Autumn

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 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 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 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 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.  

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.