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News

Class to merge Greek lit, film

Hybrid course to analyze similarities between ancient literature and Hollywood blockbusters

by Jennifer Early
The Daily Cougar

This is the first of a weeklong series of articles in which The Daily Cougar staff writers provide a look into an interesting non-core class being offered in the 2007 Spring semester. This first class is an introductory course to ancient Greek literature by examining and analyzing related themes in film.

If you enjoy immersing yourself in a good piece of Greek literature and are on a first-name basis with your local movie theater greeter, consider adding From Homer to Hollywood: Archaic and Classical Greek Themes in Modern Cinema to your list of spring semester courses.

This course integrates literature and film by allowing students to find themes, imagery and metaphors in both forms. Students should be aware that films shown throughout the spring semester do not adapt particular works of Greek literature but visually demonstrate themes developed in antiquity, the teacher of the course, associate professor Casey Dué Hackney said.

"I started to think, wouldn't it be great if I could just have an entire class where it combined seeing entire films with Greek literature," he said, "The thing I think is different about this class is it's not just movies that are supposed to be movie versions of Greek literature. These are movies where I'm not sure the directors were even at all thinking about Greek literature," Dué Hackney said.

"In the previous offering of (the course), I showed The Usual Suspects in connection with The Odyssey. There's no relationship whatsoever between The Odyssey and The Usual Suspects, except that I wanted to explore storytelling techniques," Dué Hackney said.

Dué Hackney said students often feel more comfortable analyzing a film rather than literature, but they do not realize it is the same process.

"They are the same kinds of connections students need to make with different parts of films -- the different images, the music, various characters and their relationships. It's the things (students) do all time, even while watching a silly movie," Dué Hackney said.

Heroes are not the theme of the class, because Dué Hackney wanted the course to be more generalized and open to everyone.

"It's hard to relate to the Greek culture. The Greek word ‘hero' means something extremely different than the English word ‘hero'. That's hard for people to get past. It would almost be better if there was a totally different word. The Greek word ‘hero' is actually a religious figure that was worshipped by the ancient Greeks. But they didn't have to be good people. In fact, they usually did horrible things," Dué Hackney said.

From Homer to Hollywood is a hybrid course that meets on Thursdays from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Since the course is a hybrid class, most of the coursework must be completed outside of class, but perks include the opportunity to view Oscar-nominated films such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The English Patient at home with a bowl of Orville Redenbacher's finest.

Short essays, weekly online discussions, participation in class discussions and a final exam each account for 25 percent of the student's grade average, so regularly logging in to WebCT is vital for success in the course.

The required reading list includes works such as the Iliad, Odyssey, Agamemnon, Iphigeneia at Aulis, Trojan Women, Aristophanes, Lysistrata, Medea and Histories of Herodotus.

CLAS 3381 From Homer to Hollywood: Archaic and Classical Greek Themes in Modern Cinema can be found in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. The course section number is 13745.

As of press time, eight seats were open for CLAS 3381. For additional information about this course, visit www.uh.edu/~cldue/3381/.

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