3 ms·
Idk. Mary Beard is not a present day schoolkid. The chair of the section in which I worked was about her age, and he could recite the opening of the Odyssee in
by tgv 5y ago
Idk. Mary Beard is not a present day schoolkid. The chair of the section in which I worked was about her age, and he could recite the opening of the Odyssee in Greek, and he was a psychologist. And he wasn't the only one.
But IMO it isn't "academic specialization". That just hides the nasty fact that it's publications and successful grant applications that determine a career, the latter being so politicized, that you can get away with bold, unproven statements if you know the right people.
- watwut 5y agoIf you read what she wrote, being able to recite something is not an issue at all. She said basically that she reads the same group of texts over and over, so she is super efficient at reading those. But when she has to read complex text she never seen before, it is different and harder. And that she remembers other classicists saying the same. Then some musings about passive vs active learning of language and such. Having something memorized is something entirely different then either of these.