The literature of the archaic and classical Greek polis was produced by and for a "performance society." As we read in translation Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Hesiod's Works and Days, the poetry of an Archilochus, Sappho, Solon, Theognis, or Pindar, tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, comedies by Aristophanes, brief selections from the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, and some portions of Plato's philosophical writings, we will attend closely to the performance contexts in which these works were first produced, both to enrich our literary analysis of each work and to spin the thematic threads we will follow through this complex and varied literature. From the oral epics of Homer and Hesiod in the eighth century to Plato's written "dialogues" in the fourth, the problem of paideia, education or socialization, preoccupied Greeks of the polis. Who should be educated, about what things, by whom, and how? How do we learn or know something, and what kinds of knowledge is it possible or desirable to attain? Which types of familial and civic arrangements create which types of anthropoi, human beings? What kinds of anthropoi should society aim to create? What could or should an anthropos be? How do categories like male and female, slave and free, or Greek and barbaros relate to one another and to the category anthropos? Is anthropos a category of "being" or "doing"-in short, of performance? Format: lecture with some discussion. Evaluation will be based on participation in class but chiefly on several short response papers, two 5- to 7-page essays, and a take-home final examination. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 40 (expected: 40). Preference will be given to first-year students and sophomores.