We are pleased to welcome Professor James Romm, The James Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics, Bard College, to join members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on Plato and the Tyrant: The Tale of the Platonic Letters. Plato made three trips outside Athens during his life, all of them to the Greek city of Syracuse (in Sicily). His relations with two powerful tyrants there, a father and… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Professor Armand D’Angour, of Jesus College, Oxford, who joined members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on “How to Talk about Love: Plato’s Symposium.” The earliest and most brilliant philosophical treatment of Love is Plato’s dialogue Symposium. In it, a group of seven men, including the comic playwright Aristophanes and the philosopher Socrates, offer speeches describing what they think love is. The… Read more
We were delighted to welcome Professor Mary Bachvarova, Director of the First Year Experience, Lindsay and Corinne Stewart Professor in the Humanities, Classical Studies, Willamette University, who joined members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion titled “Lesbian Prayer : Tradition and Innovation in Sappho.” In this talk Prof. Bachvarova uses Homeric and Near Eastern prayer to illustrate how Sappho innovates on her inherited Lesbian tradition of prayer.… Read more
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Monica Berti, of Leipzig University, to join members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on the principles and recommendations of the so called “Linked Open Data” (LOD) to share and reuse data across the web. The focus will be on the use of LOD in the field of Graeco-Roman antiquity. Examples will be taken from the project “Linked Ancient Greek and… Read more
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Maria G. Xanthou FHEA, of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies to join members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on: “Killing with words: Isocrates, Dio Chrysostom, and Libanius on how to commit character assassination with style.” As Monty Python’s sketch Argument Clinic illustrates, abusive discourse (psogos, loidōria, mempsis) lies at the heart of oratory and rhetorical education. Abuse informs the… Read more