Autumn

In this course we will mainly focus on the magical rituals (e.g. curses, necromancy, erotic spells, amulets, and divination) practiced in the ancient Mediterranean beginning with the Greeks in archaic times and ending with the fall of the Roman Empire.  Course requirements include a midterm and final, both with essay questions. 

The change from nonparent to parent is one of the few common and transformative instances in a human life, often bringing with it other essential changes to values, priorities, and potentially to a person’s sense of identity. Parenthood is frequently said to change a person’s relations to the world and other people, as well as to their sense of temporality. Both ancient and modern works of literary and performance arts are filled with examples of the extremes that parenting can produce: deep love, self-abnegation and self-sacrifice, as well as vengeance, murder and forbidden desires. How is the identity of both parent and child shaped through the intensity of this relationship? How does each seek to inhabit and escape from this bond? How are the paradigms and potentials for human behavior established through this crucible? In this course, we will examine these questions through ancient and modern works of poetry, theater, fiction and film. All readings will be in English.  

The Coptic versions of the Bible present one of the earliest translations of Christian scripture as the new religion spread. Understanding how the Bible (canonical and non-canonical) was read and used in Egypt at this early stage implies studying the development of Christian communities in those agitated times, as well as paying attention to questions of literacy and linguistic environment, book production, Bible (both Greek and Coptic) on papyrus, and translation and interpretation in Antiquity. The course will draw on materials assembled from my work on the critical edition of the Gospel of Mark, but will also look into other materials like the Coptic Old Testament, and non-canonical scriptures such as Nag Hammadi and the Gnostic scriptures. No previous knowledge of Coptic is required. A brief introduction to the Coptic language will be part of the class, and parallel sessions of additional language instruction will be planned for those who are interested in learning more.

Islands, and Mediterranean islands in particular, have long provoked curiosity and intrigue, and have persisted as places for thinking about utopia, incongruity, distinctiveness, or backwardness since antiquity. This seminar course interrogates the representations of islands in ancient thought as well as their own archaeological and historical records in order to trace their often elliptical categorization in modern scholarship. Are islands unique because they are isolated, or rather because they become crossroads of special interaction? From the mythical island of the Cyclopes, to the Aegean archipelagos, to the large masses like Sicily or Cyprus, discussions will explore approaches to insularity, isolation, connectivity, and identity using a wide range of textual and material evidence and theoretical insights from geography, anthropology, history, literature, and environmental science.  

Part I surveys the social, economic, and political history of Greece from prehistory to the Hellenistic period. The main topics considered include the development of the institutions of the Greek city-state, the Persian Wars and the rivalry of Athens and Sparta, the social and economic consequences of the Peloponnesian War, and the eclipse and defeat of the city-states by the Macedonians.

This two-quarter seminar introduces students to key debates and challenges in the study of ancient Mediterranean societies outside or elliptical to the boundaries of the city-state. In the first half, readings and discussions will interrogate Greek and Roman concepts of territoriality and border-making, frontiers and hinterlands, and political community, as well as assess limitations in method and evidence for studying the material histories of nonurban social formations. The course takes a broad approach by exploring diverse regional and chronological case studies. In the second quarter, students will write a major research paper. Non-Classics students may enroll for just the first quarter by arrangement with the instructors.

This class is an in-depth study of central Anatolia's most important archaeological site during the early first millennium BCE: Gordion, the capital city of the kingdom of Phrygia. In addition to learning the archaeology of this site in great detail, we will also use it as a foundation to explore neighboring excavations in the region, including the Iron Age levels of Hattusha, Kaman-Kalehöyük, Kınık Höyük, and others

Plato’s intellectual influence in our everyday lives is apparent in phrases such as “Socratic method,” “Platonic relationship,” and “Platonic ideal.” In fact, even the name of our institutions for the development of the intellect, the Academy, derives from the name of Plato’s school. Despite this seeming ubiquity of Plato, popular understanding of him remains casual. It is equally true that widespread interpretations of Plato are often polarized. Rejection of his radical gender proposals and practical scorn for his too ethereal abstractions are two of the more common criticisms. On these same topics, on the other hand, others see in Plato proto-feminist sympathies and theoretical insight fundamental to the later development of theologians, e.g. Augustine, or philosophers, e.g. Kant, and even psychologists, e.g. Carl Jung. In this course we will examine the root of Plato’s vast ideological heritage by focusing on ten of his most influential, controversial and fascinating ideas. In doing so, we will turn both a sympathetic and critical eye to selections from Platonic dialogues with the following themes: women, love, poetry, Socratic method, psychology, immortality, virtue, the theory of Forms, and the transcendent/immanent. We will season our reading with some secondary literature addressing our topics directly. The examination of these themes will lead to a better understanding of Plato, as well as a greater sense of what both his friends and foes take the great thinker to be saying.  

This class is an in-depth study of central Anatolia's most important archaeological site during the early first millennium BCE: Gordion, the capital city of the kingdom of Phrygia. In addition to learning the archaeology of this site in great detail, we will also use it as a foundation to explore neighboring excavations in the region, including the Iron Age levels of Hattusha, Kaman-Kalehöyük, Kınık Höyük, and others.

Augustine’s City of God is a major work of history, politics, and religion. Written after Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410, the work begins an apology (justification) of the Empire’s turn to Christianity and expands to offer a sweeping and deeply theological account of human history and society in terms of earth-bound versus heaven-centered community. Augustine’s citizenship and politics entails living out membership in either fellowship while commingled on earth with the other. Augustine analyzes Roman history and politics as well as the new religion first encouraged and eventually imposed in the wake of Constantine’s conversion.
We shall read the entire work in translation, attending to historical observations, political stances, and religious views. Augustine made arguments of his own but saved huge swaths of Varro and other otherwise lost sources to fashion his historical critique of Rome, social analysis, and many ultimately fresh views on matters like human sexuality in paradise and in heaven.
The class will meet once a week. A supplementary Latin reading group will also convene once a week for close reading of important and demanding selections in the original. There will be some invited international guest speakers.

There will be a weekly Latin reading group (F. afternoon, 90 minutes) for classics and other students who want to tackle Augustine's Latin.