Society Before Letters
Communications technology seems so modern that it is easy to forget it merely iterates techniques and practices used before the written word even existed.
- Day:Saturday
- Times: 9:30am-12:30am CST
- Dates: Starting March 29
Taught by:
About the Course
Communications technology seems so modern that it is easy to forget it merely iterates techniques and practices used before the written word even existed. In pre-literate societies, all cultural data was maintained by word of mouth and in memory. As modern communications arose in the twentieth century, first anthropologists and then literary scholars began to observe and describe the techniques and practices of “the word” in oral societies. Study of the technologies of the oral word can rearrange our perspective on the present state of communications technology, and as well as illumine old texts composed under the influence of orality. Readings will include oral texts from ancient Greek, Sanskrit, and Native American treaties of the colonial era, Shakespeare, and a variety of secondary scholarship.
This class will satisfy the following curriculum requirement:
- Tech and Society Elective
About the Professor
Kendall Sharp
Kendall Sharp is the Sheffield Family Distinguished Instructor in the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. He holds a PhD from the Committee on Social Thought and a BA from the College at the University of Chicago. Formerly, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at...
Kendall Sharp is the Sheffield Family Distinguished Instructor in the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. He holds a PhD from the Committee on Social Thought and a BA from the College at the University of Chicago. Formerly, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario, and he has taught also at DePaul University (history), the University of Illinois-Chicago (classics), and in the College (humanities). He rejoined the Basic Program in 2019, having last served on the staff from 1999–2000. His research and publishing focus on Plato’s dialogues as literary expressions of the philosophical life. His teaching has included Greek and Latin languages, classics in translation (literature, philosophy, history), and both classical mythology and ancient Greek science. He is currently preoccupied with the chilly reception Western Civilization gave to the ancient Greek values of political freedom and equality.