GREK

This course continues the study of basic Ancient Greek. Course work involves reading practice, presentational writing, and formal study of grammar and vocabulary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Ancient Greek text. Students who complete this course will be able to understand complex sentences, and often to combine them into larger units of meaning.

This course introduces the basic rules of Ancient Greek. Course work involves reading practice, presentational writing, and formal study of grammar and vocabulary. Throughout the course, students will encounter authentic Ancient Greek text. Students who complete this course will be able to understand simple sentences, and often to combine them into larger units of meaning. Knowledge of Greek not required.

This course will concentrate on the methods and perspectives of the discipline of papyrology, including the "hands on" experience of working with photographed and scanned texts of various collections. No previous knowledge of the field is assumed; we will begin from the ground up. Approximately the first six weeks of the course will be devoted to an introduction to the study of papyri, in which our concerns will include the following: 1. transcription and analysis of different paleographic styles, including literary hands and documentary Ptolemaic scripts. 2. extensive reading of edited papyrus texts from the Pestman and Loeb editions and elsewhere; 3. careful attention to the linguistic phenomenon of koine Greek with regard to phonology, morphology, and syntax; how the koine differs from the classical language and the relationship of the idiom of the papyri to that of other koine documents, such as the New Testament; the importance of koine linguistics to textual criticism. 4. investigation of the contribution of papyrology to other areas of the study of antiquity such as literature, social history, linguistics, textual criticism, and religion.

A close literary and philological analysis of one of the most remarkable and perplexing of all Greek tragedies. While this has traditionally been one of the most neglected of Sophocles’ tragedies, it is a drama of extraordinary force and beauty and the issues that it explores – husband and wife, parents and child, sexual violence, myth and temporality, divinity and humanity, suffering and transcendence – are ones that are both of permanent interest and of particular relevance to our present concerns. The poetic text, in its many dimensions, will offer more than adequate material for classroom analysis and discussion, but some attention will also be directed to the reception of this play.

Tertullian was the first to attribute the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews to Barnabas, and that ascription found favor with no less an ancient figure as Jerome, and even with notable scholars of the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries, such as Albrecht Ritschl and Friedrich Blass. Although no one can know who wrote it, there are fruitful literary and thematic parallels between the Epistle that bears the name Barnabas and the canonical Hebrews, including their critique of Judaism and their interpretatio Christiana of the Hebrew Bible, with particular regard to Levitical institutions and the temple. We will read thoroughly the Greek text of each treatise with focus on the language and style of the two texts, their relation to Hellenistic Judaism, and their respective treatments of Hebrew Bible/Septuagintal themes. D. Martinez.  Winter.

In this course we will read book 1 of Thucydides, his description of the run-up to the Peloponnesian War, in Greek. We will pay attention to Thucydides' style and approach to historiography, sinking our teeth into this difficult but endlessly fascinating text.

We will read in Greek substantial parts of three of Aristophanes‘ plays and two of Menander’s. We will discuss and analyze various aspects of the evolution of Greek comedy, textual tradition, the language of comedy and its political background. Coursework will include translation as well as secondary readings. S. Torallas Tovar. Spring

This class will read selections from the poetry of the Hellenistic period, especially the hymns of Callimachus, the pastoral poetry of Theocritus, and the epic parody “The Battle of the Frogs and Mice.” Alongside these Hellenistic texts we will read some of their poetic predecessors (Homer, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, choral and monadic lyric), with an eye to the Hellenistic poets’ interest in poetic form, self-positioning, and play. E. Austin. Autumn.