Literature (cont.)
No single approach predominates; a commitment to deep and shared understanding unites us. It's not unusual for discussion in a single seminar session on epic to range from the significance of a Greek verb tense and the violations of Hermann's Bridge to Bakhtin's ideas on genre or analogues from the study of pop culture. A seminar on Athenian culture of the classical period would be open to discussing Periclean building programs, the archaeology of cult, the utility of Geertz's analysis of culture, and the economics of theatrical production, as well as literary analysis of Euripidean choral odes and the Platonic view of tragic mimesis. Such a course might even be team-taught, by a historian and philologist or philosopher, as are an increasing number of our seminars.
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