COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > ONLINE

Sometimes known as “the Father of Comedy”, Aristophanes was a fixture of ancient Athens at the time of Peloponnesian War and of Socrates. Indeed, in one of his plays Aristophanes lampoons Socrates himself. (Plato returned the favor by having Socrates allude to that play in the Apology and by including Aristophanes in the Symposium alongside Agathon, the great tragedian of the day.) This course will look closely at three of the master’s plays: The Clouds (about Socrates and his “Thinkery”); The Wasps (often considered the finest example of “Old Comedy”); and Lysistrata (in which the women of Greece go on a sex strike in order to force the men of Greece to end the Peloponnesian War). A final session will be devoted to a consideration of Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, a modern adaptation of Lysistrata whose tagline is, “No Peace; No Piece”.

Text

• Aristophanes, The Complete Plays (trans. Roche)

Film

• Chi-Raq (2015, D. Spike Lee, 127 min.)

TAUGHT: WINTER 2025