Editors' Notes
Students of Snow College—
Throughout the development of this handbook, I’ve been thinking about Pandora. Or rather, I’ve been thinking about Pandora's Box, a mythological box full of evils, miseries, and disease.
Pandora is a figure that has popped up, attributed and unattributed, throughout Greek myth and literature, but most popularly, she is known in Greek Mythology as the first human woman. Formed from earth and rainwater, she was created by the smith God Hephaestus on the orders of Zeus, ruler of Olympus and the Olympian Gods. From here, her tale varies based on rendition, but in most tales, you can find the following: an act of sheer audacity, an offense at the slight, and a punishment bestowed. (In all tales, Zeus is the one disgruntled and angry.) Early written forms of this tale have strong misogynistic leanings, and so in these versions, Pandora is both the tool of punishment to humankind and the one to wield it.
I'll explain: Pandora is given a box. (In Greek, it's actually a jar, but we call it a box.) The gift-giving is a trick; Pandora is given a warning from Zeus to never open the box, even though she had been gifted by Zeus' wife, Hera, with curiosity. Inside of the box is a hellscape of death, famine, hatred, sickness, and turmoil that will be unleashed on humankind if the box is ever opened—hmm, is it any wonder that this myth has been on my mind?
After the last few years, the global pandemic, political unrest, racial injustice, global climate change, and other determinative events all seem very much like the nightmare unleashed from the fabled box.
Because in the myth, Pandora does open the box. Out flies greed! Out flies sickness! Out flies plague! Out flies death! The evils spill out of the box and into the clouded air, forever unleashed on a very, very mortal populace. Then last of all, hope emerges into being and struggles to push past the lid. Yes, hope—sitting amongst the dreaded evils. In some versions of this tale, Pandora slams the lid shut, trapping hope from ever reaching mankind; the truest punishment of all. In other versions, Pandora still traps hope inside of the jar, but this is an act of preservation. It becomes a kind of eternal pickling, and in doing so, she saves hope for humankind. In another version, Pandora isn't quick enough, and hope flutters away, never to return. In some interpretations of that version, the hope that disappears is only false hope, which is implicitly replaced by knowledge, freed by curiosity. Perspective is powerful. There is a spectrum of possible interpretations here, with one side lambasting curiosity as the cause of the eventual downfall of humankind and the other sanctioning curiosity as an absolutely vital part of humanity.
Here’s my perspective: it was the gift of curiosity that allowed hope to be. Curiosity did not birth hope; curiosity is hope. Inside this perspective, curiosity and hope are two sides of the same coin.
As you read this, life might feel like an opened Pandora's Box. Hope might feel as intangible and flighty as a moth, especially as you navigate college life and courses, but curiosity will be your champion. From hope and curiosity comes knowledge. The future of humankind hinges on curiosity. Curiosity connects questions, interests, and passions into scaffolds and networks. It is naturally collaborative and interdisciplinary. Your Foundations course is built on the virtue of compassionate and ethical curiosity. This handbook, its essays, and its supplemental content are resources to guide you into becoming a lifelong learner, seeker, discoverer, and investigator. The essays, written by administration, faculty, and staff, give you specific tools for achieving academic and personal success as you create your own life story.
Like the myth of Pandora, your life story has many interpretations, with many viewpoints that you can shape and discover if only you are curious. Something wonderful awaits you.
Lauren Matthews (she/they),
Learning Across the Curriculum, 2nd ed., 2022
Resources:
Hansen, William. "Can interpretations of the Pandora myth tell us something about ourselves?" OUPblog, 27 Sep. 2021, blog.oup.com/2021/09/can-interpretations-of-the-pandora-myth-tell-us-something-about-ourselves Links to an external site.. Accessed 6 Jan. 2022.
Hesiod. "The All-endowed." Hesoid: the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Harvard U P, 1914. Perseus Digital Library, www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg002.perseus-eng1:59-82 Links to an external site.. Accessed 6 Jan. 2022.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Pandora: Greek Mythology." Britannica, 2022, www.britannica.com/topic/Pandora-Greek-mythology Links to an external site.. Accessed 6 Jan. 2022.