L I B E R A L A R T S A N D S C I E N C E S C L A S S I C S The Tragedies of Aeschylus A eschylus, the oldest and most venerable of the Greek tragic poets, is said to have written at least 70 plays, but, like so many ancient works, most are lost. Just seven plays survive. This course will consist of a close, in-depth reading of five of those plays. We will begin with Oresteia, the only extant trilogy of Greek tragedy. These three plays tell the story of Agamemnon’s return from Troy and his brutal murder by his wife, Clytemnestra (Agamemnon); the revenge enacted by his son, Orestes, who kills his mother and her lover, Aegisthus (The Libation Bearers); and the final resolution of this cyclical violence in Athens (The Eumenides). Our fourth play is the Persians, the only remaining historical Greek tragedy. It centers on the Persians’ defeat by the Athenians at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE. In a bold move, Aeschylus chose Xerxes, king of the Persians and a man whom Greeks would have known as a fearsome enemy, to be this play’s tragic hero. Our last play, Prometheus Bound, tells the story of the Titan Prometheus, who undergoes a terrible punishment for defying Zeus in order to help mankind. The tragedies of Aeschylus are justly celebrated for their rich and complex language as well as themes that still resonate deeply today: power, justice, and moral choice and responsibility. No previous knowledge of Greek tragedy is necessary. ba r ba r a c l ay ton Independent Scholar Barbara Clayton has taught Classics at Oberlin College, Santa Clara University, and Stanford, where she was a lecturer in a freshman humanities program for many years. Since 2015, she has taught for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. She is the author of A Penelopean Poetics: Reweaving the Feminine in Homer’s Odyssey. Clayton received a PhD in Classics from Stanford. CLA 77 Mondays, 7:00 – 8:50 pm (PT) 6 weeks, July 10 – August 14 1 unit, $385 Refund Deadline: July 12 Course Format: On-campus C U L T U R A L S T U D I E S Science, Technology, Art: An Interwoven History T his course explores the interwoven histories of science, technology, and art from the late medieval period to today. We will discover how artists leveraged advances in science in developing their works and how technologists solved some of the most confounding problems confronting these artists. A few of the ques- tions we will consider include: How did the invention of oil paints lead to the heightened realism of Renaissance masters such as Jan van Eyck and Raphael? Did the Dutch master van Eyck use projection optics to achieve his sublime realism? How did post-impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac apply color theory to their pointillist works? And how did science and tech- nology help expose fake art purported to be by Amedeo Modigliani and Jackson Pollock? Topics we will cover along the way include the geometry of perspective, the optics of image making, visual perception of color, the chemistry of pigments, perception of form and illu- sions, and the role of computing in art. Understanding the ways in which science and technology underlie the history of art will allow students to see both classic and modern works with richer, more informed eyes. dav i d g. stor k Independent Scholar David G. Stork has held faculty positions in physics, mathematics, electrical engineering, computer science, statistics, neuroscience, psychology, and art and art history at Wellesley, Swarthmore, Clark University, Boston University, Stanford, and the Technical University of Vienna. He received a PhD in physics from the University of Maryland. CLS 133 Mondays, 6:45 – 8:45 pm (PT) 5 weeks, July 31 – August 28 1 unit, $360 Refund Deadline: August 2 Course Format: Live Online 22 S T A N F O R D C O N T I N U I N G S T U D I E S