Publics and Audiences in Ancient Greece

An overview of the historical constitution of theater audiences in Classical Athens and the implications of this assessment. I first sketch out the dominant ways in which modern scholars have defined ancient audiences. I argue that attention to (male) citizenship or Greek identity has effaced the presence and role of other groups in the audience. In the second section I discuss the evidence for audiences in ancient Athens. Available space for spectators and the various barriers to these spaces shaped the diverse constitution of audiences; from the Classical to early Hellenistic period (ca. 480–300 BC), theaters did not merely expand and proliferate but redefined the make-up of audiences. The third section explores the discourse of audiences in ancient sources. As I briefly elaborate in the conclusion, this chapter aims to unsettle and provincialize the idea of citizen audiences

The Work of Tragic Productions: Towards a New History of Drama as Labor Culture

Preliminary analysis of the representation of laborers in Greek tragedy and satyr drama

Polyneices’ Body and His Monument: Class, Social Status, and Funerary Commemoration in Sophocles’ Antigone

There has been much debate about the role of Greek tragedy in questioning and/or affirming values. This paper addresses the broader relationship between theater and society in terms of the ways in which the dead were commemorated in fifth-century Athens. In section 1, I briefly consider different forms of funerary monuments and, in particular, the increase in the use of images of women. I argue that the types of monuments that people erected conveyed specific social and political meanings. In particular, I draw attention to the new role played by images of women to represent the class and civic status of the family, by focusing on the social and political implications of this form of commemoration in comparison with archaic-style burial mounds. Whereas images of women or men in a domestic setting allowed for more ambiguous messages concerning the status of the family, burial mounds (which continued to be erected by a few families in fifth-century Athens) promoted an elite identity that drew on Homeric models. In section 2, I bring together Sophocles’ Antigone with the insights from changes in iconography and funerary practice. I first discuss the representation of Polyneices in the debate between Antigone and Creon, highlighting the emphasis placed on social status. The play defines Polyneices’ class and status through a series of contrasting images (e.g., slave, lower-class male) and further emphasizes the outrage of Creon’s edict by depicting the denial of burial as an attack on Polyneices’ social standing. Then I analyze the representation of his burial and the references to the tools used to build his tomb. I argue that the play presents an aristocratic burial through the location and description of Creon’s construction of the tomb. While the play provides clear support for Antigone and her defense of the unwritten laws in terms of the general right to burial, it also indicates an ongoing concern with social class and its contested role in Athenian society

Theorika in Fifth-Century Athens

A re-assessment of the state funding for attending dramatic festivals in fifth-century Athens. The introduction of the "Theoric Fund" is correctly dated to the middle of the fourth century, but this fact has obscured the existence of earlier theoric distributions. A careful reconsideration of the evidence of Plutarch and Philochorus in light of Athenian public finance suggests that distributions of public funds approved by the demos for attendance at festivals (θεωρικά) existed as ad hoc payments in the fifth century, but these were not part of the Theoric Fund that came into existence later in the fourth century. While Old Comedy does not explicitly refer to theoric payments, its references to the economics of the theater (e.g. entrance costs, theater-leasing) can nonetheless contribute to our understanding of the distributions of state funds for attending festivals in the fifth century and help to sort out some of the confusing and contradictory information on other distributions of state funds preserved in ancient sources. While theoric payments were available to all citizens, they did facilitate theater attendance for poor citizens

Gender, Class, and Ideology: The Social Function of Virgin Sacrifice in Euripides’ Children of Herakles

This paper explores how gender can operate as a disguise for class in an examination of the self-sacrifice of the Maiden in Euripides’ Children of Herakles. In Part I, I discuss the role of human sacrifice in terms of its radical potential to transform society and the role of class struggle in Athens. In Part II, I argue that the representation of women was intimately connected with the social and political life of the polis. In a discussion of iconography, the theater industry and audience I argue that female characters became one of the means by which different groups promoted partisan interests based on class and social status. In Part III, I show how the Maiden solicits the competing interests of the theater audience. After discussing the centrality (as a heroine from an aristocratic family) and marginality (as a woman and associated with other marginal social groups) of the Maiden’s character, I draw upon the funeral oration as a comparative model with which to understand the quite different role of self-sacrifice in tragedy. In addition to representing and mystifying the interests of elite, lower class and marginal groups, the play (on a more radical reading) glorifies a subordinate character whose contradictory social status (both subordinate and elite) embodies the social position of other “marginal” members of Athenian society (e.g., lower class males and females, resident foreigners). The play stages a model for taking political action to transform the social system and for commemorating the tragic costs of such undertakings

Gas leak-detection system

Data monitoring of gas leakage in satellites and spacecraft is facilitated by adding gaseous radioisotopes to cold compressed gas and mounting a detector in the thrust nozzle

Psychic euosmia and obsessive compulsive personality disorder

Patients with obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) often refer to a prompt mood improvement upon encountering good scents in general, or fresh laundry borax on their clothes, pillows or home settings. The Authors propose the new term psychic euosmia in the mean of an overstated psychological predisposition for a real pleasant smell that elicits an immediate sense of pleasure, order and calm. The prompt reactions to a pleasant odor might be explained by the involvement of rhinencephalon and its proximity to mood-related limbic circuits, which bypass the cognitive awareness. Cleanliness may not preclude a subject to enjoy a good smell, even if we are representing smells that resemble freshness, in other words order. A potentially even more important argument is given by the continuum of personality disorders and their variability. Not all personality characteristics led to disturbed behaviors. In evolutionary perspectives having the ability to differentiate between unpleasant and pleasant odors should have made the difference in surviving. On the other hand, psychic euosmia could be considered a normal reaction, but in our clinical experience it is over-represented among OCPD subjects with marked orderliness and disgust. Therefore, detecting psychic euosmia might vicariously confirm the relevance of disgust as a cognitive driver of OCPD. Hereby we support research to characterize psychic euosmia as a feature of orderliness and cleanliness for OCPD

Aspectos cognitivos derivados de dos estilos contrapuestos de enseñanza: expositivo y participativo-guiado

El objetivo de la presente investigación es comparar dos estilos de enseñanza: expositivo y participativo-guiado, en un contexto naturalista o de clase real. El objetivo no es analizar la eficacia abstracta de cada estilo, sino hacer explícitos ciertos efectos cognitivos no fácilmente perceptibles asociados a ambos estilos. Tales efectos ocultos se refieren a determinadas características del aprendizaje que se logra, las cuales tienen que ver con el conocimiento específico enseñado, con el conocimiento ampliado (de integración y transferencia), con la dependencia-independencia respecto del desarrollo enseñante, con la permanencia del aprendizaje y conel sostén intersubjetivo del aprendizaje. Participaron cuatro profesores de biología, los cuáles debían dar una clase a sus propios alumnos de secundaria sobre un tema extra-curricular, ajustándose dos de ellos a un estilo expositivo y los otros dos a un estilo participativo-guiado. Los resultados muestran que no hay grandes diferencias entre ambos estilos de enseñanza en el aprendizaje de temas específicos, aunque sí en el aprendizaje de temas ampliados, o sea en la capacidad de extrapolar el conocimiento específico a otros dominios, sacar conclusiones de integración conceptual y buscar ejemplificaciones conceptuales originales. En esto el estilo participativo fue superior. A su vez, el estilo expositivo genera una mayor dependencia lingüísticay cognitiva respecto del desarrollo discursivo enseñante. La medida del aprendizaje específico, un mes después, muestra la superioridad del estilo participativo. Pero lo más significativo es la mayor recuperación que exhiben los alumnos de esta modalidad cuando tienen oportunidad de “repasar” el tema con sus pares