What happened when Roehampton and Warsaw students connected - via Hercules, Zoom and Our Mythical Childhood: 5th May 2021

In my previous posting, of last week, I mentioned a plan for this blog over coming weeks, namely to put out weekly blogs on issues relating to the Myths and Mythology module I am currently teaching at Roehampton. 

Having set myself the goal of blogging this week, I had a few ideas in mind. These ideas included discussions connected with the study of gods in mythological perspective, the topic of yesterday's class. 

What I am going to focus on is, indeed, one of the gods we considered yesterday. The god in question is one who is not generally classed today as a god though this was very much key to how the ancients could experience this figure. The figure in question is Herakles-Hercules who we met in class as one of the three interacting figures on a lip cup now in the British Museum: 

Lip Cup from around 560 BCE attributed to the Phrynos Painter,
B424 in the Museum's catalogue

Here, Herakles (on our left) is being led, or pulled, by Athena to Zeus. In an example of myth as a moment, where outcomes could go in more then one direction, Herakles could be a god already, or he could be one whose future status is dependent on how Zeus will respond to the introduction of this new arrival.

From being the figure on the left of three figures, I turn now to what happened today in class, in a special session with the Our Mythical Seminar at Warsaw. Here, together with University of Roehampton and University of Warsaw students, I discussed an instance where Hercules - at the centre of three figures - is again at a turning point. Here, however, the outcome is his own, rather that some else's, to decide.

Hercules between Hard Work and Pleasure
on the eighteenth-century chimney piece panel in Grove House,
Roehampton. The panel was a key focus of today's session.

The panel in its setting, in the Adam Room,
Grove House, Roehampton

 

Grove House, the home of the Adam Room
and its Herculean panel

Students from Warsaw shared - in their own languages - reflections about the Choice including how this choice is depicted in books for children. The result was something deeply moving which I'm still working though. The experience was  moving for me also because I shared responses by several cohorts of past Roehampton students about their experiences of being affected by exploring classical receptions including Herculean ones on campus. 

What came out was a sense of how different langues and different cultural contexts can shape how individuals responses to, or even create, myth - though very much in ways which can 'speak' to and inform the experiences of others. 

When, at the end of the session, Professor Katerina Marciniak asked whether Roehampton students might like to return to the Warsaw class next week, the answer was a uniform 'yes'. I can't wait...!

To end this posting, here is a neoclassial Hercules from Warsaw - in one of the neoclassical buildings that are part of the University of Warsaw. Beneath Hercules stand a collection of participants at one of the Our Mythical Childhood seminar, at least three of whom were present again at today's session! 

Hercules - above Our Mythical Childhood delegates - in the stairwell of the Tyszkiewicz-Potocki Palace at the University of Warsaw in I think (I'll need to check!) 2018