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Post by timoneill on May 19, 2009 10:45:01 GMT
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 19, 2009 13:23:54 GMT
I did a bit of reading on Hypatia a while back as a new biography of her came out from Maria Dzielska. It seems we know very little about her and the sources that we do have are pretty limited. In fact most of Dzielska's book is not about the real Hypatia, but the literary legend and the enlightenment 'martyr of reason' that she became. That to me is the real interest, the way an obscure historical figure has been amplified into a much larger myth. The little we know of her suggests that she was an excellent compiler, editor, and preserver of earlier mathematical works, a member of the Neoplatonist school, and as such, a respected teacher of Christians, pagans, and possibly Jews. Dzielska suggests that she was murdered at the age of around 65. Although it's amusing to note that in the movie she is played by Rachel Weiz who is 39. It was the friendship between Hypatia and Orestes that angered Cyril, leading him to conduct a propaganda campaign against her in order to discredit her as a witch. Her brutal death at the hands of a mob of monks, while not clearly instigated by Cyril, was carried out by a group that was loyal to him; it was possibly a 'who will rid me of this turbulent priest?' moment. The important point to bring away is that Hypatia did not stand for Paganism against Christian tyranny, instead she fell foul of local politics when she supported one Christian political faction (Orestes the Prefect) against another (Cyril the Patriarch). She also supported various Christian students and in turn had Christian supporters. However.... Looking at this article I think a lot of the subtlety has been lost. www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/hypatia-history-and-a-neverending-story-20090519-be0f.htmlAmenabar's historical epic Agora premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, introducing audiences to the little-known scholar Hypatia, a brilliant astronomer and mathematician working in a man's world in 4th century AD Egypt.
As the Roman Empire declines, Hypatia struggles to preserve scientific knowledge amid the clash of zealots in Alexandria, whose rising Christian population grows increasingly militant toward Jews and worshippers of the Egyptian gods.
No stranger to ancient Egypt, having starred in the first two installments of The Mummy franchise, Weisz had never heard of Hypatia before reading the script, but she said the woman's story resonates today.
"Really, nothing has changed. I mean, we have huge technological advances and medical advances, but in terms of people killing each other in the name of God, fundamentalism still abounds," Weisz said. "And in certain cultures, women are still second-class citizens, and they're denied education."
Amenabar, who also directed the Nicole Kidman ghost story The Others , said he decided to make a movie about the cosmos after his 2004 drama The Sea Inside, which won the Academy Award for foreign-language films.
He dove into astronomy research but said he did not want to make a movie about a figure such as Galileo because everyone already knew his story. Amenabar's studies eventually led him to Hypatia, a woman dealing with current issues in ancient times.
"We realised that this particular time in the world had a lot of connections with our contemporary reality," Amenabar said.
"Then the project became really, really intriguing, because we realised that we could make a movie about the past while actually making a movie about the present."
Forced to flee the city's library, a storehouse of ancient knowledge and manuscripts, Hypatia rescues a handful of irreplaceable texts from a Christian ransacking and continues her theorising on the nature of the universe. Christian leaders eventually label her a witch and make her a martyr to scientific reason.
Agora - named for the great square at the city's centre - is far from a dusty treatise, though. A lot of stoning and sword-skewering goes on in Agora as Amenabar intersperses Hypatia's philosophical musings with bloodletting in the streets.
The story also creates a love triangle of sorts among Hypatia and her devoted slave (Max Minghella) and one of her students (Oscar Isaac).
Hypatia rebuffs their advances, devoting herself to science.
Weisz found inspiration in her own family for the character's chastity. She asked her 85-year-old aunt, a cancer researcher who lived for her work, why she never married or had children.
"She said, 'I never believed a man when he said that he would allow me to work as hard as I wanted to,"' Weisz said. "And she said, 'So over the years, I just realised that I love my work more than anything, and I don't want anyone to get in the way of it."'
If Hypatia is the embodiment of a modern woman, ancient Rome is a symbol of a modern superpower at a turning point, Amenabar said.
"I think now the United States is the Roman Empire, and we can tell now more than ever that we are in some kind of crisis. Social crisis, economical crisis. So this is time for change," Amenabar said.
"We all can tell that we are going to somewhere else. We don't know exactly what. And since I am an optimist by nature, I don't think we'll go back to something like the Middle Ages, but we can feel that something is not quite fitting right nowI think another of Dzielska's points was that every age creates another Hypatia myth and uses it for its own purposes. In the late 20th it was Carl Sagan who drew her to everyone's attention as the symbol of the collapse of learning and the rise of irrationality and the same job is being done in the 21st century with Agora.
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 19, 2009 14:06:59 GMT
Oh man:
I did a quick search on Agora for google news and this movie is sounding like an absolute travesty. Here is a sampling of the publicity blurb.
From bloody clashes to public stonings and massacres, the city descends into inter-religious strife, and the victorious Christians turn their back on the rich scientific legacy of antiquity, defended by Hypatia.
Viewed as a threat to the church (like Galileo centuries later), Hypatia runs afoul of an angry Christian mob.
Agora" opens with the destruction of the second library of Alexandria by the Christians and Jews -- after the first, famous library which was destroyed by Julius Caesar.
The director also said he saw the film worked as a parable on the crisis of Western civilisation.
"Let's say the Roman Empire is the United States nowadays, and Alexandria is what Europe means now -- the old civilisation, the old cultural background. "And the empire is in crisis, which affects all the provinces. We are talking about social crisis, economic of course, this year, and cultural. "Something is not quite fitting in our society. We know that something is going to change -- we don't know exactly what or how, but we know that something is coming to an end."
The film is at its most compelling when Amenabar shows the once-stable civilization of Alexandria being overwhelmed by fanaticism, perhaps because the bearded, black-robe clad Christian zealots who sack the library and take over the city bear an uncanny resemblance to the ayatollahs and Taliban of today.
I mean, I know I tell everyone not to take any historical movie seriously and that its all a bit of fun. But still, every Dawkinsia is going to go see this film and think it's gospel truth. Plus the myth of the Christian Dark Ages is going to worm its way back into the public conciousness for another generation.
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Post by timoneill on May 19, 2009 23:44:23 GMT
The important point to bring away is that Hypatia did not stand for Paganism against Christian tyranny, instead she fell foul of local politics when she supported one Christian political faction (Orestes the Prefect) against another (Cyril the Patriarch). She also supported various Christian students and in turn had Christian supporters. Was Orestes a Christian? My dim recollection was that he was a pagan, thus the friction with Cyril. Though the main cause of the friction was, IIRC, Cyril's encroachment on his authority as prefect. The way I recall the story, at the height of the power struggle between Cyril and Orestes, some rioting monks threw stones at Orestes' entourage and one stone hit Orestes in the head. Orestes had the monk in question arrested and tortured to death. So the Christian mob took revenge by doing the same to Hypatia. No science was involved in what was basically some politically-motivated street violence. I'm already girding my loins for the inevitable shrieking from the usual suspects on RD.net. But the message that this kind of hysteria is irrational is getting out there on that forum. Even the endless "Jesus Myth" threads seem to have died (for now) as the numbers of Mythers have dwindled in the face of more and more RDers accepting that the Myther position is not reaosonable.
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 20, 2009 5:50:23 GMT
Was Orestes a Christian? My dim recollection was that he was a pagan, thus the friction with Cyril. Though the main cause of the friction was, IIRC, Cyril's encroachment on his authority as prefect According to Dzielska’s book ‘One auditor at Hypatia’s widely attended public lectures was undoubtedly Orestes, augustal prefect in Alexandra, civil governor of Egypt in the years 412-415 and a key figure in the events connected with Hypatia’s death. Our best informant, Socrates Scholasticus tell us unequivocally that Hypatia and Orestes knew each other well and met frequently and that he consulted with her on municipal and political issues. He also supplies the highly interesting news that Orestes was a Christian, having been baptized in Constantinople by the patriarch Atticus before his appointment as governor of Egypt. The disclosure is confirmed by John of Nikiu, known for his enmity towards Hypatia. After noting that under the influence of Hypatia’ evil magic practices Orestes ‘ceased attending church as had been his custom’ he observes that Orestes honoured her exceedingly.I'm already girding my loins for the inevitable shrieking from the usual suspects on RD.net. But the message that this kind of hysteria is irrational is getting out there on that forum. Even the endless "Jesus Myth" threads seem to have died (for now) as the numbers of Mythers have dwindled in the face of more and more RDers accepting that the Myther position is not reaosonable. Excellent, reason reigns supreme; but not for long I fear. Before long you will have Galaxian citing the Agora DVD extras as evidence.
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Post by timoneill on May 21, 2009 4:51:13 GMT
Since I haven't finished my review of Charles Freeman and haven't added to my blog for a while, I just put up an article about Hypatia and this silly movie - "Agora" and Hypatia - Hollywood Strikes Again . Comments etc on the blog please.
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 21, 2009 8:25:13 GMT
Excellent review. Think you deserve some 'Karma' for that.
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Post by bjorn on May 21, 2009 11:37:49 GMT
Indeed, thanks!
I dedicated my 1998-book on such myths to Hypatia and wrote a chapter on her. Good to see you got the points right here, even if the filmmakers seem completely clueless.
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Mike D
Master of the Arts
Posts: 204
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Post by Mike D on May 22, 2009 8:27:28 GMT
Tim,
Thank you - the blog was well written and, for a historical ignoramus like myself, most enlightening. I think my exposure to the myth of Hypatia probably came from some scurrilous source like Freke and Gandy (yes, to my shame, I read one of their books and was half-convinced by it for a while), and it is good to be presented with a balanced account.
Mike
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 22, 2009 8:31:23 GMT
It gets worse: There is also no question as to what side the filmmakers are on. The Christians in "Agora" are more preoccupied with slaughtering than spirituality and the only truly principled character is Hypatia the atheist, who may have come close to proving that the Earth revolves around the sun 1,200 years before Johannes Kepler. She is the only one who never sacrifices her unwavering "faith," in reason and intellectual freedom, for personal gain. ARGHGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHGHGHGGHHGHGHGGHG
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Post by hawkinthesnow on Jun 4, 2009 20:43:15 GMT
He dove into astronomy research but said he did not want to make a movie about a figure such as Galileo because everyone already knew his story. O if only that were true!
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jul 30, 2009 18:23:37 GMT
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Post by James Hannam on Jul 30, 2009 21:12:57 GMT
I enjoyed the exchange.
Richard fired from the hip and has realised he needs to check some stuff before replying again. He'll be back and if he thinks he's cocked up he'll admit it. It won't change his overall views.
By the way, Humphrey, when did you become God? And what does it feel like? More to the point, what are you going to do about the problem of evil?
Best wishes
James
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Post by bjorn on Jul 30, 2009 23:18:52 GMT
Letting Humphrey wait to anwer in his own time, I would suggest that Richard is not one to be easily confused by facts.
Anyone blaming even the loss of the Antikythera mechanism on The Church, is not on a mission I consider helpfull to historical studies.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jul 31, 2009 8:59:49 GMT
By the way, Humphrey, when did you become God? And what does it feel like? More to the point, what are you going to do about the problem of evil? Hah, it seems having a post count over 500 qualifies you for divinity these days; such are the standards. As for the problem of evil, well....it's very complicated and you mere mortals wouldn't understand anyway, so lets move on. What happened to Agora anyway?. There was a buzz about it after Cannes and now zip. Did Tim O' Neill single handedly manage to kill it off by policing the IMDB board?. Carrier has been on some kind of radio show to refute Rodney Stark. If you ever want to hear the word scientist used anachronistically this is the place: richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2009/07/stark-on-ancient-science.htmlMuch as I applaud his efforts to defend the reputations of ancient natural philosophers, he can't resist a good bit of 'conflict thesising'. The old canard that Christianity held back natural philosophy for 1000 years comes up and there are lots of references to 'scientific values' which were apparently 'rediscovered' in the renaissance.
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