Sophistic Training and Experiential Learning: A Methodology of Mind-Body Syncretism

Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece, a study of ancient sophistic training methods by Debra Hawhee, uncovers a lost history of what is termed performance pedagogy, phenomenological pedagogy, active learning, and experiential learning in today's educational and composition-rhetoric scholarship. In her book Hawhee reconstructs the gymnasia of fifth- through fourth-century BCE Greeks and demonstrates the corporeal methods of training used by orators and athletes as they practiced and performed alongside one another. What her work shows is not that athletes and intellectuals simply shared the spaces in which they trained but that there were important and demanding physical elements to the rhetorical training of young orators as well as equally important mental aspects to the training of athletes. "From this spatial intermingling of practices there emerged a specific syncretism between athletics and rhetoric, a particular crossover in pedagogical practices and learning styles, a crossover that contributed to the development of rhetoric as a bodily art: an art learned, practiced, and performed by and with the body as well as the mind" (111). In fact, for the ancient Greeks the mind and body were indivisible, "syncretic"; for them, the notion of a mind-body split that characterizes modern educational practices was impossible.

Bodily Arts examines the cultural, conceptual, and corporeal connections between athletics and rhetoric in order to establish the mind-body syncretism of ancient training methods. Concerning these connections, Hawhee's study examines an aspect of the rhetorical tradition that has been touched on but never explicitly explored in any depth. As her revisionary study reveals, athletics and rhetoric were bound together in the way they operated in "unified programs for shaping an entire self" and in the way the "two arts draw from similar pedagogical strategies" (6). Her research draws largely from the work of the Sophists Isocrates, Gorgias, and Demosthenes. However, Hawhee does not limit herself to only sophistic rhetoric. She examines such artifacts as Greek pottery, statues, and paintings, as well as archeological sites and maps, and she consults, among others, the texts of Plato and other late and contemporary scholars of rhetoric. What emerges from her research is a detailed picture of the cultural conditions that determined the art of shaping and training a whole self.

Hawhee begins with the ancient Greek concepts of arete and agon. In the first chapter, "Contesting Virtuosity: Agonism and the Production of Arete," Hawhee discusses the honor (arete) Greek orators and athletes earned through the course of agonistically training for and then performing their various acts. Part of winning honor was to deliver a great performance at one of the many Greek festivals or Olympic games; however, honor was not won through a single great performance. Agonistic training (which Hawhee makes sure to distinguish from modern academic conceptions of agonism, which are actually antagonistic practices) "emphasizes the event of the gathering itself" (15–16). It is a central part of a give-and-take training relationship in which both teacher and student participate and benefit equally.

This opening chapter is followed by a chapter on metis ("Sophistic Metis: An Intelligence of the Body"), kairos ("Kairotic Bodies"), and phusiopoiesis ("Phusiopoiesis: The Arts of Training"). Hawhee does not give a concise translation of these five terms, as she does for the many other Greek terms that appear throughout the text. Instead, her impressively detailed treatment of each term leaves the reader with a rich and layered understanding of the nuances of these vital concepts. While Hawhee is by no means the first scholar to write in detail about each of the above rhetorical concepts, she manages to do so in a way that has staying power. In fact, these first four chapters prove useful not only in setting up the cultural and conceptual context of her argument, but also as a transferable introduction to rhetorical lexicon. Her writing models the method for which she is arguing: she rhythmically and repeatedly employs each of the terms she is discussing within a...