From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom

Description

This volume had its origins in a very specific situation: the teaching of ancient texts dealing with rape. Ensuing discussions among a group of scholars expanded outwards from this to other sensitive areas. Ancient sources raise a variety of issues--slavery, infanticide, abortion, rape, pederasty, domestic violence, death, sexuality--that may be difficult to discuss in a classroom where some students will have had experiences similar to those described in classical texts. They may therefore be reluctant to speak in class, and even the reading themselves may be painful. From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom, edited by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Fiona McHardy, is committed to the proposition that it is important to continue to teach texts that raise these issues, not to avoid them. In this volume, classicists and ancient historians from around the world address how to teach such topics as rape, pederasty, and slavery in the classics classroom. The contributors present the concrete ways in which they themselves have approached such issues in their course planning and in their responses to students' needs. A main objective of From Abortion to Pederasty is to combat arguments, from both the left and the right, that the classics are elitist and irrelevant. Indeed, they are so relevant, and so challenging, as to be painful at times. Another objective is to show how Greco-Roman culture and history can provide a way into a discussion that might have been difficult or even traumatic in other settings. Thus it will provide teaching tools for dealing with uncomfortable topics in the classroom, including homophobia and racism. Cover Title, Copyright Table of Contents List of Illustrations Editors' Preface Introduction: Difficult and Sensitive Discussions 1. Near Death Experiences: Greek Art and Archaeology beyond the Grave 2. Raising Lazarus: Death in the Classics Classroom 3. Teaching about Disability in Today's Classics Classroom 4. Teaching Ancient Medicine: The Issues of Abortion 5. The "Whole-University Approach" to the Pedagogy of Domestic Violence 6. Teaching Uncomfortable Subjects: When Religious Beliefs Get in the Way 7. Too Sexy for South Africa? Teaching Aristophanes' Lysistrata in the Land of the Rainbow Nation 8. Pedagogy and Pornography in the Classics Classroom 9. Challenges in Teaching Sexual Violence and Rape: A Male Perspective 10. Talking Rape in the Classics Classroom: Further Thoughts 11. Teaching the Uncomfortable Subject of Slavery 12. Teaching Ancient Comedy: Joking About Race, Ethnicity, and Slavery 13. Difficult Dialogues about a Difficult Dialogue: Plato's Symposium and Its Gay Tradition 14. A World Away from Ours: Homoeroticism in the Classics Classroom 15. Queering Catullus in the Classroom: The Ethics of Teaching Poem 63 Bibliography Contributors Index Back Cover