3-Week SASA Reading Group: Is this your neighbor, is this you? Looking at others and ourselves in Theophrastus’ Characte

“All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely”...Characters? In adjusting this famous quote from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, we are reminded that we are all not necessarily perceived as Players but, rather, as stock characters in the stories of our lives. How we characterize ourselves is sometimes different than how others might characterize us.

Theophrastus (c. 371 - c. 287 BCE) was a philosopher and natural scientist who succeeded Aristote as the head of the Lyceum in Athens. His Characters, published late in his life (when he was 99 years old according to the preface), consisted of thirty character sketches of unsavory kinds of people he encountered in Athens. Such characters were arrogant, unpleasant, petty, miserly, or simply gross. Reading Theophrastus’ caricatures can perhaps give us a slice of life in early Hellenistic Athens, but, more importantly, it will help us consider harsh stereotypes we might have of others while also questioning our own behaviors and attitudes. While Theophrastus did not invent stereotypes (or even the use of stereotypes in literature), he is often credited with creating the character sketch genre that influenced later authors of the early modern period and beyond. In this reading group, we will grapple with the problems of stereotypes, moral qualities, and ethical behavior. In doing so, we will interrogate our own lives and how we perceive others and ourselves.

3-Week Text-In-Translation Reading Group

Thursdays at 2 pm Eastern Time 

Start date: June 2nd

End date: June 16th

MUST RSVP TO GET THE ZOOM LINK. The same link will be used for all 3 sessions.