“Violence and Sentiment in Human History: Trojans, Greeks, Stormtroopers, and Mafiosi” is the title of the 2013 UTC Lecture in the Humanities to be delivered by Kenneth R. Jones on Thursday, March 21, at 7 p.m. in Grote Hall, Room 129. Admission is free and this event is open to the public.
Dr. Kenneth Jones
Jones is Assistant Professor of History and Classics at Baylor University.
Violence has always played a central role in human society, an importance easily discerned in the ways that violence are likely to be sentimentalized, especially in a society’s narratives of warfare. Such sentimentalization of violence, however, can obscure the real reasons for violence’s extraordinary power in human society.
This lecture will seek to offer a more realistic view of violence in both its ancient and modern contexts, drawing on Homer’s classic descriptions of violence in the Iliad and Odyssey, and compare them to similar themes in literary works depicting the searing experiences of modern warfare and the bloody exploits of Italian-American mobsters.
This lecture is sponsored by UTC’s Humanities Program and by the SunTrust Chair of Excellence in Humanities.
Admission is free and open to the public. For further information or accommodations requests, call 423-425-4238.
