics is the visual turn. we continue to see an emphasis on the exploitation of classical civilizations in the visual media. this past year has seen the premieres of TROY, ALEXANDER, and now -- on television -- ROME. from a pedagogical angle, i would say that students are more visual than ever in the way they process information. this is something i try hard to keep in mind as i teach.