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Can ancient drama heal contemporary campus divides? That’s what one small liberal arts college believes.

Kenyon College in Ohio is using ancient Greek plays to foster dialogue around modern conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine wars.

Students and professional actors—including one of the great screen presences of my time, Debra Winger—perform excerpts from The Trojan Women and The Iliad to engage the audience in a discussion about grief, war and loss. The project, a Theater of War production, uses ancient drama to connect with contemporary issues, encouraging participants to reflect on war’s emotional toll and societal impacts.

The message emphasizes empathy, shared suffering and the power of dialogue.


The Trojan Women and The Iliad, each in its own way, speak to our time.

Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, Euripides’s play depicts the grief of Trojan women as they face enslavement and their city’s destruction. Themes of despair, the futility of war and the moral ambiguity of victory permeate the work, with Euripides questioning the ethics of conquest and the treatment of the vanquished. The drama humanizes the defeated, illustrating the devastating consequences of conflict on noncombatants, particularly women and children.

Among the many themes that run through The Iliad, several stand out. These include Achilles’s wrath and the consequences of unchecked emotions and personal vendettas; the quest for glory, honor and immortality, often at great personal cost; the tension between human agency and the will of the gods, as characters struggle against predetermined fates; and the glory and horror of war. While the poem celebrates martial heroism, it also underscores war’s devastating consequences, especially through vivid depictions of death, grief and destruction.

Both works emphasize the universality of grief and loss, urging audiences to reflect on the impact of war, not just on nations but on individuals and families. They challenge us to consider the human cost of war, making them deeply relevant to contemporary discussions about conflict, justice and empathy. By engaging with these stories, a modern audience can confront the difficult realities of war and division in a way that might foster greater understanding and deeper reflection.


Through the lens of classical Greek drama, a contemporary campus audience can confront its own divisions and conflicts, finding in these stories an opportunity for dialogue, healing and the humanization of the other. These tragedies, with their timeless themes of conflict, hubris and loss, rich in moral and emotional complexity, can serve as a catalyst for addressing contemporary issues, showing that the lessons of Greek tragedies still resonate deeply and have the power to mend the fractures on today’s divided campuses.

Ancient dramas can create a space where universal human experiences—grief, loss, conflict and empathy—are explored in a neutral, historical context. By confronting complex emotions and moral dilemmas onstage, these plays allow participants to engage with difficult, often divisive issues in a less polarized atmosphere.

The timelessness of these stories shifts the focus from modern political allegiances to the shared human condition, fostering dialogue and understanding. Through these narratives, empathy can grow, helping to bridge campus divides and encourage more inclusive conversations.

These ancient works present moral ambiguity and leadership failures that are as relevant today as they were 2,500 years ago. Their emotional depth allows students and audiences to explore difficult subjects from a more reflective, less defensive stance, encouraging students to see things from others’ perspectives. This neutral engagement with timeless themes can serve as a starting point for healing divides and building a more empathetic campus community.


In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the classicist Daniel Mendelsohn explained how Aeschylus’s The Persians, first performed in 472 B.C.E., might offer a vehicle through which traumatized Americans could reflect on the tragedy that they had undergone and their response to deaths of nearly 3,000 of their fellow citizens.

Written just eight years after the Greeks’ unexpected victory over Persia, Aeschylus’s tragedy asks the audience to empathize with the defeated Persians rather than celebrate the victors. Despite the fact that Aeschylus had himself fought in the Persian wars and lost a brother in the aftermath of the Greek victory at the naval battle of Salamis, the drama focuses its “imaginative sympathy not on the exulting Greeks, but on the sorrowing Persians.”

As Mendelsohn explains, the play can be understood through various lenses, each offering a different commentary on the nature of empires and leadership.

One reading is that the play reveals how even the most powerful empires (or nations) can be destabilized and thrown into chaos by a small, ideologically driven enemy. Neither an empire’s sheer size nor its military might guarantee its security when faced with adversaries whose ideological conviction—particularly their lack of fear in the face of death—gives them a psychological edge.

The Greeks, despite being vastly outnumbered, possessed a fervor that enabled them to deliver a crippling blow to an overconfident Persian empire. An empire or a nation, blinded by its sense of invincibility, can be caught off guard by enemies who are driven not by material gain but by the resolve and unity that can emerge from a shared ideology.

Another interpretation focuses on how an empire’s arrogance—a refusal to take its opponents seriously—can lead to its own vulnerability and collapse. Aeschylus uses his narrative to underline the dangers of imperial overreach and the complacency that often accompanies power.

The play can also be read as a critique of leadership, specifically through the character of Xerxes, the Persian autocrat. Xerxes’s reckless ambition, driven by a desire to surpass the accomplishments of his father, Darius, results in a catastrophic defeat. His impulsive and unseasoned decisions not only expose his personal failings but also undermine the stability of his empire, contrasting sharply with his father’s successes. In this light, the tragedy becomes a powerful examination of generational leadership and the consequences of reckless ambition.

In addition, The Persians can be seen as a meditation on the cultural and ideological divide between the East and West—and the inherent strangeness each side sees in the other, with misunderstandings and misperceptions playing a critical role in the downfall of empires. The West’s perception of the East’s mysticism and the East’s view of the West’s rationalism contribute to an irreconcilable divide, reflecting the complexities of intercultural conflict.

Finally, the play can be interpreted as a form of black farce, where the injustices of autocracy are laid bare. Xerxes’s inept leadership brings ruin to his country, but he personally never faces the consequences of his disastrous decisions. This could be seen as a commentary on the broader failures of political systems, where a ruler’s blunders result in widespread suffering for the people, while the ruler himself remains untouched by the devastation he causes.

In all these readings, The Persians offers a profound reflection on power, leadership and the complexities of imperial hubris, making it timeless in its exploration of the human condition, the insularity of leaders and the fragility of empires.

The drama’s core message is about the moral strength required to empathize with the defeated and reflect on one’s own weaknesses and vulnerabilities. In drawing attention to The Persians, Mendelsohn suggests that ancient tragedies can offer powerful lessons for contemporary events like Sept. 11 by underscoring the consequences of unchecked power and the importance of understanding the human cost of conflict from all sides.


You perhaps recall the concluding scene of the 1970 movie Patton. George C. Scott, standing in front of a giant American flag, says that for a thousand years, victorious Roman generals were honored with a grand triumphal parade, featuring trumpeters, exotic animals from conquered lands and carts filled with treasures and weapons. The victorious general rode in a chariot, often with his children, dressed in white robes, by his side, while captured prisoners walked in chains ahead. Behind him, a slave stood, holding a golden crown—and whispered into the general’s ear, “All glory is fleeting.”

Those whispered words (or “Memento mori”—remember you are mortal) served as a reminder that even the most glorious military victories are temporary and can be quickly eclipsed by time and changing circumstances. No matter how great one’s achievements, they are transient in the grand scheme of time and history. This ritual served to celebrate victory, but also to offer a humbling reflection on the fragility of power and fame and the danger of hubris.


What Kenyon College has done—using ancient Greek tragedies as a launching point for a campus conversation about contemporary issues— strikes me as a model that other campuses should emulate.

Ancient dramas like The Trojan Women and The Persians offer a historical lens through which participants can explore themes of loss, war and empathy. By placing these discussions in a neutral context, these plays create a space where individuals can safely reflect on human suffering and conflict without the immediate tensions of contemporary political divisions. This historical distance allows for open dialogue and helps foster deeper understanding and connection, encouraging meaningful conversations around difficult topics.

I can think of few better ways to overcome existing campus political and ideological divides. By focusing on universal human experiences such as grief, loss, conflict and resilience, these ancient plays offer a neutral and emotionally charged setting that encourages empathy and reflection.

One of the strengths of using classical drama is that it removes the immediacy and heat of current political discourse. These ancient stories, distant in time yet resonant in theme, allow students to approach difficult topics with less defensive posturing. When discussing war, suffering or leadership failures as presented in a tragedy like The Trojan Women or The Persians, the conversation becomes less about taking sides in modern conflicts and more about understanding the complexities of the human condition.

Greek tragedy’s exploration of moral ambiguity, leadership and the consequences of pride helps participants think critically about modern events, fostering an environment where people are encouraged to step outside their own perspectives. This creates an opening for understanding diverse viewpoints, as students can more easily relate the emotional and ethical dilemmas in the plays to their own experiences and contemporary issues. Discussions about ancient plays help students develop empathy for those they might otherwise see as ideological opponents, offering a valuable lesson in the importance of recognizing our shared humanity.

Moreover, the communal nature of theater performances, with actors and audience members participating in post-performance discussions, helps build a sense of community. These conversations provide a structured, respectful space for students from different backgrounds to express their perspectives and listen to others. This method of engaging with difficult topics through a shared cultural framework could be adopted on other campuses to foster constructive dialogue around contentious issues involving race, politics, justice, equality and identity.

By drawing on the emotional depth and moral complexity of ancient dramas, campuses can create a more thoughtful, reflective and inclusive environment for tackling the challenges of today’s world. In a time of increasing polarization, especially on college campuses, Kenyon College’s initiative exemplifies how the arts and humanities can play a vital role in fostering empathy and understanding, encouraging dialogue, and healing campus divides.

Steven Mintz is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and the author, most recently, of The Learning-Centered University: Making College a More Developmental, Transformational and Equitable Experience.

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