| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|
| CLASSIC 5 | LAT/GR ROOTS IN ENG | STAFF | Studies in the formation and use of English words from Greek and Latin derivatives. Particularly useful for first-year students who wish to augment their vocabulary systematically. No prerequisites.
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| CLASSIC 36A | EARLY GREECE | STAFF | Particular emphasis will be placed upon primary texts and we will read selections from Homer,
Hesiod and the lyric poets as well as relevant selections from later authors who discussed
these periods in Greece. No prerequisites. Non-majors are most welcome. This course is the
first part of the Greek civilization series (36ABC), which satisfies the IV. Humanistic Inquiry
General Education requirement. Same as History 36A. |
| CLASSIC 45A | THE GODS | STAFF | Classics 45A is the first part of a three-quarter course on Classical Mythology. This class will be an introduction to the most important Greek and Roman myths, their historical and religious context, various interpretations and influence upon ancient and modern art, film and literature. Some of the topics we will discuss are: the creation of the universe, relations between gods and mortals, gender and sexuality, love, marriage, death and afterlife. We will use a standard textbook, but we will also read selected passages from primary sources such as Hesiod's Theogony, Ovid's Metamorphoses and selections from Greek tragedy. The course will make regular use of ancillary visual materials, especially computer resources. The grade for this course will be based on a combination of multiple-choice quizzes and short essay exams.
|
| CLASSIC 99 | SPEC STDS:CLASSICS | STAFF | |
| CLASSIC 140 | ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY | SIZGORICH, T. | Same as History 182. Many popular and academic narratives of European history insist that the democratic forms of government and the modernist discourse of political legitimacy that predominate in the “Western world” may be traced to the contributions of the polis of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Accordingly, such versions of the history of modern democratic institutions assert a genealogy of political forms, theories and processes that originates with the philosophers and artists of Athens and culminates with the early twenty-first century polling place and voting machine. This history of modern political practice is complicated, however, when we look closely at the view of democracy taken by those groups and individuals who themselves observed the birth, growth and maturation of democracy in classical Athens, and particularly those intellectuals, philosophers and artists whose works are most closely associated with the “cultural character” of fifth- and fourth-century Athens. Indeed, many of the most potent minds of classical Athens were bitter opponents of democracy and its organizing principles and institutions. From Plato to the tragedians to Thucydides and the “Old Oligarch,” those Athenian intellectuals who left to posterity a specifically Athenian cultural patrimony were almost uniformly democracy’s harshest critics. In this course, we will examine their critiques of democracy as it evolved in classical Athens, and we will read a selection of the most important recent research on democracy in Athens, including that of Morgens Hansen and Josiah Ober. |
| CLASSIC 160 | SOCRATES & THE SOCRATIC TRADITION | PORTER, J. | Socrates and the Socratic Tradition
The class will examine the life of Socrates in the West, from his invention by Plato as the erotic knowledge-seeker and social gadfly (Apology, Symposium, Phaedrus), to Xenophon (Symposium), Aristophanes (Clouds), and other select contemporaries, to his reinvention by later traditions—from the “mad Socrates” of the Cynics (a type), to the hilarious pantomime-critic, Rameau's newphew, in Diderot, to Kierkegaard's elusive master of irony, to Nietzsche's destroyer of all civilized values and life in The Birth of Tragedy, and finally to his recuperation by postmodern thinkers like Foucault and Derrida today (to be read in brief selections).
Issues to be covered in the class will include, but will not be limited to, the role of dialogue and difficulty (aporia) in promoting knowledge; knowing one's self; social critique; self-sacrifice (to tragic extremes); ethical commitment; the power of Greek (or classical) ideals throughout time; irony, as well as the following kinds of puzzles about Socrates:
• How could one figure, a bare-footed, snub-nosed Greek philosopher who claimed to “know nothing” be so consistently compelling for so many centuries and even milennia, on a scale comparable only to a shamanic hero or a divinity (like Jesus)?
• Who was Socrates? Is it even the self-same figure who is being represented throughout all this time?
• What is the contemporary version of Socrates or Socratism today?
Prerequisites: None
Requirements: Midterm; final; final project; and responses during the term (posted as
blogs, etc.)
Contact the instructor if you have any questions about the course. |
| CLASSIC 170 | GENDER IN ANCIENT GREECE | STAFF | This course will examine the construction of gender in Ancient Greece. Using evidence from literature, oratory, law, medicine, and philosophy, we will investigate how the ancient Greeks understood gender and sexuality, both masculine and feminine. What were proper gender roles in ancient Greece? How were ancient Greek ideas of gender and sexuality similar to and different from our own? All readings will be in English and no previous knowledge of ancient Greece will be required. Non-Classics majors are most welcome. |
| CLASSIC 220 | HESIOD'S WORKS AND DAYS | EDWARDS, A. | |
| CLASSIC 220 | POEMS ON STONES | PORTER, J. | The seminar will serve as an introduction to literary epigrams and inscriptions in poetry and
criticism, from Homer to the Tabulae Iliacae, including CEG (Carmina Epigraphica Graeca),
archaic lyric, monumental and sepulchral inscriptions, writing on pottery, artists’ signatures
down to the classical period, and literary and literary critical versions of the same from the
Hellenistic period, and evocations of all these themes wherever they are found in any form
of writing for any kind of purpose. Themes in the seminar will include poems as objects,
death and memory, text and voice, the competition between literature and other arts (esp.
the visual, plastic, and three-dimensional arts), the ephemeral and the enduring, civic and
private duty, love, and sacrifice, problems of scale, and the changing claims to creative
(artistic) authority, ownership, and aesthetic claims over objects, time, and media. There
will be a strong interdisciplinary element to the seminar given the nature of the materials.
Students from all subfields of classics are welcome. Seminar format with in-class
presentations and a final seminar paper.
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| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | ZISSOS, P. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | PORTER, J. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | PANTELIA, M. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | GIANNOPOULOU, Z. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | CLAXTON, C. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | ZISSOS, P. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | PORTER, J. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | PANTELIA, M. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | CLAXTON, C. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | GIANNOPOULOU, Z. | |
| CLASSIC 299 | DISSERTATN RESEARCH | CLAXTON, C. | |
| CLASSIC 299 | DISSERTATN RESEARCH | GIANNOPOULOU, Z. | |
| CLASSIC 299 | DISSERTATN RESEARCH | PANTELIA, M. | |
| CLASSIC 299 | DISSERTATN RESEARCH | PORTER, J. | |
| CLASSIC 299 | DISSERTATN RESEARCH | ZISSOS, P. | |