Graduate

How appropriate or useful is the application of the idea of “race” to practices in ancient Greece and Rome? What revelations about the classical or modern and contemporary worlds does the idea of “race” afford? Race has long been considered a modern phenomenon, traceable in such practices as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Recent scholarship has identified race (or racialization, at least) in the European Medieval period and the Renaissance. In this class, we will evaluate the scholarship of race in classical antiquity and the texts and artifacts upon which it relies.

How have archaeologists approached the study of gendered practices, and can their work contribute to theoretical and methodological discussions of gender across the social sciences and humanities? How can we use material objects and things to examine or explain gendered identities, especially in the deep past? In this course, students will engage with a range of research, from different disciplinary perspectives, to explore how gender is situated in archaeological theory and praxis and its political implications. Through multiple case studies, the course will interrogate how archaeologists study, analyze, and interpret material remains to examine gendered ideologies and material practices and their intersections with other social constructs: class, sex, race, ethnicity. Coverage is cross-cultural and aims to expose students to the diversity and variability of gendered and sexual experiences of different people across time and space. Topics include but are not limited to: embodiment and expression, gender roles, sexuality, parenthood and childhood, masculinity, biopolitics, and feminist theory.

If the current resurgence of interest in ethnic studies is a direct reflection of a contemporary upsurge in ethnic conflict throughout the world, it remains the case that notions of peoplehood and belonging have been of periodic importance throughout history. This course will study the various expressions of Greek identity within shifting political, social and cultural contexts from prehistory to the present day, though with a strong emphasis on classical antiquity. Particular attention will be given to theoretical issues such as anthropological definitions of ethnicity, the difference between ethnic and cultural identities, methods for studying ethnicity in historical societies, and the intersection of ethnicity with politics.

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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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.