This article brings out ethical aspects arising in Plato's classical critique of narrative and imitative art in "The Republic," especially when it comes to reading stories about the past. Socrates's and Glaucon's most important suggestion, I argue, is to cultivate an ethical consciousness where one ought to see the distinctions between…

Cultivating "wenhua dacai" (great cultural talent) is a central goal of the ongoing "dujing" (classics reading) education movement, which is an integral part of the broad Confucian revival in contemporary China. Focusing on the concept of "wenhua dacai," this article explores three interrelated issues. First, as a…

The study of classics has been part of Australian and New Zealand higher education from the beginnings of tertiary education in these countries, followed shortly after by the study of ancient history. This article offers an analysis of current units of study in each Australian and New Zealand public university that continues to teach classics and…

We argue that students can understand an historical period by building on the foundations of their existing knowledge. Specifically, popular media can be used to develop students' historical literacies -- that is their ability to engage with past societies vastly different from their own. Our methodology takes inspiration from the ancient Romans'…

This essay analyzes student experiences of studying all-female and non-binary cast Shakespeare productions in the Seattle area, including upstart crow collective's "Richard III" and The Fern Shakespeare Company's "Much Ado About Nothing." I draw on my teaching of the experimental work of these regional companies in an…

Current trends in disaffiliation and declining enrollment in Catholic schools raise difficult questions about the perceived value of Catholic education and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT). Following the work of theologian David Tracy, the author makes a case for engagement with Christian "classics" as a promising means not only…

Every year since 2007, the Globe Theatre has run the "Playing Shakespeare" project, largely funded by Deutsche Bank. This has three main components: school-based workshops, CPD sessions for teachers and free performances for school students. From 2014 to 2016, we were commissioned to evaluate this project. In what follows, we reflect on…

This conceptual article explores early adolescent students' responses to an experimental Gothic reading unit (including popular culture and traditional texts). The Gothic genre was selected due to both its prevalence in youth culture and lack of representation in reading classrooms. This hybrid curriculum increased academic reading engagement in…

Normative notions that classical Chinese texts support authoritarian practices eclipse the possibility that the texts can become contemporary educational resources. Oriented by a conception of relationality, the research engages a Foucauldian approach to writing history as genealogy to argue that the political use of the so-called Confucian texts…

This article explores the conceptualization of cosmopolitan citizen and the relevant teaching practice in the emerging Confucian classical education in contemporary China. It addresses two aspects. First, the cosmopolitan orientation of the cultural subject constructed in the theory of classics-reading education is embedded in the presupposition…

Despite opposition to 'queering the text' by established Shakespeare critics, this essay sets out to ponder the possibility of teaching Shakespeare in a queer context. The essay begins by examining the social and sexual conditions of the early modern period, making the observation that there were a wide variety of sexualities, moral attitudes, and…

The construction of knowledge boundaries is an important mechanism in the formation of disciplines. This article examines and analyzes boundary strategies and difficulties in the institutionalization of "guoxue" ("national studies" or "Chinese classics") as a discipline in recent years from the perspective of…

Through the comparative study of non-Anglophone translations of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," we can achieve the progressive goals of Emily Apter's "translational transnationalism" and Edward Said's "cosmopolitan humanism." Both translation and humanism were intrinsic to Chaucer's…

At the end of a two-year Honors Civilizations sequence based on a Great Books curriculum, students at the University of Maine write a reflective essay that describes their personal and intellectual journey with the texts they have encountered over the previous four semesters. Students can describe a theme or narrative that has emerged in their…

Ross Dabney, J. Butt & K. Tillotson, and others think that Dickens revised the role of Edith in the original plan of "Dombey and Son" upon the advice of a friend. I tend to believe that Dickens's swerve from his course was prompted by two motives, his relish for grand scenes, and his endeavour to engage the reader's sympathies for a…