Courses

Without the tractive force and accelerated motion afforded by horses much of what humans have achieved, for good or ill, would have been impossible. The horse has also been a steady economic, military, artistic, and literary reference, and linguists and historians have even begun accounts of human civilization with the horse.  The course will trace the various forms of “symbiosis” that have united humans and horses since their first fateful linkage in Central Asia some 4,000 years ago, down to the rapid and almost complete de-coupling of the past 100 years. 

This course is intended to act not as an introduction to Classical archæology but as a methods course illuminating the potential contribution of material cultural evidence to ancient historians while at the same time alerting them to the possible misapplications. Theoretical reflections on the relationship between history and archaeology will be interspersed with specific case studies from the Græco-Roman world.

This course offers a hands-on introduction to the field of digital humanities with a special focus on ancient Greek and Roman antiquity. We will explore concepts and methods such as digital presentation of text with markup languages, text analysis with programmatic manipulation, map visualization, 3D modeling, and network analysis. Throughout the course, we will take a critical view of the existing online digital resources for Greek and Roman antiquity. The course will include weekly readings and assignments and conclude with a final research project.

This course examines how family was conceptualized and manifested in the Greek and Roman world. In this class, we will begin by examining key terms related to family (household, kinship, ancestors, descendants) and scholarly approaches to familial studies under the light of different theoretical perspectives. Through the examination of written sources (literary texts, inscriptions, and papyri) and archaeological evidence, we will adopt a thematic approach exploring the ways in which family intersected with several fields of public and domestic life, such as law, adoption, heirship, religion, rituals, education, politics, and public honors.

Dreams belong to the universals of human existence as human beings have always dreamt and will continue to dream across time and cultures. The questions where do dreams come from and how to unravel a dream have always preoccupied the human mind. In this course we will focus on dreams in the Greco-Roman and Greco-Egyptian cultural environments. We will cover dreams from three complementary perspectives: dreams as experience, dream interpretation and dream theory. The reading materials will include: (a) a selection of dream narratives from different sources, literary texts as well as documentary accounts of dreams; (b) texts which document the forms and contexts of dream interpretation in the Greco-Roman and Greco-Egyptian cultures and (c) texts which represent attempts to approach dreams from a more general perspective by among other explaining their genesis and defining dream-types.

Books have been a fundamental part of the transmission of knowledge and more generally, human communication. They collect thoughts, experiences, feelings, knowledge and ideas into a material artifact that is distributed to an audience of readers. The work of scribes and scholars is the silent agent of this millennial enterprise. The process of book-production involves a large number of different skills from these artisans: material manufacture, preparation of writing surfaces and inks, writing skills, calligraphy, binding, distribution. In this course students will study the history of books, from Antiquity to the invention of the printing press, and their makers. The topics covered will include scribal training, book manufacture, circulation and trade of books, readership, and other such topics around the world of books and scholars. The course will focus on books as artifacts, as transmitters of knowledge and literary creativity.

Through close readings of Pausanias, who wrote a Description of Greece during the Roman imperial period, this course explores ancient forms of travel writing and associated interests in the places, peoples, myths, ruins, and material objects of the Mediterranean world. Moving from the apparent ethnographic lens of earlier Greek literature to Roman imperialist expeditions, readings and discussions will examine the sociopolitical contexts out of which Pausanias emerged as a literary author, and his legacies on and relationship to the wide array of genres of modern travel writing, from Lewis and Clark to John Steinbeck. Key topics will include: movement through space, tourism, nature, landscape, town and country, sites and spectacles, myth, ritual, and acts of remembering and forgetting.  

This class on Sophocles’ Antigone will be held in lockstep with the upcoming production of the play at the Court Theatre, which will allow us to think about the construction of the play and its performance, both in its original setting and each time it is adapted and staged. We will attend rehearsals and talk to the director, crew and performers of the play as the play takes shape. We will also attend the production. Readings will include Antigone by Sophocles, as well as adaptions and theory on the play. 

A big change occurred in Greek thought between the time of Homer and that of Socrates, or roughly between the eighth and fifth centuries BCE. This has been celebrated as a turn from myth to philosophy and science. It was also an attempt by humans to take charge of their lives. The course will focus on the leaders of this movement: the Pre-Socratics, the Sophists, and the legendary founder of scientific medicine, Hippocrates. The Presocratic devised new ways of explaining the world as a whole; the Sophists discovered ways in which humans could shape their lives in relation to one another; and the followers of Hippocrates sought to give humans control over their bodies. For the Pre-Socratics, we have only tantalizing fragments; and we will attempt to make sense of them. We will also read a tragedy, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, which shows a god taking the side of humans;  writings of the sophists and attacks on them; and the earliest Greek medical writings.  The course will be taught in English translation. For those who know ancient Greek, optional reading classes will be offered.

This course centers the objects of the ancient Greek world, from prehistory to the Hellenistic period, as avenues for exploring the practice, history, and motivations of the discipline of Greek archaeology. From the mundane to the spectacular, we will closely consider twenty things – pots, statues, coins, knives, bones, inscriptions, among others – whose compelling if fragmentary biographies and itineraries reveal how archaeologists reconstruct and explain ancient social lives. Discussions will interrogate histories of object analysis, identification, and interpretation; schemes of periodization and categorization; theories of gender, class, economy, politics, and religion; developments in technologies and aesthetics; the intersections of artifact discovery and museum or market acquisitions; and the making of Greek archaeology within the wider discipline.

This seminar approaches Homeric studies as a sub-discipline in Classics that has created a breadth of methodologies and hermeneutical approaches, both new and old, that are central to the evolution of Classical Studies and literary theory more generally. The seminar deals with different readings of Homer—scholarly and otherwise—from the ancient scholia to the present day. On the modern side, we will engage with the history of Homeric scholarship (oral theory, narratology, neoanalysis) as well as new directions in modern scholarship (affect studies, cognitive theory). On the premodern side, the seminar will focus on interpretations that applied rhetorical theory, Neoplatonic philosophy, and ancient scholarship, to ensure Homer’s enduring canonical status among Platonists and Christians. The seminar will include substantial reading of original texts, and will result in an extended research paper, to be completed in the Winter term. 

This seminar approaches Homeric studies as a sub-discipline in Classics that has created a breadth of methodologies and hermeneutical approaches, both new and old, that are central to the evolution of Classical Studies and literary theory more generally. The seminar deals with different readings of Homer—scholarly and otherwise—from the ancient scholia to the present day. On the modern side, we will engage with the history of Homeric scholarship (oral theory, narratology, neoanalysis) as well as new directions in modern scholarship (affect studies, cognitive theory). On the premodern side, the seminar will focus on interpretations that applied rhetorical theory, Neoplatonic philosophy, and ancient scholarship, to ensure Homer’s enduring canonical status among Platonists and Christians. The seminar will include substantial reading of original texts, and will result in an extended research paper, to be completed in the Winter term. 

Dreams belong to the universals of human existence as human beings have always dreamt and will continue to dream across time and cultures. The questions where do dreams come from and how to unravel a dream have always preoccupied the human mind. In this course we will focus on dreams in the Greco-Roman and Greco-Egyptian cultural environments. We will cover dreams from three complementary perspectives: dreams as experience, dream interpretation and dream theory. The reading materials will include: (a) a selection of dream narratives from different sources, literary texts as well as documentary accounts of dreams; (b) texts which document the forms and contexts of dream interpretation in the Greco-Roman and Greco-Egyptian cultures and (c) texts which represent attempts to approach dreams from a more general perspective by among other explaining their genesis and defining dream-types.  

Without the tractive force and accelerated motion afforded by horses much of what humans have achieved, for good or ill, would have been impossible. The horse has also been a steady economic, military, artistic, and literary reference, and linguists and historians have even begun accounts of human civilization with the horse.  The course will trace the various forms of “symbiosis” that have united humans and horses since their first fateful linkage in Central Asia some 4,000 years ago, down to the rapid and almost complete de-coupling of the past 100 years.

This course is intended to act not as an introduction to Classical archæology but as a methods course illuminating the potential contribution of material cultural evidence to ancient historians while at the same time alerting them to the possible misapplications. Theoretical reflections on the relationship between history and archaeology will be interspersed with specific case studies from the Græco-Roman world. 

This course offers a hands-on introduction to the field of digital humanities with a special focus on ancient Greek and Roman antiquity. We will explore concepts and methods such as digital presentation of text with markup languages, text analysis with programmatic manipulation, map visualization, 3D modeling, and network analysis. Throughout the course, we will take a critical view of the existing online digital resources for Greek and Roman antiquity. The course will include weekly readings and assignments and conclude with a final research project.

 

This course examines how family was conceptualized and manifested in the Greek and Roman world. In this class, we will begin by examining key terms related to family (household, kinship, ancestors, descendants) and scholarly approaches to familial studies under the light of different theoretical perspectives. Through the examination of written sources (literary texts, inscriptions, and papyri) and archaeological evidence, we will adopt a thematic approach exploring the ways in which family intersected with several fields of public and domestic life, such as law, adoption, heirship, religion, rituals, education, politics, and public honors. 

This seminar examines the interplay between social and environmental actors, practices, and changes across time in the Mediterranean basin, as well as explores the study and analysis of those interactions from the beginnings of classical scholarship to the present. Key themes include: environmental determinism, human and non-human interactions, interpretive approaches to space and place, the role of science in archaeological and historical practice, and the compartmentalization of “environment” and “landscape” as analytic focus. These themes loom large now - during what might be called the “environmental turn” spurred on by the controversial Anthropocene in the humanities and social sciences - and their intensifying resonance provides the basis for critical reflection of past and future trends in classics, history, archaeology, and anthropology.

Books have been a fundamental part of the transmission of knowledge and more generally, human communication. They collect thoughts, experiences, feelings, knowledge and ideas into a material artifact that is distributed to an audience of readers. The work of scribes and scholars is the silent agent of this millennial enterprise. The process of book-production involves a large number of different skills from these artisans: material manufacture, preparation of writing surfaces and inks, writing skills, calligraphy, binding, distribution. In this course students will study the history of books, from Antiquity to the invention of the printing press, and their makers. The topics covered will include scribal training, book manufacture, circulation and trade of books, readership, and other such topics around the world of books and scholars. The course will focus on books as artifacts, as transmitters of knowledge and literary creativity.  

Through close readings of Pausanias, who wrote a Description of Greece during the Roman imperial period, this course explores ancient forms of travel writing and associated interests in the places, peoples, myths, ruins, and material objects of the Mediterranean world. Moving from the apparent ethnographic lens of earlier Greek literature to Roman imperialist expeditions, readings and discussions will examine the sociopolitical contexts out of which Pausanias emerged as a literary author, and his legacies on and relationship to the wide array of genres of modern travel writing, from Lewis and Clark to John Steinbeck. Key topics will include: movement through space, tourism, nature, landscape, town and country, sites and spectacles, myth, ritual, and acts of remembering and forgetting.  

This class on Sophocles’ Antigone will be held in lockstep with the upcoming production of the play at the Court Theatre, which will allow us to think about the construction of the play and its performance, both in its original setting and each time it is adapted and staged. We will attend rehearsals and talk to the director, crew and performers of the play as the play takes shape. We will also attend the production. Readings will include Antigone by Sophocles, as well as adaptions and theory on the play.

This course centers the objects of the ancient Greek world, from prehistory to the Hellenistic period, as avenues for exploring the practice, history, and motivations of the discipline of Greek archaeology. From the mundane to the spectacular, we will closely consider twenty things – pots, statues, coins, knives, bones, inscriptions, among others – whose compelling if fragmentary biographies and itineraries reveal how archaeologists reconstruct and explain ancient social lives. Discussions will interrogate histories of object analysis, identification, and interpretation; schemes of periodization and categorization; theories of gender, class, economy, politics, and religion; developments in technologies and aesthetics; the intersections of artifact discovery and museum or market acquisitions; and the making of Greek archaeology within the wider discipline.  

The Senior Seminar takes place over two quarters (autumn and winter) and students register for it as a single course in one of those two quarters. The Senior Seminar is a requirement for all Classics majors, whether they are writing a BA paper or not.

This course will cover the long life of ancient Greek poetry, touching on many genres in their first forms: epic and hymns, poetry that is theogonic, iambic, elegiac, lyric, epinician, tragic, comedic, dithyrambic and some poems that are practically unclassifiable. We will seek to discuss key moments, passages, and poems that give us entry to larger literary questions and themes. We will pay particular attention to details of genre, dialect, and meter, while also being attentive to the history of scholarship that attends on these traditions. We will read a lot of Greek.  

A study of the creation of the canonical Greek prose style in the 5th and 4th centuries. Rapid reading and translation exercises. 

The goal of this course is to pick up habits from introductory Greek class: producing Attic Greek sentences and longer pieces. The most obvious benefits of this exercise will be thorough review of basic morphology and syntax as well as fine-tuning our grasp of the more subtle nuances of the language, which should pay off when we go back to reading the ancient Greek texts themselves — or teach them! While this is a graduate level course, undergraduates are welcome to petition to take it. 

For thousands of years, people have learned this language to go deeper into the thoughts and worlds of Plato, Homer, Sappho, and Early Christianity and more. In this course sequence, you too can begin to learn this language. GREK 101 introduces the study of Ancient Greek. Course work involves reading practice, writing individual sentences and coherent stories, formal study of grammar and vocabulary, and other linguistic skills as necessary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Ancient Greek texts. Students who complete this course will be able to understand simple sentences and combine them into larger units of meaning.

For thousands of years, people have learned this language to go deeper into the thoughts and worlds of Plato, Homer, Sappho, and Early Christianity and more. In this course sequence, you too can begin to learn this language. GREK 102 continues the study of basic Ancient Greek. Course work involves reading practice, writing individual sentences and coherent stories, formal study of grammar and vocabulary, and other linguistic skills as necessary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Ancient Greek texts. Students who complete this course will be able to understand complex sentences and combine them into larger units of meaning.

For thousands of years, people have learned this language to go deeper into the thoughts and worlds of Plato, Homer, Sappho, and Early Christianity and more. In this course sequence, you too can begin to learn this language. GREK 103 continues the study of basic Ancient Greek. Course work involves reading practice, writing individual sentences and coherent stories, formal study of grammar and vocabulary, and other linguistic skills as necessary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Ancient Greek text. Students who complete this course will be able to track ideas across at least a paragraph of text and will be ready to move into the intermediate sequence (GREK 20100-20200-20300). 

Immerse yourself in real writings from Ancient Greece. Readings this quarter concentrate on selections of Greek prose (for instance, by Plato), with an aim to improve reading skills, discuss key concepts in Greek history and culture, and expand knowledge of grammar and vocabulary as necessary. 

Immerse yourself in real writings from Ancient Greece. Readings this quarter concentrate on selections of Greek poetry (for instance, by Euripides), with an aim to improve reading skills, discuss key concepts in Greek history and culture, and expand knowledge of grammar and vocabulary as necessary.

Immerse yourself in real writings from Ancient Greece, and the long subsequent tradition of Latin literature. This course involves reading selections from a major monument of Greek literature (for instance, The Iliad). There will be discussion of the relationship between language and literary art, the legacy of the work or works studied, and study of grammar and vocabulary as necessary.  

This course will examine instances of Greek lyric genres throughout the archaic, classical, and hellenistic periods, focusing on the structure, themes and sounds of the poetry and investigating their performative and historical contexts. Readings will include Alcman, Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Theognis, Alcaeus, Bacchylides, Pindar, and Anyte. In Greek.

The Church Councils of late antiquity (fourth-seventh centuries) were huge conferences of bishops, priests, monks, secular officials, and emperors, who met to decide on the rules that would govern the Church and the doctrines that all Christians had to believe. They combined philosophical debate, criminal trials, committee meetings, and Senate procedure. Some were rowdy and acrimonious, while others were meticulously organized in advance, usually by the court. Some remain obscure, while others are the most thoroughly documented events in all ancient history and reveal in detail how the later Roman government operated. In this course we will read, in Greek, a number of fascinating narratives and official acts stemming from the most important Councils, including Nicaea I (325), Ephesos I (431), and Chalcedon (451). We will also discuss the Councils from a historical perspective to understand the complex negotiations that gave rise to Christian doctrine and canon law.

In this course we will read in Greek the Theogony by Hesiod, one of the earliest preserved literary pieces in ancient Greek and a text that became a point of reference for cosmogonic literature and thought in later centuries. We will conduct a close reading, commenting on both poetic/literary aspects and mythical tropes, and will read (in English) comparative materials from other Greek and Near Eastern cosmogonies, as well as some interpretive essays. Exams will be based on translation work as well as engagement in discussions.

Every culture has its wars, and Aristophanes’ Athens was certainly no exception. In this course, we will read selections of several Aristophanic comedies in Greek (Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Frogs), and consider how these plays engage with a number of issues that were cultural flashpoints: the workings and ideologies of Athenian democracy, contemporary intellectual movements and education, attitudes towards the Peloponnesian War, shifting notions of Athenian and class identity, and the manner in which dramatic poetry itself – from Euripidean tragedy to Aristophanes’ own comedies – related to, or even exacerbated, these issues. Along the way, we will consider how contemporary comedians (e.g. Trevor Noah, Hari Kondabolu) continue to put to use the same techniques and dynamics that we see in Aristophanes’ plays, and to what effect(s).  

This class on Sophocles’ Antigone will be held in lockstep with the upcoming production of the play at the Court Theatre, which will allow us to think about the construction of the play and its performance, both in its original setting and each time it is adapted and staged. We will attend rehearsals and talk to the director, crew and performers of the play as the play takes shape. We will also attend the production. Readings will include Antigone by Sophocles, as well as adaptions and theory on the play. 

Working together, we’ll try to produce an (at least partial) answer to why the western classical canon ended up taking the shape it has at present.  What were the historical, cultural, educational, political (etc) factors that gave us what we have today?  What has been lost, and why? Our goal will be to develop answers that take us beyond “imperialism.” The course’s final product will be a collaborative paper on the topic.  

For centuries people have learned this language to go deeper into the thoughts and worlds of Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. In this course sequence, you too can begin to learn this language. LATN 101 introduces the study of Latin. Course work involves reading Latin, writing individual sentences and coherent stories, formal study of grammar and vocabulary, and other linguistic skills as necessary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Latin texts. Students who complete this course will be able to understand simple sentences and combine them into larger units of meaning.

For centuries people have learned this language to go deeper into the thoughts and worlds of Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. In this course sequence, you too can begin to learn this language. LATN 102 continues the study of basic Latin. Course work involves reading Latin, writing individual sentences and coherent stories, formal study of grammar and vocabulary, and other linguistic skills as necessary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Latin texts. Students who complete this course will be able to understand complex sentences and combine them into larger units of meaning. 

For centuries people have learned this language to go deeper into the thoughts and worlds of Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. In this course sequence, you too can begin to learn this language. LATN 103 continues the study of basic Latin. Course work involves reading Latin, writing individual sentences and coherent stories, formal study of grammar and vocabulary, and other linguistic skills as necessary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Latin text. Students who complete this course will be able to track ideas across at least a paragraph of text and will be ready to move into the intermediate sequence (LATN 20100-20200-20300)

This course is intended for students with some experience in Latin to quickly review what they know and upgrade their skills in reading and understanding Latin. In this course, students will expand their vocabulary, learn more advanced grammar, and practice extensive reading

Immerse yourself in real writings from Ancient Rome, and the long subsequent tradition of Latin literature. Readings this quarter concentrate on selections of Roman prose (for instance, by Cicero), with an aim to improve reading skills, discuss key concepts in Roman history and culture, and expand knowledge of grammar and vocabulary as necessary.  

Immerse yourself in real writings from Ancient Rome, and the long subsequent tradition of Latin literature. Readings this quarter concentrate on selections of Roman poetry (for instance, by Ovid). The class involves discussion of poetic language, the literary and historical context of Roman poetry, and study of grammar and vocabulary as necessary.  

The course continues to consolidate the foundations extended in the autumn course based on readings from Cicero.  We shall cover a variety of poetry and prose from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, including selections from Boethius, Bede, Lupus of Ferrières, Nithard, and others.  The authors chosen will all be significant for their efforts to reflect the highest classical standards.

Immerse yourself in real writings from Ancient Rome, and the long subsequent tradition of Latin literature. This course involves reading selections from a major monument of Roman literature (for instance, Vergil’s Aeneid). There will be discussion of the relationship between language and literary art, the legacy of the work or works studied, and study of grammar and vocabulary as necessary. 

The course continues the work of grammatical extension and consolidation.  We shall cover a variety of poetry and prose by great
Latin stylists from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter of Blois, Petrarch, and Dante.  The authors
chosen will all be significant for their efforts to reflect the highest classical standards.

Several months after the death of his beloved daughter and just two years before his own death in 43 BC, Cicero composed a dialog with an imaginary interlocutor arguing that death, pain, grief, and other perturbations were an unimportant part of the big picture.  A reading of this famous contribution to the genre of consolation literature (all of it to be read in English, selections in Latin) affords an opportunity to weigh his many examples and his arguments for ourselves.   

Several months after the death of his beloved daughter and just two years before his own death in 43 BC, Cicero composed a dialog with an imaginary interlocutor arguing that death, pain, grief, and other perturbations were an unimportant part of the big picture.  A reading of this famous contribution to the genre of consolation literature (all of it to be read in English, selections in Latin) affords an opportunity to weigh his many examples and his arguments for ourselves.  

Course readings include satires of Horace and Juvenal in Latin together with selections in English from the long tradition of their European reception history. 

Course readings include satires of Horace and Juvenal in Latin together with selections in English from the long tradition of their European reception history. 

In this class we’ll read through the fascination second book of Livy’s history of Rome, the Ab Urbe Condita.  Book 2 covers Rome directly after the fall of the kings, including the foundational Roman accounts of Horatius Cocles and Coriolanus.  

Through our reading of Cicero, Ovid, and Seneca, in this class we explore the lost art of letter writing. The genre of the epistle gives us a glimpse into daily life at Rome by capturing actual correspondence between elite Romans, such as we see in Cicero’s letters; allows for playful and philosophical revisitations of myth, even revealing gendered voice, as with Ovid’s letters between Penelope and Odysseus, or Dido and Aeneas; and is a crafted structure within which Seneca communicates the lessons of Stoicism to his fictive interlocutor. We will read these authors’ letters in Latin and compare their style and content. As time allows, the letters of Pliny the Younger and the Emperor Julian round out the historical scope from Roman Republic to Empire. Latin proficiency and student interest will contribute to the shape and pace of our readings and discussions.Assessment is in the form of weekly quizzes on content and grammar and three translation exams.