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Syllabus

PHIL 60: Plato's Symposium and Its Influence on Western Art and Literature

PHIL 60 is a three-credit course with no prerequisites. The instructor is Professor James Lesher
(jlesher@email.unc.edu and http://philosophy.unc.edu/people/faculty/James-Lesher). His office is located in
room 108A Caldwell Hall.

Course Description: The goal of this course is to gain a detailed understanding of Plato's philosophical and
literary masterpiece, The Symposium, and its influence on later artists and writers. The first half of the course
will be devoted to gaining a detailed understanding of the Symposium and critically evaluating Plato’s ‘theories
of love and beauty.’ In the second half of the course we will explore the influence of the Symposium on later
artists and writers, especially as a result of Plotinus’ Enneads and Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on the
Symposium on Love. Students will present papers on works by artists and writers such as Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Thomas Mann, Leonard Bernstein, John Cameron Mitchell, and Alexei Ratmansky). These presentations will
provide the basis for our discussions for the remainder of the semester.

Required readings:
Plato, The Symposium, trans. C. Gill (Penguin Classics: London, 1999)
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice (Dover Publications, 1995).
Plotinus, The Enneads (selections on handout)
Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love (selections on handout)
Pietro Bembo, Gli Asolani (selections on handout)
Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (selections on handout)

Course Requirements and Grading Policy: There will be four required activities: (1) a two page ‘reading
reflection’ on a topic related to Plato’s Symposium (ungraded); (2) a written mid-term examination on Plato’s
Symposium, (3) an 8 to 10-page paper/class presentation on some aspect of the Symposium and its influence
(you will be graded on the quality of your written work, not on the class presentation), and (4) a final exam.
Your semester grade will be determined by averaging together the grades you receive on items (2), (3), and (4).
If the resulting grade is on or near a borderline, credit will be given for faithful attendance and contributions to
class discussions. Review questions will be distributed in advance for both exams.

Schedule of readings, papers, and examinations

Week 1 (August 21 and 23): Why did Plato write a dialogue about a symposion?
Plato’s Symposium: the framing section and speech of Phaedrus (Sym. 3-12)

Week 2 (August 28-30): The speeches of Pausanias and Eryximachus (Sym. 12-21) The speech of Aristophanes
(Sym. 21-27)

Week 3 (September 4-6): Selected Reading Reflections and Agathon’s speech (Sym. 28-37) The speech of
Socrates-Diotima (Sym. 37-50)

Week 4 (September 11-13): More on Socrates’ speech

The speech of Alcibiades and the closing scene (Sym. 50-64)
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Week 5 (September 18-20): Plato’s theories of love and beauty (Wittgenstein, Levinson, Singer, Vlastos)

Week 6 (September 25-27): More Discussion of Plato’s theories of love and beauty

Week 7 (October 2): First Meeting at the Ackland Museum

October 4: Mid-term Examination

Week 8 (October 9-11): Neoplatonism: Plotinus and Ficino

Plato’s influence on early Christian thought (Guest lecturer: Nathan Tilley)

Week 9 (October 16): Paiderasteia (2) (Papers due to me on Oct 9)

No class on Thursday, October 18th (Fall Break)

Week 10 (October 23-25): Platonic love in early European literature (3)

Plato’s Symposium and Shelley (2) (Papers due to me on Oct 16)

Week 11 (October 30-November 1): Plato’s Symposium and Virginia Woolf (2)
Feminist Critiques of Plato’s Symposium (3) (Papers due to me on Oct 23)

Week 12 (November 6-8): Platonic themes in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (3)
Plato’s Symposium and the visual arts (3) (Papers due to me on Oct 30)

Week 13 (November 13-15) November 13: 2nd Meeting at the Ackland Museum
November 15: “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” (2) (Papers due to me on Nov 6)

Week 14 (November 20): Showing and discussion of Jonathan Miller’s “The Drinking Party”

No class on Thursday, November 22nd (Thanksgiving vacation)

Week 15 (November 27-29): Plato’s Symposium in the performing arts (4) (Papers due to me on Nov 20)

Week 16 December 4th (last class): Summary and general assessment

Final exam: 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 11th (two-hour exam)

Website: There is a website for this course on Sakai. It contains the syllabus, course handouts, and review
questions for both exams.
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursdays 11:00 to noon, and by appointment, but I am happy to meet with each of
you at any mutually convenient time. Just e-mail me at jlesher@email.unc.edu and we will find a day and time
to meet.
Honor Code: Your work in this course must comply with the provisions of the UNC Honor Code. If you have
any questions about the Code, consult the guidelines at http://honor.unc.edu. In this course the Honor Code will
be most relevant to the manner in which you produce your 8-page paper/class presentation. You must clearly
identify the source of all quoted or paraphrased material appearing in your paper. Also, a paper submitted for
credit in another course cannot be recycled for use in this course.