The meanings of masks with Literature's Sandy Alexandre & Stephanie Frampton…

Published on: September 28, 2020

In this series of commentaries inspired by an idea from associate professor of literature Sandy Alexandre, MIT faculty draw on their discipline expertise to offer new ways to think about, appreciate, and practice protective masking — currently a primary way to save lives and to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Credits: Image courtesy of SHASS Communications. As The Washington Post has reported, “at the heart of the dismal U.S. coronavirus response” is a “fraught relationship with masks.” In this series of commentaries — inspired by an idea from associate professor of literature Sandy Alexandre — MIT faculty delve into the cultural, creative, and historic meanings of masks. Drawing on discipline expertise, the professors offer new ways to think about, appreciate, and practice protective masking — currently a primary way to save lives and to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. The following are distilled excerpts from the commentaries to date; the full, image-rich Meanings of Masks series is available on the MIT SHASS website. … In “Persona: Masks in the Graeco-Roman World,” Stephanie Ann Frampton, an associate professor of classical literature, writes that “In Latin, one of the words for mask is persona, thought to have meant ‘something through which sound passes’ (per, ‘through;” sono, “to make a sound’). Even in the time of Cicero, persona was already being used to describe the ‘part’ or ‘character that one sustains in the world’ — in other words, the role or roles we play in society.” Read more here…