Click play to listen. Recorded on November 6, 2010.
In ancient Greece, athletics and rhetoric were learned in the same way: through rhythm, repetition, and response. Both practices were anchored and performed in the classical gymnasium and at festivals. In this event, Debra Hawhee, professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, discusses her research on athletics in ancient Greece and links it to persistent sports metaphors in contemporary US political rhetoric. As Hawhee shows, ancient Greek athletics extended beyond kinesiology, competition, and entertainment and intersected with other cultural realms, particularly the art of rhetoric. These connections, it turns out, persist to this day.
Read the CHF blog post about this program.
