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Emily Anhalt discussion of her new book, Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths

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• Date & time 5p – 6p, 08/24/2017
• Description On Thursday, August 24 at 5 pm at the Stonington Free Library on Wadawanuck Square in Stonington Borough. The Stonington Historical Society in collaboration with the Stonington Free Library will offer the first look at Emily Katz Anhalt’s newest book, “Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths” For further information contact: The Stonington Historical Society Christopher Kepple: ckepple@stoningtonhistory.org; 860-535-8445; www.stoningtonhistory.org New Book Finds Ancient Myths Helpful in Today’s Turbulent Age “Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths” offers crucial lessons from ancient Greece on how to develop and maintain a civil society and reduce violence Stonington, CT – August 8, 2017- In a time when our divided nation is engaging in increasingly hostile dialogue and incidents of physical violence, what can we learn from the ancient Greeks about maintaining a civil society? Join the Stonington Historical Society at the Stonington Free Library on Thursday, August 24 at 5 pm as Emily Katz Anhalt explores how ancient history offers insights into today’s contentious times. Her newest publication, Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, will be released on August 22 by Yale University Press. The professor of ancient Greek and Latin at Sarah Lawrence College reveals how three masterworks of classical Greek literature – Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Ajax, and Euripides’ Hecuba – can help us end the glorification or tolerance of violence and recognize violent revenge as a marker of ruinous, irrational thinking. What are some of the lessons that ancient Greek myths provide? • Develop the farsightedness and other means to control our own rage; • Resist temptations to glorify violent rage and those who would indulge in it; • Recognize that compassion, rational thought, and debate best promote our own interests. “Greek myths help to arm us against the tyrants we might serve and the tyrants we might become,’’ says Anhalt. Anhalt teaches Classical Languages and Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. A graduate of Dartmouth College, she received her Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Yale University and has also taught Greek mythology, Classical languages, literature, and history at Yale and at Trinity College. The author of Solon the Singer: Politics and Poetics, Anhalt lives in Guilford, CT. The Stonington Historical Society, Inc., founded in 1895, seeks to preserve, interpret and celebrate the history of Stonington. It presents programs and exhibits and maintains three sites open to the public: the Old Lighthouse Museum; the Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer House, a National Historic Landmark and the home of the discoverer of Antarctica; and the Richard W. Woolworth Library, a research archive of local history. For more information on these sites and the Society's programs, exhibits, and collections, visit our website,stoningtonhistory.org, or call 860-535-8445.
• Contact Information
  • Christopher Kepple
  • ckepple@stoningtonhistory.org
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