Autumn

This course 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. 

 Empire was the dominant form of regional state in the ancient Mediterranean. We will investigate the nature of imperial government, strategies of administration, and relations between metropole and regional powers in Persia, Athens, the Seleucid empire, and Rome.

This course provides an introduction to the role of the human body in ancient Greek art. We will examine, on the one hand, the various ways in which Greek artists represented the body, and consider how forms of bodily identity such as gender and sexuality were constructed and articulated through artistic practice. But we will also consider the ways in which works of art themselves — statues, paintings, vessels — could function like bodies or in place of bodies, expanding the notion of what it means to be a living being. Readings will range from primary texts — ancient literature in translation — to more theoretical writing on embodiment, gender, and sexuality.

Is the market system a new invention linked to the recent development of modern European societies? Is the market the hero or the villain of the story? Is everything marketable? Is the market the driver for economic development? We will address these and other questions in a deliberately comparative way, focusing on the cases of ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Greece and Rome, as well as medieval and early modern Europe. We will read excerpts from Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Weber, Polanyi, Braudel, Wallerstein, Geertz, Horden, and Purcell. We will examine the controversies in which these scholars were involved and the echoes they still have in our own contemporary debates.
Course Requirements: two papers, two quizzes
Note: History Gateways are introductory courses meant to appeal to 1st- through 3rd-yr students who may not have done previous course work on the topic of the course; topics cover the globe and span the ages.

This course will travel through the great dramas of ancient Greece, including works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Moreover, it will show how the history of contemporary thought has been shaped by reflection on Greek tragedy, starting from the philosophy of Hegel and Nietzsche, the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan, the feminist critiques of Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler, works of structuralism and poststructuralism, and finally the recent material and affective turns in scholarship. Along the way, we will draw insights on modern movements of the performance arts from adaptations, including those in dance (Martha Graham), in film (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lars von Trier), and in drama itself (Anne Carson). As this course will demonstrate, there is hardly an intellectual or artistic movement of recent history that has not taken its cue from Greek drama. All reading will be in English.

This course will examine the application of ancient Greek political philosophy to practical activity and individual cases through the study of a number of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, along with a selection of Plutarch’s sources from philosophy, oratory, and historiography. Discussions will consider Plutarch’s treatment of questions such as “what is justice?”, “do the means justify the ends?” and “what kind of knowledge is required for political virtue?” Readings will fall into three main segments: first, Plutarch’s analysis of the good and the truth with an eye to his reading of Plato and its application to practical politics; second, his account of virtue, especially in relation to Aristotle; and third, his assessment of the Athenian and Spartan regimes, with comparisons of his thought and the writings of Xenophon and Thucydides. In writing assignments, students will engage in the careful interpretation of Plutarch’s text, and reflect on the possibilities and shortcomings of his methods. Interested students may attend translation sessions on selections from course readings in Greek or Latin. K.Weeda. Autumn.

We shall read extended selections from poetry writers of recognized importance to the Latin tradition. Our sampling of texts will emphasize writers of the Late Republic and Early Principate. D. Wray. Autumn. 

This course examines the phonological and morphological development of the Latin language from Indo-European to Vulgar Latin.  That development is studied both for its own sake and as a point of departure for introducing linguistic concepts useful for the analysis of other layers of language and of aspects of literary texts.  Discussion of major topics in phonology and morphology will alternate with close examination of sample or otherwise relevant texts and lexical families.  Major topics are: the principles of historical and comparative linguistics; the development of the Latin sound inventory; Latin and its sister languages; the creation of the Latin nominal and verbal systems; (some of) the varieties of classical Latin; and the influence of Greek on Latin. B. Krostenko. Autumn.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–44 BC) was the most accomplished orator of the Roman Republic.  Among the most fascinating of his speeches are the three “Caesarian” speeches delivered to Julius Caesar on behalf of persons who had opposed Caesar in the civil war.  In the speeches Cicero, in many different ways, uses his hard-won rhetorical and literary skills, practiced over a lifetime in lawsuits, political debates, and philosophizing, not merely to speak on behalf of the immediate subjects of the speeches, but also to suggest social and political roles for Caesar himself.  Caesar’s place in the Roman world is as much a topic of the three speeches as the immediate issue of each speech.  The chief purpose of this class is to reach an understanding of the basic issues of each speech and the roles that Cicero scripts for Caesar in them. B. Krostenko. Autumn.

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.