BASC50096 - Plato's Symposium in Historical Context

Course Description

Plato’s Symposium has an intricate internal structure, but some of its crucial facets reflect its historical context. In this course, we couple close reading of the internal structure and philosophical content with readings in six contexts: fourth century Attic oratory (“rhetoric”); the literary and philosophical activity of the circle of Socrates’ followers after his death; the ancient Greek construction of sexuality, including same-sex relations, under the ideology of Erôs; the social practice of the all-male drinking party, or sumposion; the religious practices of the Dionysian festivals and Eleusinian Mysteries; and the political scandals known as the Mutilation of the Herms and the Profanation of the Mysteries. Cutting across all four contexts are the figures of Socrates and Alcibiades, and the meanings of freedom and slavery.

Course Outline

REQUIRED TEXTS

1.    Plato. Plato’s Symposium. Benardete, trans. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226042756.
2.    Dover, Kenneth. Greek Homosexuality. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674362703.
3.    Boys-Stones and Rowe. The Circle of Socrates: Readings in the First-Generation Socratics. Hackett Publishing. 978-1-60384-936-4.
4.    Plato. Phaedrus. Nehamas and Woodruff, trans. Hackett Publishing. 978-0872202214.
5.    PDFs on Canvas site.

Notes

Online registration deadline: Thursday, March 24, 5 pm CT.