2nd Year: The Iliad and the Dynamics of Anger

Message from course instructor, Dr. Aara Suksi: In the first half of this course, we did a close reading of the Iliad, an ancient Greek epic poem about the anger of the hero Achilles and the consequences of that anger. A series of guest speakers with a wide range of perspectives on anger, war, and art gave us much to discuss and think about.

Each student wrote 4 individual reflection pieces, two on the Iliad, a third on a modern artistic response to the Iliad, and a final piece reflecting on their own personal experience of anger, grief and loss and what the Iliad could say to them about these things. For this final piece, students had the option of submitting their own creative work. A selection from the 3rd and 4th reflection assignments is included here.

In the second half of the course, after a workshop with Aquila Theatre founder Peter Meineck, we worked on preparing a public performance of readings of selections from the Iliad. The performance, to be followed by a panel discussion, was to take place at Museum London on March 26. Those plans were changed suddenly by the new conditions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. With two and half weeks left in the term, the students, working collaboratively online, reformatted all the work they had done for the live public performance, and recreated it in a multi-media digital format.

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