Life, meaning, and death.
To promote a sense of belonging and being special, students also get name tags, something like this
with their name inserted. It is fiddly to do and I am not sure how well appreciated it is, but I labor on.
Sometimes we do another play reading, this is the Birds by Aristophanes, who also wrote Lysistrata mentioned above, which parodies Socrates. There is computer game based on the Euthyphro and sometimes that gets a work out. It is DOS based and most students today cannot cope with it!
I published a paper on Socrates years ago. ‘Socrates’ Soul and Our Own,’ Journal of Value Inquiry, 31 (1997) 2, pp. 167-176.
He was something of a character. He roamed the streets of Athens talking to all comers. He heard voices in the air sometimes. He never bathed. Dressed in rags. He sounds like a guy named Jack who hangs near the Seven-Eleven in Newtown. Jack stinks. Hears to voices in the air. Talks to all comers. Dresses in rags. What would Plato seem in him that I don’t, I wonder.
What is worse is that Socrates proposed ridiculous ideas like the equality of women! On this more later.
The death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David in 1787. Famous of course. Rendered thus
But I prefer the version found in a science fiction film called “Soylent Green.” At IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/
When Sol Roth decides it is time to go he does:
Such a contrast from the noisy, dirty, hot, crowded world outside.
The hemlock.
While he waits he watches these scenes.
Valé, Sol.
Just to let you know the name tags are a stroke of genius.Its my third year of Uni this year and only because of your class and the name tags do I know the other 80% of people who I see almost everyday. keep labouring!
I saw this movie the first time when I was too young to understand, all I knew was that this man was dying and he came to this perfect place/refuge where he could wait his death. It must be a good movie then but I’ll go watch it again. Thanks for sharing it here. 🙂
Michelle Porter