Winter

This two-quarter seminar is focused on situations in which written texts of the Roman period combined with other forms of material reality to produce distinctive cultural institutions. For example, Rome’s Secular Games combined formal prayer and sacrifice with theatrical and musical events, declamation as public entertainment evolved out of training routines in the schools of rhetoric, and the resolution of civil disputes combined complex acts of narration, normative description, and improvisatory skill. The seminar is meant to acquaint graduate students with a variety of literary and subliterary texts (some of which are likely to be unfamiliar), and to provide a first orientation to the scholarly bibliographies concerned with them. For the purposes of this course, the social and material setting that generates texts calls for as careful study as the texts themselves. Ideally, this approach will lead to a fuller appreciation of Roman institutional forms than a focus on texts alone. Students take turns presenting weekly reports on readings from the syllabus during the Autumn Quarter. During the Winter Quarter they prepare a substantial research paper under the guidance of the Instructors, whose expertise is in Roman history and Roman literature respectively. 

The Senior Seminar is designed as a capstone course, and it is required for all Classics majors, whether they are writing a BA paper or not. The course meets once per week over two quarters (Autumn and Winter), for an hour and twenty minutes each week. Both quarters are required. CLCV 29500 is valued at 100 units; CLCV 29501 is valued at 0 units. Students will normally register in CLCV 29500 in Autumn quarter and CLCV 29501 in Winter quarter; but they may reverse the order of enrollment if need be. 

The class will study the history of the Roman republic in light of contemporary normative theory, and likewise interrogate the ideological origins of contemporary republicanism in light of historical concerns. The focus will be on sovereignty, public law, citizenship, and the form of ancient empire. 

These two philosopher-teachers, Mengzi (Mencius) in 4th century BCE China and Epictetus in the 2nd century CE Greco-Roman world, both foregrounded an embodied ethics, and both were concerned with questions of living in harmony with nature, achieving freedom from external constraints, and dealing with the disruptive turbulence of passionate emotions. This course is a literary and philosophical comparative study of Mengzi’s writings alongside the Handbook and Discourses of Epictetus. Course readings are all in English, and no knowledge of classical Chinese or Greek language or philosophy is needed, but separate meetings can be scheduled for students interested in reading either of these texts in the original language. 

This discussion-based course will explore how conceptions of the ancient past have been mobilized and imagined in the political, social, and cultural discourses of modern Greece from the lead up to the War of Independence through to the present day. Among the themes that will be addressed are ethnicity and nationalism, theories of history, the production of archaeological knowledge, and the politics of display. 

Immerse yourself in the Latin prose written by various authors from ancient Rome through the long tradition and reception of Latin literature.  Readings this quarter concentrate on (a) substantial selection(s) of Roman prose (e.g. the epistles of Seneca or Pliny, the histories of Livy or Sallust). This class focuses on the literary and historical context of the text(s) in question, as well as the rhetorical and stylistic qualities of Latin prose.  Review of grammar and the development of vocabulary will occur as necessary. This course is appropriate for students who have completed LATN 112, LATN 201, or its equivalent. 

Accelerated Introduction to Classical Latin introduces students to the fundamentals of classical Latin through a sequence of two courses.  By the end of this second and final course, students will have encountered all the most commonly used Latin grammar and an even larger collection of Latin vocabulary.  Their reading proficiency continues to increase by engaging longer, more complex, and more interesting Latin.  The second half of the course subsequently focuses on the reading of increasingly longer selections from authentic Latin texts.  Through these readings, students explore a range of authors and genres, who touch upon various aspects of the Roman world, not only the history of the city, but also the society, culture, politics, and religion of its people.  Successful completion of this course will prepare students for intermediate Latin courses (LATN 20100-20200-20300). This course is appropriate for students who have completed LATN 111 or earned an equivalent language placement. 

Introduction to Classical Latin introduces students to the fundamentals of the Latin language through which students may access the works of Vergil, Horace, Cicero, Tacitus, and Ovid (among countless others).  This course represents the second step.  Course work continues to involve the reading and writing of Latin, alongside the further development of vocabulary and the formal study of grammar.  Students will increase their reading proficiency as they engage with longer, more complex, and more interesting sentences and passages, including selections from authentic texts.  Successful completion of this course will prepare students for LATN 103. This course is appropriate for students who have completed LATN 101 or its equivalent. 
 

This course will examine the iambic, elegiac, lyric, and epinician genres of archaic and classical Greece, including the poetry of Sappho, Archilochus, Corinna, Bacchylides, Pindar, and many other. We will focus on questions of performance, genre, and context; on the texts’ relationships to each other and other ancient poetic traditions; and to a broad range of cultural, social, and political aspects of the archaic and classical Greek world(s), including sex and sexuality, class, gender, and other forms of identity, and the relationship of the individual to the community. The mythological, dramatic, and formal poetic aspects of these poems will be explored as well as questions of meter and dialect. 

This course will examine the iambic, elegiac, lyric, and epinician genres of archaic and classical Greece, including the poetry of Sappho, Archilochus, Corinna, Bacchylides, Pindar, and many other. We will focus on questions of performance, genre, and context; on the texts’ relationships to each other and other ancient poetic traditions; and to a broad range of cultural, social, and political aspects of the archaic and classical Greek world(s), including sex and sexuality, class, gender, and other forms of identity, and the relationship of the individual to the community. The mythological, dramatic, and formal poetic aspects of these poems will be explored as well as questions of meter and dialect.