Courses

GREK 32700 Greek Survey 1: Poetry

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.  

2023-24 Autumn

GREK 32800 Survey of Greek Literature II

(BIBL 32800)

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

2023-24 Winter

GREK 34400 Greek Prose Composition

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. 

2023-24 Spring

GREK 10100 Introduction to Attic Greek I

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.

This course is appropriate for students who have never studied Greek before.

2023-24 Autumn

GREK 10200 Introduction to Attic Greek II

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.

GREK 101000 or equivalent

2023-24 Winter

GREK 10300 Introduction to Attic Greek III

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). 

GREK 102 or equivalent

2023-24 Spring

GREK 20100 Intermediate Greek I

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. 

This course is usually appropriate for students who have completed GREK 103, or several years of high school Greek, or equivalent work.

2023-24 Autumn

GREK 20200 Intermediate Greek II

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.

This course is usually appropriate for students who have completed GREK 201, or equivalent work.

2023-24 Winter

GREK 20300 Intermediate Greek III

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 is appropriate for students who have completed GREK 201, or GREK 202, or equivalent work.

2023-24 Spring

GREK 21700/31700 Greek Lyric Poetry

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.

This course is appropriate for students who have completed GREK 20300 or equivalent

2023-24 Autumn

GREK 24523/34523 The Ecumenical Church Councils and the Making of Christian Doctrine

(HCHR 34523)

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.

2023-24 Autumn

GREK 24923/34923 The Birth of the Gods: A Close Reading of Hesiod's Theogony

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.

2023-24 Winter

GREK 25123/35123 Aristophanes and the Culture Wars

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).  

2023-24 Winter

GREK 26123/36123 Antigone and the Making of Theater

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. 

Greek is not required for the class, but those who have it will be asked to read some passages in the original language. 

2023-24 Winter