Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Satyr But Wiser

Another long teaching day ahead in the last week of my Classical Rhetoric intensive at Berkeley, and today we're tackling Petronius and the Satyricon. Seneca's pumpkin- apotheosis satire of poor dead Claudius yesterday was meant to prepare them to grapple with this much more sprawling and ambitious satire, with which we circle back ironically and acerbically to themes from the Iliad with which we began six over five weeks ago, but I fear that many of them are sweating out their final papers and skipping the readings for this last week a bit. Understandable, but three hours lecturing an anxious exhausted saucer-eyed throng on a text they've skimmed at best isn't exactly a thrilling prospect. Here we go.

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