CLAS

Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was founded in 324 AD to be the capital of the eastern Roman empire. It did this until 1453, when it became the capital of the emerging Ottoman empire, a function that it served until 1922. No city in history has, for so long, served continually as the capital of two successive empires that, in their various incarnations, stradled Europe, Asia, and Africa and played a major role in shaping global politics and world culture. In this course, students will learn about these two parallel histories and cultures through a series of paired thematic units: Foundations; Imperial Cultures; Religious Cultures; and Hagia Sophia (a monument that continues to be a flashpoint for competing claims to the past and modern identities). One week in the middle will be devoted to Transitions, namely to the period around the siege of 1453, before which many Turks lived under east Roman rule and after which most Romans (Greeks) lived under Ottoman rule. The instructors will foster creative dialogue between these two cultures by focusing, in each unit, on exemplary monuments and primary written sources. Students will explore how public authority was claimed and contested, and how each phase of the city’s history appropriated or sidelined the legacy of its own past.

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.

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 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 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. 

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.