“It’s best for this not to happen the same as it does in the comedies, when everyone finds out everything.”
Seeking to understand the meaning behind young husband Pamphilus’s single line from Terence’s Hecyra, Alex Karsten‘s produced “The Noble Lie in Terence’s Hecyra,” a paper he will present during the Eta Sigma Phi panel discussion at the next American Philological Association and Archaeological Institute of America joint annual meeting.The purpose of his research, under the direction of Sharon L. James, was to discover why the three women at the end of the work “choose to hide a very brutal truth in order to help restore a societal and familial order that seems detrimental to their own interests.” In the end, Karsten “found that this concept of the noble lie was not only found throughout the western philosophical tradition, but it was also a very useful key to understanding the befuddling end of this play,” he said.
In addition to participating in the panel discussion, Karsten also was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece.
We congratulate Alex for his academic successes!