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Ideas in Antiquity--Leadership in the Ancient World: From Telemachus to T'ChallaMain MenuWeek One: IntroductionIntroduction to the study of leadershipWeek Two: MentorshipWeek Three: Mentorship ContinuedWeek Four: Anti-mentorshipWeek Five: EducationWeek Six: Education ContinuedWeek Seven: OutrageWeek Eight: Outrage ContinuedWeek Nine: Outrage, Activism, Idealism, and Modern LeadershipWeek Ten: Naked AmbitionWeek Twelve: Searching for a place for outrage in the contemporary worldWeek Thirteen: Mentorship in the Modern WorldWeek Fourteen: ConclusionGradingNorman Sandridgeaede92262dbe9a4752784e60e5be78fe98ea4424
Week Eleven: Outrage, Activism, Idealism, and the Modern World Continued
This week we read Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (1985), a play about attempts to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in New York City in the early 1980s. The main character, Ned Weeks, struggles with his outrage, both toward his own gay community and those in power who should be taking the epidemic more seriously.
Session One
Assignment: Questions to answer while reading Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart:
1. How does Ned Weeks compare as a leader to Lysistrata and Ida B. Wells? 2. In particular how effective is he as a leader who "calls out bad behavior"? 3. What are Ned's motives as a leader? Do his motives help or hinder his leadership? 4. What alternatives to Ned's leadership appear in The Normal Heart? Who are the alternative leaders and how do they compare to Ned? 5. What qualities and behaviors of a mentor (think of Athena in the Odyssey) does Dr. Emma Brookner exhibit?
Check out this recent interview with Larry Kramer on making the play into a movie for HBO (2014).
Session Two
Assignment: Identify three contemporary issues that you feel are worthy of outrage. Refer back to five common leadership behaviors that we have discussed in this course (you may also look back to the main page). To what extent can the feeling of outrage both help you and hinder you from performing these leadership behaviors? Identify one way that outrage has enhanced and hindered your own leadership. Going forward, what is one thing that you can do to use your outrage constructively as a leader?