Kenosha student presents research at seventh annual Celebration of Scholars event

2017 May 2

Carthage College held the seventh annual Celebration of Scholars event on Friday, April 28, 2017. Celebration of Scholars is a poster exhibition that features original research, scholarship, and creative work completed by Carthage students.

Bradley Morelli of Kenosha presented "Achilles Interrupted: Mortality and the Paradox of Glory" at the event.

This is the project's abstract:

"This essay sought to address the question of the paradox of glory in the Greek system of kleos aphthiton. Most importantly, how one moves beyond this dilemma to become a fully realized human. What does it mean to die with only a future promise of glory? In the context of the Trojan War, is there any good reason to die for your country? Though the descriptions of grotesque battles may imply that Homer is pro- war, his keen understanding of the motivations of humans shows he was using ultimate destruction to reach a deeper meaning of lasting immortality. There is something below the surface of the heroic prose of war that speaks to higher matters of the human condition. The Iliad is not a story of war but a meditation on the inevitability of death, and what it is that makes us human. My research aimed to demonstrate that if the only choice in life is an honorable or dishonorable death, why does it matter to die with honor? Achilles' search for the answer was a major point of interest in the paper. The answers Homer gives us matter because the exploration of our mortality still remains at the heart of civilization, and Western Heritage."