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2. A RECIPE FOR TRAGEDY: ARISTOTLE AND OEDIPUS REX— This chapter uses accessible and key sections of Aristotle’s Poetics to explore Oedipus Rex. Students learn the essential elements of tragedy and a great deal about the play. [DRAMA & LITERATURE]

3. ROOTS OF DRAMA: RITES OF DIONYSUS— A two-part piece on Dionysiac festivals and the birth of tragedy; the second part is embroidered with quotes from the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides to give students a feel for the whole of Greek tragedy. [DRAMA & HISTORY]

4. WHEN THE GODS RULED— An introduction to Greek thought from the time of Homer through the 5th century B.C. [GREEK CULTURE]

5. GREEK MYTHS & MODERN MAN-- 19th- and 20th- century interpretations of Greek myths (Keats, Tennyson and Freud). [LITERATURE & PSYCHOLOGY]

6. GREEK ART: VISUAL STORYTELLING— This chapter uses Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn to help students learn to read the scenes on Greek vases. The chapter focuses on a reading of the Medea Krater, painted about 30 years after the premiere of Euripides’ Medea. Our interpretation reinforces reading skills through a visual intelligence. [ART & LITERATURE]

7. SCULPTURE & SYMMETRY— The evolution of Greek sculpture from kouros to Phidias and Polykleitos. [ART]

8. OLYMPIC ODYSSEY, & THE POETS WHO LIT THE TORCH— This chapter looks at the ancient Olympic games and the poets who celebrated them, particularly Pindar. We examine some of Pindar’s most characteristic and accessible lyrics. The chapter also includes a section on “Women at the Games.” [SPORTS & LITERATURE]

9. THE HISTORY OF FIFTH-CENTURY GREECE— Two-part chapter on the Persian Wars (with excerpts from Aeschylus’ The Persians), the Birth of Democracy, and the Peloponnesian War. [HISTORY]

10. THE ART OF THE MUSES: ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC—Students learn about the role of music and rhythm in drama and how to transcribe surviving Ancient Greek music into modern musical notation. Also, students learn to make a panpipe. [MUSIC]

11. THE WIZARD OF SYRACUSE-- Students learn about many of Archimedes’ spectacular discoveries, his reasoning method and how he calculated pi. [HISTORY, PHYSICS & GEOMETRY]

SUPPLEMENTAL articles included with this volume are: THE BIG THREE (discusses how the plays of the three tragedians reflect their eras [LITERATURE]; Euripides’ THE TROJAN WOMEN—an antiwar play written in the middle of a war [LITERATURE & HISTORY]; stimulating ways to teach KEATS'S Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to Psyche (linked to "Greek Myths and Modern Man" chapter) [POETRY]; WRITING YOUR OWN DRAMA (using a simplified model of Aristotle’s Poetics) [DRAMA]; the DRAMATIC ART OF THE DANCE (the role of dance in Greek drama) [DANCE]; and the final phase of the Peloponnesian War, ATHENS’ HUBRIS: THE TURNING POINT OF THE WAR [HISTORY & LITERATURE].

We believe this is the most comprehensive and engaging learning resource on ancient Greek culture in America.

The cross-curriculum thinking skills we emphasize in this issue are OPPOSITES/CONTRASTS, SYMMETRY & BALANCE—key ideas in the Greek world.

To understand 5th-century Greece, scholars use an interdisciplinary approach. Students can benefit by doing the same. The knowledge gleaned from any one discipline is too scanty to paint a complete and vivid picture of that era. Only by combining what’s known of lyric and dramatic poetry, vase painting, sculpture, architecture, government, history, philosophy and natural science, does 5th-century Greece come into focus. This is exactly what ANTIGONE & THE GREEK WORLD does.