| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| CLASSIC 36C | 4TH C/HELLEN GR | KARANIKA, A. | This course examines fourth century Greece, Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic period, exploring the history, art and culture of post-classical Greek antiquity. The readings will focus on the rise of Macedon, and the formation of the Hellenistic empires until the time of Cleopatra VII. This course is a continuation of 36B and completes the series, however, students may begin the series with 36C. It is also suited for students generally interested in Classical Greek and Hellenistic History. We will learn and analyze how the ancient world changed with Alexander and his successors with a special interest on the political, social and cultural transformations, religions change, and state formation. |
| CLASSIC 37A | THE FALL OF ROME | BLUM, J. | This course will introduce students to the Roman world, to a culture not only preeminent in the ancient Mediterranean, but also a continuing presence in the modern Western world. Rome is remembered for its grandeur, artistic and political achievement, and the great literary works that it produced; it is also, however, a site of unimaginable violence and cruelty, a misogynistic culture built on the back of slave labor and celebrating its power in brutal public spectacles. This course will trace the origins and expansion of Rome from its legendary foundation in the 8th century BCE to the civil wars of the 1st century BCE, exploring not only its political history, but also its material culture, social history, literature, and religion. Themes to be considered include: daily life in the city and the home; life on the margins, of women, foreigners, and slaves; education; religion and philosophy; social relations; law and political life; spectacles and public display; the empire. |
| CLASSIC 45B | THE HEROES | ZISSOS, P. | 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 160W | GENDER IN GREEK LIT | JARRATT, S. | Speakers and writers in ancient Greek cultures used the beauty and power of language to persuade others to go to war or embrace peace, fall in love, punish wrong-doing, submit to belief systems or keep a skeptical distance from the claims of philosophy and religion. In this course, we will read examples of ancient Greek literature in translation from the 8thC BC to 4thC CE in several genres—epic, lyric poetry, legal argument, philosophical dialogue, and novel—focusing our critical attention on modes of persuasion. Gender is a key component in each case. Forms of masculinity demanded by warring states, feminine desire and creativity, homosociality in philosophical relations, and same-sex and heterosexual romantic love, among other topics, will engage our critical imaginations. As a “W” course, this course fulfills the upper-division writing requirement. The class will devote as much time to writing as to reading. Students will write in a variety of genres—reading response, textual analysis, legal argument, and creative reconstruction of classical texts. Readings include work by Homer, Sappho, Aeschylus, Gorgias, Lysias, and Plato, along with some contemporary critical texts (Foucault; duBois). |
| CLASSIC 170 | EMPEROR & THE ARTS | BLUM, J. | This seminar will explore the relationship between poet and princeps, art and empire, in the early- high Roman Empire. Through the works of authors such as Horace, Statius, and Juvenal, the seminar will consider how poets respond to the changing nature of patronage under the developing principate, and how these writers construct their position in society, their relationship to those in power, and their poetic ideology. We will examine how political power manifests itself (implicitly or explicitly) in the interaction between poet and patron, considering such issues as freedom of speech, the choice to write (and what kind of poetry to write), and potential for social mobility through patronage. Our literary investigation will take as comparanda the building programs of the same patrons, to see how the poets’ literary representations are reflected in the visual arts. The autobiographical details given by each author reflect changing ideas of the role of the individual in the political life of Rome, at very different levels of society and proximity to the seat of power. The profession of a particular lifestyle or philosophical orientation becomes a way of asserting a social position, an excuse for political disengagement or justification of authority. These authors also raise the question of how the social world of the city responds to the expansion of empire, tracing a link between large-scale politics and the minutiae of their daily experience. At different points, each adopts the pose of an outsider, viewing their own proximity to or distance from the imperial court and looking at “Rome” from a detached perspective. By situating their literary careers within the Roman system of patronage, these poets provide a window into the dynamic world of social and cultural values under the principate. |
| CLASSIC 192A | SENIOR CAPSTONE | ZISSOS, P. | |
| CLASSIC 192A | SENIOR CAPSTONE | PANTELIA, M. | |
| CLASSIC 192A | SENIOR CAPSTONE | KARANIKA, A. | |
| CLASSIC 192A | SENIOR CAPSTONE | GIANNOPOULOU, Z. | |
| CLASSIC 192A | SENIOR CAPSTONE | CLAXTON, C. | |
| CLASSIC 220 | DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE | SALZMAN, M. | The 18th century historian Edward Gibbon blamed the decline and fall of the Roman Empire on the rise of barbarians and the spread of Christianity. But key to the success of the empire was the vitality of its cities. The Roman city was the focus for political life, religious practices, economic activity, social relationships, and cultural pursuits. The Roman city thus provides an ideal lens through which to view the idea of the ‘decline and fall’ of the Empire, by studying the social practices, institutions, monuments, development, topography, and transformation of Rome’s cities. This course will focus on the fate of four of Rome’s cities –Rome, Constantinople, Trier, and Alexandria - from the third to the seventh CE. Through this period of crisis and reconstruction, we will consider explanations for the transformation of the Roman Empire into what we now call the Germanic Kingdoms and the Byzantine Empire. Readings will be will be in English, including the secondary scholarship of historians Peter Brown and Bryan Ward Perkins. We will focus on key primary sources, including Augustine’s City of God, Jerome’s Letters, and Hydatius’s Chronicle. There will be an additional optional meeting to read texts in Latin for interested students. For more information, contact Professor Salzman - michele.salzman@ucr.edu or extension 1991. COURSE OFFERED AT UCR CAMPUS |
| CLASSIC 220 | THE ANTONINES | WATTS, E. | This course is designed to familiarize students with the literary and material evidence for the Antonine period (96-192 AD). The course will proceed topically and is designed both to give students a sense of the wider range of evidence available to scholars working in the period and some possible topics that could be explored beyond it. COURSE OFFERED AT UCSD CAMPUS. |
| CLASSIC 220 | ANCIENT RHETORIC | JARRATT, S. | In this seminar we will read major works of rhetorical theory and practice from the Greek and Roman canons in English translation. Readings will include fragments and texts of the first sophists, an excerpt of Aristophanes’ Clouds, Plato’s Phaedrus and Menexenus, Isocrates’ Antidosis, excerpts from Cicero’s De Oratore and Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory, progymnasmata from the second sophists, and Basil’s “Address on the Right Use of Greek Literature,” among others. Our discussions will take up questions concerning public pedagogy and contemporary applications, images of youth, gender and performativity, and the role of rhetoric in constructing spaces of power in global/imperial contexts. Students will also read secondary materials and present inclass reading responses. Final projects will be adapted to students’ needs and interests: e.g., researched seminar paper, annotated bibliography or course plan, etc. The course may be taken as a pro-seminar or a seminar. Students from any discipline are welcome. Please contact Susan Jarratt (sjarratt@uci.edu) for more information. |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | KARANIKA, A. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | CLAXTON, C. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | GIANNOPOULOU, Z. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | ZISSOS, P. | |
| CLASSIC 280 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | PANTELIA, M. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | GIANNOPOULOU, Z. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | CLAXTON, C. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | PANTELIA, M. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | ZISSOS, P. | |
| CLASSIC 290 | RESEARCH IN CLASSIC | KARANIKA, A. |