GRST 302 - The Blegen Seminar

Topic for 2019/20b: Fashion & Its Enemies​. Fashion is often regarded as vain frippery, relegated to pretenders and frauds, with no business in a serious, intellectual setting.  Yet, from where does this stigma arise, since examining reality seems to require looking at its various “looks”?  In the Republic, Plato alludes to an “ancient quarrel” between the philosopher and the poet.  While the philosopher undresses the world to try to get to the naked truth, the poet overdresses—sometimes even obfuscates—reality.  The poet’s “lies” are therefore the target of the philosopher’s defrocking.  But defrocked wisdom seems to be a fashion in its own right, attractive for its unstudied allure, not unlike the “natural look” of flawless skin.  Indeed, philosophy could find no greater insult to its worth than to be caught making things up, wearing costumes, or engaging in idle quests.  So, the comic poet Aristophanes depicted Socrates floating in a basket in the clouds—an amusing image, but also one that may have contributed to Socrates’ execution.  This course examines fashion and poetry—literal and metaphorical—in their relationship to the search for truth and the fear of the meaningless.  Is philosophy the enemy or the frenemy of the poets?  Do images and clothes conceal or reveal who we are?  We read ancient and modern texts and discuss contemporary trends, such as anti-fashion, normcore, and goth. Gwen Grewal.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS