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JohnLindsay
Hadrian at the British Museum
Jul 25 2008, 5:54 AM EDT | Post edited: Jul 25 2008, 5:54 AM EDT
seems to be the first case of the absence of censorship since this list began.

The statue in the open court refers to Antinous as Hadrian's lover, tho this leaves open what a lover might mean. I saw this first in the Vatican where its position was an interesting referral.

There will be a Hadrian on Youtube if there aren't too many there already

Incidently, this list might want to know about PPTSA. using technology for social action, which is on the design activism group on Facebook Do you find this valuable?    

Posted Anonymously
1. RE: Hadrian at the British Museum
Aug 1 2008, 6:38 AM EDT | Post edited: Aug 1 2008, 6:38 AM EDT
Looks like a really good exhibition...I'm looking forward to seeing it next time I'm in the Big Smoke. Do you find this valuable?    

Posted Anonymously
2. RE: Hadrian at the British Museum
Aug 5 2008, 7:29 AM EDT | Post edited: Aug 5 2008, 7:29 AM EDT
the interesting question from the catalogue, which might challenge young people, is the idea that Hadrian was gay, which is in big letters. How one raises the issue that the concept didn't exist, so he couldn't have been, might be regarded as philosophy, history, art, politics, literature, or something?

 Do you find this valuable?    

tim_davies
3. RE: Hadrian at the British Museum
Aug 8 2008, 4:15 AM EDT | Post edited: Aug 8 2008, 4:15 AM EDT
I can heartily recommend a book called "Love, Sex and Tragedy: why classics matter" by Simon Goldhill.
Perhaps we should introduce the teaching of philosophy in schools, like the French and Germans. Then we'd all be aware of the difference between homosexuality and what the eighteenth century called "Greek Love". And of Foucault's thesis that it is a Victorian invention by preists and doctors.
Plato's "Death of Socrates" might be a good place to start, becuase he is exectued for "corrupting" the youth of Athens. A modern audience automatically assumes a sexual element, but his crime is teaching them to think critically, and to argue in the Socratic manner. What an excellent basis for discussion with teenagers... Do you find this valuable?    

JohnLindsay
4. RE: Hadrian at the British Museum
Aug 8 2008, 7:31 AM EDT | Post edited: Aug 8 2008, 7:31 AM EDT
Goldhill's Foucault's virginity makes a good read too

but I think there are real issues about curriculum design, at school, college and undergraduate levels

and the death of Socrates makes a wonderful start for almost anything, being a key moment in the concept of the classical, which gets us to the renaissance and the enlightenment, and then modernity and post modernity, which leaves us with fundamentalism, so almost everything in a nutshell.

Hadrian as enlightened despot makes a good hanger to then ask how we achieved what we call democracy, and how it differs from despotism?

Which gets me to the English Landscape Garden, but that is another thread. Do you find this valuable?    

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