Greek Tragedy: A Rape Culture?

This essay looks at rape in Greek tragedy through the lens of several moments of feminist theorizing and activism about rape. Starting with a study of second and third wave feminist approaches, it analyzes those plays that seem closest to modern ideas of rape (non‑consensual sexual contact) – Aeschylus ‘Suppliants, Euripides’ Ion and Hippolytos, as well as the Trojan War plays, Trojan Women and Andromache. It shows that in each case there is ambiguity between rape and marriage. In the end, it asks the question of how should we read and teach these texts? The ambiguous discourse supports the notion that the plays, like epic, are part of the normalization of rape (that is, establishing a rape culture), but if read with care, we can avoid reproducing that effect for ourselves and our students

From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom

Introduction : difficult and sensitive discussions / Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz -- Near death experiences : Greek art and archaeology beyond the grave / Tyler Jo Smith and Carrie L. Sulosky Weaver -- Raising Lazarus : death in the classics classroom / Margaret Butler -- Disability in today's classics classroom / Lisa Trentin -- Teaching ancient medicine : the issues of abortion / Patty Baker, Helen King, and Laurence Totelin -- The "whole-university approach : to the pedagogy of domestic violence / Susan Deacy and Fiona McHardy -- Teaching uncomfortable subjects : when religious beliefs get in the way / Polyxeni Strolonga -- Too sexy for South Africa? : teaching Aristophanes' Lysistrata in the land of the rainbow nation / Suzanne Sharland -- Pedagogy and pornography in the classics classroom / Genevieve Liveley -- Challenges in teaching sexual violence and rape : a male perspective / Sanjaya Thakur -- Talking rape in the classics classroom : further thoughts / Sharon L. James -- Teaching the uncomfortable subject of slavery / Page duBois -- Teaching ancient comedy : joking about race, ethnicity and slavery / Barbara Gold -- Difficult dialogues about a difficult dialogue : Plato's Symposium and its gay tradition / Nikolai Endres -- A world away from ours : homoeroticism in the classics classroom / Walter Duvall Penrose, Jr. -- Queering Catullus in the classroom : the ethics of teaching Poem 63 / Maxine Lewis.Item embargoed for five year