Winter

LATN 31800 Roman Historian

(LATN 21800)

Primary readings are drawn from the Tiberian books of the Annals, in which Tacitus describes the consolidation of the imperial regime after the death of Augustus. Parallel accounts and secondary readings are used to help bring out the methods of selecting and ordering data and the stylistic effects that typify a Tacitean narrative.

2021-22 Winter

CLCV 26721 Peripheries of the Greek World

(CLAS 36721)

What happens when we consider the cultures, histories, and politics of the ancient Greek world from outside its Aegean ecumene? From Homeric ethnographies to Hellenistic expansion, the borders and peripheries of Greek life became rich spaces for both imagining and constructing Greek identity and civilization through interactions with myriad “others”: barbarians, allies, kings, and monsters. And in recent decades, interdisciplinary research has examined what life was like on these peripheries, at the intersections of Greek colonization, trade, religion, and the state. In this course we examine the concept of peripheries (and cores) and question the methodologies that historians and archaeologists use to consider the dynamic spaces around the edges of the Aegean sea: colonial settlements, sites of pilgrimage, industrial districts, and exotic fringes, among others. Using textual and material evidence, and taking a broad approach by exploring case studies from Iberia to India, we consider the practices through which diverse peripheries became intertwined with Greek culture (or not), and how current postcolonial approaches are decentering the study of ancient Greek culture.

2021-22 Winter

CLCV 25516 Strabo's World: Early Geographic Traditions

(CLAS 35516)

This course traces the emergence of geographic thought in the Mediterranean world and the diachronic representations of space and place that became the foundations for the humanistic and social science of geography. Discussions will examine the practices that led to diverse modes and styles of spatial expression, travel and mapping, the tensions between the known world and the exotic imagined other, and the political, social, and cultural dimensions of geographic works and their historic contexts. Beyond our sustained focus on Strabo, writing under the Roman Empire, we will explore and interrogate both earlier and later traditions, from Hecataeus and Herodotus to Dionysius and Pausanias.

2021-22 Winter

CLCV 25121 Solitude in the Ancient Greek World

(CLAS 35121)

This course will explore how the poets and philosophers of archaic and classical Greece conceptualized “being alone,” particularly insofar as solitude occasioned both unparalleled achievements and unique dangers (both for the individual and the community). We will read portions of Homer’s Iliad, Hesiod’s Theogony, Sophocles’ Philoctetes, and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, together with excerpts of ancient philosophy, with an aim of thinking through the relationship between individual and community, which is fraught with tension in so many time periods and cultures. We will also reconsider our understanding of the ancient Greeks as primarily “public” in their motivations and values, in light of the array of possibilities offered by solitude in many of these texts.

2021-22 Winter

CLCV 24021 Between Polemics and Encounter: "Jews" and "Christians" in Rome and Sasanian Persia

(HCHE 37213, BIBL 37213, HUD 37213 RLST 27213, CLAS 34021)

In recent decades, scholars of biblical and early Christian literature have examined the various ways literary sources constructed the relationship between “Jews” and “Christians” in Late Antiquity. These resources prove challenging for reconstructing the situation on the ground. This course will introduce students to the various models that scholars have advanced for making sense of the evidence and debated categories such as “Jewish-Christianity.” Against this backdrop, students will undertake a close reading of select, representative examples to examine the development of adversus Iudaeos (“against the Jews”) literature. The readings will focus our attention on evidence from Greek- and Syriac-speaking Christians living within the multilingual and religiously diverse regions at the boundary of the Roman and Sassanian Persian Empires. Familiar sources such as the Pauline epistles, Apostolic Fathers, and John Chysostom will be accompanied by readings from the pseudo-Clementine literature, the Didascalia Apostolorum, poetry, and Persian Martyr Acts. We will explore how new discoveries within Syriac studies are currently reshaping our approaches to traditional questions. 

None; those with skills in Greek and Syriac will have the opportunity to apply them.

Erin Galgay Walsh
2021-22 Winter

CLCV 22921 Embodiment in Ancient Greece

(CLAS 32921, ARTH 2/30320)

This course examines how the human body was represented and conceptualized in ancient Greek art and literature. Moving through three themed units ­– Objects and Bodies, Gender and Sexuality through the Senses, and Fragile Bodies – we will consider how concepts of embodiment were constructed and articulated in a range of social and spatial contexts, including sanctuaries, drinking parties, grave sites, and battlefields. A central goal of this course is to bring together two types of evidence – material objects and written sources – from classical antiquity that are traditionally studied apart. Through primary texts (in translation), discussions of objects, and museum visits, we will develop strategies for thinking across methodological divides and between word and image to arrive at richer, more textured understanding of the body in ancient Greece. 

Sarah Nooter, Seth Estrin
2021-22 Winter

GREK 20200 Intermediate Greek II: Sophocles

This course includes analysis and translation of the Greek text, discussion of Sophoclean language and dramatic technique, and relevant trends in fifth-century Athenian intellectual history. 

GREK 20100

2021-22 Winter

GREK 10200 Introduction to Attic Greek II

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.

GREK 10100

2021-22 Winter

LATN 21800 Roman Historian

Primary readings are drawn from the Tiberian books of the Annals, in which Tacitus describes the consolidation of the imperial regime after the death of Augustus. Parallel accounts and secondary readings are used to help bring out the methods of selecting and ordering data and the stylistic effects that typify a Tacitean narrative.

2021-22 Winter

LATN 20200 Intermediate Latin II. 100 Units.

This course is a reading of selections from Roman poetry, such as the works of Ovid. The class involves discussion of poetic language, versification, and the literary and historical context of Roman poetry.

LATN 20100 or equivalent

Subscribe to Winter