The Science of DivinationIt’s not often that an expert on ancient texts has occasion to spend time at a place like Stanford’s Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences. Sociologists, psychologists, biologists, and anthropologists? Sure. But Peter Struck CGS’06, associate professor and undergraduate chair of the Classical Studies Department? Not so much.
Yet that’s where Struck has been hunkered down this year, using an academic fellowship to explore ancient intellectuals’ views of divination through the lenses of anthropology, cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, and contemporary semiotics. So far, he’s discovered that the intellectuals of yesteryear explained the process of divination in much the same way New Yorker essayist Malcolm Gladwell explains snap judgments: intuition. “That tells me that these ancient practices of divination aren’t the way we’ve understood them—they aren’t strange or radical,” Struck says. “I think that’s an entirely new take.” (Look for that take in the form of a new book sometime in the next two years.)
Struck’s zeal for classics began when he was a University of Michigan undergraduate. “I was totally floored by the poetry of Homer,” he says. “When I read that, I knew I wanted to live in that world.” But don’t misunderstand him. When he says “live in that world,” he doesn’t mean freezing the past in amber to relive or venerate it. “What we do with the past is learn from it,” he says. “I think the past saves the future for the benefit of the present.”
That forward-looking orientation has led Struck to co-found and direct the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education, funded by the Teagle Foundation. Between his work there and what SAS Dean Rebecca Bushnell describes as his efforts to “remake the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program,” it’s clear, she says, that Struck is “someone with a passion for making a difference, particularly institutionally.”
He’s also “one of our most imaginative teachers,” adds Bushnell—a compliment Struck credits largely to serving as a faculty fellow in Rodin and Stouffer College Houses. “It’s easy to go on that old person’s jag about how we were so virtuous and curious as students,” he says. “Living in the college houses cleared up any lingering doubts I had about what my students were like. By living with them, I realized how much I admire Penn students.”
That admiration extends to the classroom, where he’s earned multiple teaching awards. “There are always moments in my mythology class where a student will come up with something that’s utterly brilliant,” he says. “There are 250 people out there in the audience, so you’re basically crowdsourcing an ancient text. It’s wonderful to see that brainpower get directed onto something I care so deeply about.”
Like the other Fellows, Struck says he looks forward to what will unfold over his next two years in the program. “Penn is a large and complex organism,” he says. “The Penn Fellows program gives us a chance to learn about all the other pieces of the University, which is wonderfully enriching for me. It’s a really impressive thing to sit in a room with someone who has studied a topic for years and can bring you up to speed on it in 20 minutes. That’s the thrilling part of being in an academic environment.”
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