The ancient world was horrific in many respects.

Jul 12, 2016

The ancient world was horrific in many respects. It is easy to find ancient records of slavery, war, genocide, state-authoritarianism, conscription, ritualised public execution, the suppression of women and rape. How we teach these subjects requires the sensitivity you suggest and I would encourage my students to read this article. Teachers should be aware that students may have experience of violence and rape themselves. Conversations between students and teachers should be candid, mature and sensitive . However the notion that we are “actively feeding these misconceptions, unless we make an effort to the contrary” and the following line of teaching you suggest is questionable. If we begin discussion of the text with immediate moral indignation and then use it to begin a wider criticism of gender politics in modern film culture, there is a danger that we are merely using ancient texts as a conduit to discuss modern gender politics. We may then be focusing on modern gender politics, not on the text itself or culture within which it was written. The aim of classical study should be to understand the ancient world, even it’s most deplorable aspects. Our aim should not be to use ancient texts as a means to campaign against modern social problems, laudable these campaigns may be.