The Owl's Legacy

This episode sets the tone for the rest of the series, introducing the fundamental idea Marker and his participants explore: For centuries, we've used Greek civilization as a touchstone, but as John Winkler-classics scholar, queer historian, and one-time monk-says, looking at ancient Greece is like trying to determine what lies beneath a face covered in many layers of makeup.

We begin with the personal. In interviews, classicists Manuela Smith and Oswyn Murray, singer Angélique Ionatos, and filmmaker Theo Angeolopoulos discuss the sometimes unconscious ways ancient Greek thought have permeated their lives and work. (And Ionatos notes that those who fetishize ancient Greece either idealize or ignore contemporary Greeks.)

Nostalgia is there right at the start of the Greek literary tradition. Odysseus, after a decade of fighting the Trojan War, must wander another decade before finally returning home to Ithaca. For millennia to follow, nostalgia-a word drawn from roots meaning "longing for home" and "pain"--continued to mark the Greek experience.

An in-depth exploration of how Athenian democracy worked, and the key ways it differs from modern states using the word. Ancient Greek democracy emphasized the polisnot as a city-state the way we understand it, but as a collection of individuals. Those able to participate (free men-a small minority of the total population) were passionate about politics.

Western history is said to begin with the Greeks-more specifically, with Herodotus, credited as the first historian. But the ancient Greek conception of history, based on the idea of self-examination, is very different from current conceptions.

There is a narrative about ancient Greece and math: That the Greeks invented mathematics as we know it, that men such as Pythagoras and Thales were its fathers, and that concepts including parallel lines and geometric shapes are universal and ahistorical.

The word "logos" stands at the start of Greek philosophy. A word that defies simple translation, it lies at the root of terms including logic, dialogue, and dialectic. The Greek word for literature is "logotechnia" -- the technique of logos.

What defines music? Soldiers marching in tandem create rhythms; Orthodox priests don't simply speak when performing the liturgy, they chant and sometimes sing; the hammer banging on a board is not that different from the tug of a rope ringing a church bell.

This episode is classic Chris Marker, tying together an abandoned Athenian power plant turned cultural center, ancient Greek statuary, a department store in Japan, young men destroyed by armored warfare during WWI, and a comparison between Plato's parable of the cave and contemporary cinema.

A small number of Greek myths-Oedipus, Antigone, the Gorgon who turns people who gaze on her to stone-have fed our understandings of ourselves and each other through literature, religion, philosophy, and psychoanalysis.

Classicist Giulia Sissa takes center stage in this episode, which explores desire in ancient Greece (primarily Athens), the social status of women, and the erasure of women by classics scholars.

Greek tragedies were originally like TV shows before the age of streaming. They were performed once, and only once says scholar Oswyn Murray. But despite their transitory nature, they embraced themes that have spoken to humanity for centuries-and across cultures.

After a dozen episodes that begin and end with the image of an owl, Philosophy begins with the owl and its symbolism, and shows us how many of the participants in the series react to the birds or images of them.