| 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. |
| CLASSIC 37B | ROMAN EMPIRE | ZISSOS, P. | The course is a survey of some of the highlights of Roman civilization during the early centuries of the Roman empire (end of the first century BCE to the third century CE). In this period, the Roman world was ruled by emperors who increasingly came to have absolute power. We will look not only at political history, but also at social history, literature, art and architecture, and religion. The course will consider a number of questions, including the political and social consequences of living under an absolute ruler - especially when, as was quite often the case, he was unbalanced. This is the period of "bread and circuses" in which the emperors bought off the lower classes by providing the grain dole and spectacular free entertainment such as chariot races and gladiatorial contests. We will also look at how the emergence of Christianity affected the Roman world, and how complex social systems and entrenched institutions such as slavery evolved over time. The early centuries of the empire were a time of great prosperity in which Roman power reached its zenith; it was a period of relative stability but also, in some respects, a time of decadence, which has been a source of both admiration and loathing for almost all subsequent ages, including our own. |
| CLASSIC 45B | THE HEROES | KARANIKA, A. | This course will concentrate on myths about ancient heroes, such as Hercules, Odysseus, Jason and those featured in the Trojan and Theban Saga. The overall goal is to understand the nature of the heroic, as depicted by ancient writers and artists, and to appreciate the ways in which the ancient Greeks used myths in order to interpret their world. The grade for this course will be based on five exams, each of which will have a combination of multiple-choice questions and short essay questions. |
| CLASSIC 99 | SPEC STDS:CLASSICS | STAFF | |
| CLASSIC 170 | ANC.GREEK RELIGION | KARANIKA, A. | This course will examine ancient Greek Religion from the Bronze Age to early Christianity through the literary, historical and archaeological record. Textual and visual sources will be examined with a critical approach with emphasis on some of the most important themes such as: the construction of sacred space in antiquity and its transformations, major and minor deities and their cult, prophecy and divination and the cult of ancient gods, magic and religion, mystery cults, ecstatic cults, religion and politics, religion and gender, ritual and daily life. The grade for this course will depend on three exams, a paper and a creative project. |
| CLASSIC 170 | GREEK ART & ARCHITECTURE | KENNEDY-QUIGLE, S. | This course will survey the art and architecture of the Greek civilization from the Bronze Age
to the Hellenistic Period, with particular attention to how religion, politics, and historical
events inform visual culture. Organized chronologically, this examination of art in context will
trace the development and evolution of style, iconography, the human figure, visual
narrative, propaganda in art, and viewer response. Prior exposure to the Classical tradition
is helpful, but not required or presumed. Course requirements include participation in class
discussions relative to required readings, a research paper, and midterm and final
examinations.
|
| CLASSIC 192A | SENIOR CAPSTONE | CLAXTON, C. | Under the guidance of a faculty mentor, majors design and execute a senior project. This project may be a research paper, dramatic production, school curriculum, etc. All projects must be approved by the faculty mentor. Prerequisite: satisfactory completion of the lower-division writing requirement. 192A: In-progress grading. |
| CLASSIC 220 | GR EPC/LYRIC POETRY | KARANIKA, A. | In this seminar, we will analyze selected texts from the corpus of early
Greek epic and lyric poetry with emphasis on the interactions between epic
and lyric. Starting from Homer, with an emphasis on the construction of
the character’s speech-act in the Iliad and the Odyssey, we will continue
with selections from lyric poetry, most notably, Alcman, Sappho and
Archilochus. We will focus on the conceptual problems around definitions
of lyric genres, the interaction between epic and lyric discourse and
their relation with performance culture. This course will serve as
introduction to new theoretical perspectives on archaic Greek poetry and
oral poetics.
|
| CLASSIC 220 | IMAGES ROME LAT LIT | SALZMAN, M. | The 1600 year anniversary of the Sack of Rome in 410 CE is an apt time to consider the
significance of the image of Rome in Late Antiquity. The importance of Rome, as symbol
and reality, will be the focus of our analysis of texts written before and after the fall of the city
to the Visigoths. Imagining Rome remained important in the fourth and fifth centuries
because, as C. Edwards and G. Woolf observed in Rome The Cosmopolis (2003),
“Rome’s “claims to epitomize the empire were still worth defending to groups with the
power to do so.”
The course will focus on images of Rome in Latin texts of the late fourth and fifth centuries.
Selected readings will include the History of Ammianus Marcellinus; the Letters of Jerome;
the poetry of Rutilius Namatianus and Prudentius; and the Sermons and City of God of
Augustine. |