Naomi Weiss on Euripides' Bacchae: Dionysus, the Chorus, and Tragedy Today | New Alexandria Dialogue

The New Alexandria Foundation welcomes Naomi Weiss, Professor of Classics at Harvard University, for a conversation about Euripides' Bacchae — performance, the chorus, and what it means to carry an ancient play into the present. Weiss is the creator and host of Ancient Greece Today, a podcast from the Center for Hellenic Studies, and the author of The Music of Tragedy and Seeing Theater. She's joined by Gregory Nagy and members of the NAF community, whose questions open up the play from every angle: nostos and homecoming, the strange newness of Dionysus, the ancient audience, and why modern adaptations keep pulling us back to this play. A free translation of the Bacchae is available through the New Alexandria Foundation. To read it and to learn more about our collaborative, multigenerational translation projects, visit Classical Continuum: https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/ Listen to Naomi Weiss's podcast, Ancient Greece Today: https://podcast.chs.harvard.edu/welcome/ Learn more about the New Alexandria Foundation: https://newalexandriafoundation.org/ Chapters 00:00 Welcome and introducing the New Alexandria Foundation 00:55 Meet Naomi Weiss 02:35 Ancient Greece Today: a first foray into public humanities 03:26 What first drew Naomi to Greek tragedy 05:33 Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes and the problem of sound 06:45 Episode 7: reading the chorus aloud and the power of meter 10:25 Monica Youn and "the frenzy of belonging" 13:49 Opening up to community questions 14:40 Nostos: the Bacchae as a dark mirror of homecoming 19:13 Gregory Nagy: Dionysus, Linear B, and a god both old and new 22:38 Dionysus, dress, and the stereotypes of the East 24:39 Identity and contradiction in a god who is never the same 27:08 dressing, ritual, and initiation 29:52 the Homeric Hymn and Aeschylus' Edonians 33:55 A favorite moment of refusal in Euripides' Orestes 35:42 The flexibility of the tragic chorus 40:55 the chorus as the ultimate Dionysiac chorus 43:22 presence through performance 46:52 Kinesthetic empathy and the experienced ancient audience 49:23 Bill: how did the ancient audience actually react? 52:58 Why modern adaptations matter, and teaching Tragedy Today 58:46 Closing thoughts and next New Alexandria Dialogue