Honors Program 2018 Winter Colloquium: "Confronting Homer's Iliad"

[@frankfeldman6657]

Great teacher, you should all be a tenth as learned.

[@brentweissert6524]

great work, camera person. NOT! would have been nice to SEE what she was talking about.

[@Hadoken.]

Not that ithere aren't good things here but this presentation isn't particularly interesting in the first half. The Dr takes an eternity and a day to tell us that recording methods weren't of the most archival quality 3000 years ago nor were reproduction methods all that accurate so we most likely have a version of an oral poem that doesn't quite match the version which Homer put down. Give her a medal for stating the obvious. And she also falls into the same pitfall many of these academics who basically never left school fall into regarding a critique of the ancient Greeks admiring Achilles too much. What these people don't realize is that it's nice and well to think that in their safe office with airconditioning and tenure. What their soft pampered behinds seem to forget is that in ancient times violent death due to war or starvation was always right around the corner. Society hadn't much use for a class of people who couldn't carry a sword and shield and die for the tribe. It's characteristic that all men who were of age were also soldiers for the city-state. Who was it in their interest to admire when the Persians were around? Achilles or some soft human who cowers at the first sign of a knife. This to me shows the distance from reality these people have in their musty libraries and for all their analysis they fail to appreciate some of the consequances of works like this. The very fact that the Greeks and everyone after them admired Achilles has as a direct consequence history unravelling in a way that creates her safe and comfortable life. Men broke their backs and brains toiling and solving problems while voluntairily dying at the edge of a knife or from a bullet between the eyes for thousands of years protecting the series of women who ended up producing these academics. These men paid the ultimate price because of the archetype Achilles and the Iliad set forth regarding the will and glory of the warrior regardless of how he leaves the battlefield. We are the immediate beneficiaries of this archetype. A little appreciation wouldn't be bad.

[@artiexus]

Kind of an unfair caricature of the first half, there's no way it would be obvious to people that, say, Plato's version of the poem was kept in 24 scrolls or that the proof of its oral origin was boosted after discovering epic recitations from Montenegro in the 19th century. I fully sympathize with your points on the deplorable lack of respect that is given to ancient warriors in modern culture, and the way violence is treated like an aberration rather than a constant in human history and psychology. But the way you characterize her response seems a little bit distorted, she seems to be talking more about his character flaws rather than his role as a warrior as such. Obviously, someone who sulks and refuses to help in a crucial battle is far from admirable. Even Achilles himself saw his extreme temper as problematic, a form of self-knowledge that she praises him for.

[@EthanandDogs]

Please know that your "critique" of Dr. Scodel comes off as incredibly prejudiced and, to be completely honest, totally uneducated. First of all, the first half of this lecture is meant for undergraduates who may have no prior experience with Homeric literature nor its accompanying historical context. Even if they did have some prior background, are you saying that things like a knowledge of Aristarchean textual criticism, M. L. West's critical apparatus, and Milman Parry's theories of oral composition are simply "givens" in the study of Homer? Considering your later comments that attack the removed position of academics, that critique of yours sure seems to come from your own perceived intellectual elitism. But your complaint about the first half of this lecture is not what concerns me. You've assumed far too much about Dr. Scodel's biography -- and your assumptions predicate on a suspicion on academia as a whole. You're right to be suspicious of academics who take too much of an abstract distance from the topics they discuss, but you're unjustified in applying that suspicion to a professor who you have no personal experience with. Please forgive me if you have a previous personal relationship with Dr. Scodel that I am unaware of, but if you have problems with her methodology than I suggest you contact her directly as opposed to "airing your grievances" in the form of a youtube comment. It's tasteless and petty. She has devoted many decades of her life to appreciating these texts, you ought to consider that on a more serious level before you insult her academic prowess based on your ad hominem argument. As to your pseudo-historical argument on Achilles and the linear development of a historical "war mentality". While I find virtually every claim you make based on zero historical insight, I'll reserve myself for one sentence of yours in particular in the interest of time. You say "the very fact that the Greeks and everyone after them admired Achilles has as a direct consequence history unravelling in a way that creates her safe and comfortable life." First of all -- this is not a "fact" of history. Even in the ancient world, authors both praised and reviled the image of Achilles as a hero. And the critique of Achilles did not just arise out of people's revulsion to war itself. One of the foremost examples that comes to mind is Achilles' depiction in Virgil's Aeneid. To put it simply, he is described as cruel, unforgiving, and excessively violent. And yet, the Aeneid valourizes war and the power of an honest and strong soldier that risks his own happiness and safety for the betterment of the common good--i.e. Aeneas. As to the second point you make in your blanket statement -- you assume that history operates in a simplified linear progression of ideas and events dating back to Archaic Greece. Even if this is true, how can you possibly claim that anyone's current safety from war is a direct consequence of Achilles' depiction in the Iliad? Furthermore, doesn't Achilles' depiction in the Iliad point more toward the possibility of an anti-war perspective? In Book 24, he regrets his decision of even having gone to war in the first place and expresses his belief that the entire conflict is ultimately a pointless experience of human suffering conjured by the will of the gods. Bear in mind that Achilles also sacrifices 12 innocent children in his rage for Patroclus -- why do you demand that people respect and admire this heroic archetype? Something to think about, I hope. Cheers.