VIC Hypatia

First, students watch AGORA, an Alexandro Amenabar’s peplum (2009) freely inspired by Hypatia’s life and death, which had a broad impact on Hypatia’s popular vision. They answer a quiz and tell why Hypatia is an exceptional woman in different fields and associate each of the symbols she represents with a scene : political advisor, philosopher, teacher, science vs religious obscurantism, secularism, restrictions imposed by the Church on women.

Then, they complete their knowledge about Hypatia :

-reading an article from a French magazine : "the great enigmas" about "30 exceptional women" (July - August - Sept 2020) 

-researching Alexandria in the third century, the Neoplatonist movement, the bishops Theophilus, Cyril and Synesos of Cyrene, the Roman prefect Oreste.

-studying a text written by Socrates the Scholastic about the death of Hypatia.

Finally they realize a slide show on an aspect of the character of Hypatia : 

-the woman : birth, identity, beauty and relationship to the body, a woman educated in Alexandria, her moral qualities, herpolitical influence

-the scientist : a scientist in Alexandria, her writings, the instruments she built

-the philosopher : a neoplatonist, her teaching, her school

-her religious tolerance, in a city undermined by religious conflicts, her relations with Theophilus and Cyril, the accusation of being a magician

-her death : the facts, the responsible, the interpretations of her murder

-the myth that she has become (literature, arts, cinema)