Spring

This course is a close reading of selections from Homer, with an emphasis on language, meter, and literary tropes.

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 track ideas across at least a paragraph of text, and will be ready to move into the intermediate sequence (GREK 20100-20200-20300).

This course will concentrate on the methods and perspectives of the discipline of papyrology, including the "hands on" experience of working with photographed and scanned texts of various collections. No previous knowledge of the field is assumed; we will begin from the ground up. Approximately the first six weeks of the course will be devoted to an introduction to the study of papyri, in which our concerns will include the following: 1. transcription and analysis of different paleographic styles, including literary hands and documentary Ptolemaic scripts. 2. extensive reading of edited papyrus texts from the Pestman and Loeb editions and elsewhere; 3. careful attention to the linguistic phenomenon of koine Greek with regard to phonology, morphology, and syntax; how the koine differs from the classical language and the relationship of the idiom of the papyri to that of other koine documents, such as the New Testament; the importance of koine linguistics to textual criticism. 4. investigation of the contribution of papyrology to other areas of the study of antiquity such as literature, social history, linguistics, textual criticism, and religion.

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, with some discussion of Near Eastern and Egyptian influence at the beginning and Jewish and Christian reception at the end.  Course requirements include a midterm and final and the option to write a paper.

This course provides an introduction to the poetic traditions of early Christians and the intersection between poetic literature, theology, and biblical interpretation. Students will gain familiarity with the literary context of the formative centuries of Christianity with a special emphasis on Greek and Syriac Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean from the fourth through the sixth centuries. While theology is often taught through analytical prose, theological reflection in late antiquity and early Byzantium was frequently done in poetic genres. This course introduces students to the major composers and genres of these works as well as the various recurrent themes that occur within this literature. Through reading poetry from liturgical and monastic contexts, students will explore how the biblical imaginations of Christians were formed beyond the confines of canonical scripture. How is poetry a mode of “doing” theology? What habits of biblical interpretation and narration does one encounter in this poetry? This course exposes students to a variety of disciplinary frameworks for studying early Christian texts including history, religious studies, feminist and literary critique, as well as theology. Students will also analyze medieval and modern poetry with religious themes in light of earlier traditions to reflect on the poetry and the religious imagination more broadly. Open to undergraduate and graduate students; Graduate students may choose to attend weekly translation group.

The course has two chief aims. First, to investigate the Roman law as a topic of historical inquiry and to chart its development over time; to study its implication in political and demographic changes in the society it sought to map; and to raise problems of evidence and method in grappling with the sources of knowledge that survive to us. Second, to consider some areas of legal doctrine and legal practice both in Rome itself and in the communities over which Rome ruled.

This course will examine the major mystery cults of the Greek and Roman worlds, beginning with the Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries and ending with the cults of Isis and Mithras.

Rhetoric was the supreme technology of the Greco-Roman world, and the principal focus of formal schooling up to the end of antiquity and beyond.  The readings for the course show how the psychology of persuasion was reduced to a system, how the system was adapted to political structures of the very different societies in which it flourished, and how orators put it into practice: Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Cicero’s On the Orator and Brutus, and selected speeches of Demosthenes, Cicero, and others. 

Classical Reception Studies: Key Texts and Ideas Antiquity never really ended. Ancient texts, images, and ideas have continued traveling widely - from Baghdad to Toledo, from Rome to Tokyo - and they are still with us today in our daily lives, not just in literature and art but also in politics and propaganda. How can we study and understand the continued presence of ancient Greece and Rome? One of the still dominant approaches, which has emerged since the 1990s, is 'classical reception studies'. While this label might suggest a homogenous field of study, the field's methods and theoretical positions are quite diverse. This seminar works towards a better understanding of the different theoretical orientations in classical reception scholarship. We will discuss a selection of key texts of classical reception studies by, among others, Charles Martindale, Simon Goldhill, and Edith Hall. How do they conceptualize 'reception'? What is understood by 'the classical'? What traditions of research and thought do they respond to? And how do different approaches to reception relate to ideas about classical 'influence', 'tradition', and 'legacy'? The course is open to graduate students from various humanities disciplines interested in the many ways in which ancient texts, images, and ideas have been transmitted, interpreted, and reused in later periods. All texts will be made available. 

The city of Rome was central to European culture in terms both of its material reality and the models of political and sacred authority that it provided. Students on this course will receive an introduction to the archaeology and history of the city from the Iron Age to the early medieval period (ca. 850 BCE–850 CE) and an overview of the range of different intellectual and scientific approaches by which scholars have engaged with the city and its legacy. Students will encounter a broad range of sources, both textual and material, from each period that show how the city physically developed and transformed within shifting historical and cultural contexts. We will consider how various social and power dynamics contributed to the formation and use of Rome's urban space, including how neighborhoods and residential space developed beyond the city's more famous monumental areas. Our main theme will be how Rome in any period was, and still is, a product of both its present and past and how its human and material legacies were constantly shaping and reshaping the city's use and space in later periods.