Courses

GREK B011 Traditional and New Testament Greek

Spring 2024

This is the second half of a year-long introductory course to ancient Greek. It is designed to familiarize students with the basic elements of classical Greek grammar and syntax. Once the grammar has been fully introduced, students will develop facility by reading parts of the New Testament and a dialogue of Plato. Prerequisite: GREK B010.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

GREK B101 Herodotus

Not offered 2023-24

Greek 101 introduces the student to one of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece, the historian, Herodotus. The "Father of History," as Herodotus is sometimes called, wrote one of the earliest lengthy prose texts extant in Greek literature, in the Ionian dialect of Greek. The "Father of Lies," as he is also sometimes known, wove into his history a number of fabulous and entertaining anecdotes and tales. His 'historie' or inquiry into the events surrounding the invasions by the Persian empire against the Greek city-states set the precedent for all subsequent historical writings. This course meets three times a week with a required fourth hour to be arranged. Prerequisite: GREK B010 and B011 or equivalent.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

GREK B104 Homer

Spring 2024

Greek 104 is designed to introduce the student to the epic poetry attributed to Homer, the greatest poet of ancient Greece, through selections from the Odyssey. Since Homer's poetic form is so important to the shape and texture of the Odyssey, we will examine the mechanics of Homeric poetry, both the intricacies of dactylic hexameter and the patterns of oral formulaic composition. We will also spend time discussing the characters and ideas that animate this text, since the value of Homer lies not merely in his incomparable mastery of his poetic form, but in the values and patterns of behavior in his story, patterns which remained remarkably influential in the Greek world for centuries. Prerequisite: One year of college level Greek or equivalent.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

GREK B202 The Form of Tragedy

Not offered 2023-24

This course will introduce the student to two of the three great Athenian tragedians-Sophocles and Euripides. Their dramas, composed two-and-a-half millenia ago, continue to be performed regularly on modern stages around the world and exert a profound influence on current day theatre. We will read Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos and Euripides' Bacchae in full, focusing on language, poetics, meter, and performance studies.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

GREK B403 Supervised Work

Writing Intensive

Back to top

GREK B601 Homer

Not offered 2023-24

We will focus on a careful reading of significant portions of the Homeric epics and on the history of Homeric scholarship. Students will develop an appreciation both for the beauty of Homer's poetics and for the scholarly arguments surrounding interpretation of these texts.

Back to top

GREK B630 Euripides

Not offered 2023-24

In this seminar we will look closely at several plays of Euripides, paying special attention to the tragedian's language and meter. We will also read widely in 20th and 21st century scholarship on Euripides.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

GREK B644 Plato

Spring 2024

In this seminar, we will explore the central ideas of a Platonic dialogue as they are unfolded by the varying voices of the interlocutors. In the "Phaedo", Plato presents a poignant picture of the last hours of Socrates. Plato's dialogues all prompt questions about how to read and understand the complex interchanges between the interlocutors, but no dialogue presents these issues as prominently or paradoxically as the Phaedrus. In their rhetorical speeches on love, Phaedrus speaks for Lysias, while Socrates speaks for Phaedrus or for the nymphs or for Stesichorus. And for whom does Plato speak, or rather, write? And what does he mean when he writes for Socrates the speech that no one serious would ever put anything serious in writing? In this seminar, we will explore the ideas of speech and writing, dialogue and rhetoric, philosophy and eros in the Phaedrus. In addition to a close reading of the text itself, we will sample from the scholarly debates over the understanding and interpretation of the Phaedrus that have gone on over the past two and a half millenia of reading Plato's Phaedrus.

Back to top

ARCH B260 Daily Life in Ancient Greece and Rome

Spring 2024

The often-praised achievements of the classical cultures arose from the realities of day-to-day life. This course surveys the rich body of material and textual evidence pertaining to how ancient Greeks and Romans -- famous and obscure alike -- lived and died. Topics include housing, food, clothing, work, leisure, and family and social life.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

ARCH B504 Archaeology of Greek Religion

Spring 2024

This course approaches the topic of ancient Greek religion by focusing on surviving archaeological, architectural, epigraphical, artistic and literary evidence that dates from the Archaic and Classical periods. By examining a wealth of diverse evidence that ranges, for example, from temple architecture, and feasting and banqueting equipment to inscriptions, statues, vase paintings, and descriptive texts, the course enables the participants to analyze the value and complexity of the archaeology of Greek religion and to recognize its significance for the reconstruction of daily life in ancient Greece. Special emphasis is placed on subjects such as the duties of priests and priestesses, the violence of animal sacrifice, the function of cult statues and votive offerings and also the important position of festivals and hero and mystery cults in ancient Greek religious thought and experience.

Back to top

CSTS B208 The Roman Empire

Not offered 2023-24

Imperial history from the principate of Augustus to the House of Constantine with focus on the evolution of Roman culture and society as presented in the surviving ancient evidence, both literary and archaeological.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B320 Martyrs, Mothers, Memoirs: Medieval Autobiographies

Not offered 2023-24

The writing of autobiography flourished in the middle ages, but there have been very few studies of the genre for the period. This course presents a range of autobiographies from the Latin West and encourages students to think about them theoretically and historically: what does it mean to write the self? what is at stake in the presentation of these stories? what notions are privileged? and how do we situate autobiographies in the wider literary landscape?

Back to top

CSTS B350 Topics in Latin Literature

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Late Latin Poetry
Section 001 (Fall 2023): Latin in Music
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Epigram

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: So much of classical Latin poetry was originally written to be sung, or at least to simulate the effect of singing; Romans were preternaturally attuned to rhythm and pitch even in prose. But the musical tradition that we have inherited really starts with Gregorian chant, and Western tonality and counterpoint expands from there. The course will treat such themes as the motif of song in classical Latin epic and lyric; Ambrose and early hymnic practice; excerpts from grammatical texts that discuss the sound of language (Priscian, Bede, Alcuin) and from treatises on music; the musical writing of Hildegard of Bingen; and case studies of the settings of particular Latin texts-for example, the Stabat Mater, which has garnered such various responses from composers. We shall also be reading excerpts from Wittgenstein's posthumous collection Culture and Value, to help us think about music as a language at the limits of language.

Current topic description: n this seminar we will explore the themes and aesthetics of the Latin epigram, a genre (or is it?) best known for its brevity and wit. After orienting ourselves in the epigrams of the Neoterics (Catullus, Cinna, Calvus, Caesar), our focus will turn to the poetry of Martial, whose accounts of Rome, its inhabitants, and their foibles exerted a profound influence on subsequent epigrammatists. We will consider Martial's poetry both thematically (poems on the city; women; scoundrels; patrons; long poems) and as constituents of organized, multi-faceted libri. To deepen our appreciation of Martial's poetic project, we will take occasional forays into para-epigrammatic genres and works (Priapea, Catalepton), as well as the scattered epigrams of authors both familiar (Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Petronius) and obscure. We will also consider the evolution the epigram from its inscriptional and epitaphic origins in Greek and Latin, and its development as a literary form by Hellenistic authors. In the final two weeks of the course, we will turn our attention to the reception of Martial by late antique (Ausonius, Claudian, Luxorius) and Neo-Latin poets (e.g. Pontano's Baiae, Panormita's Hermaphroditus, Marullo's reception of Catullus, Thomas More, John Owen). Readings in the original will be supplemented with relevant scholarship throughout. Students will enhance their core work on Latin epigram by reading-independently or in small-groups-a complementary genre or author in the original related to their interests (e.g. Greek epigram, Horace' Satires, Latin elegy, carmina epigraphica, Juvenal, Flavian epic, Pliny's Epistles, Christian epigram).

Back to top

CSTS B365 Byzantium and the Classics: The Byzantine Literary Tradition

Not offered 2023-24

This seminar approaches Byzantine literature both as a continuation of the Classical tradition and as a rich corpus that should be studied for its own sake. Each week we will survey one genre of Byzantine literature and focus on two or three texts that will be tailored to the participants' research interests as much as possible. Greek literature will provide the core of our readings, but we will occasionally turn our attention to texts composed in other languages, especially Latin and Syriac. The Byzantine Empire was a multilingual society. For 600-level students, three workshops will be offered on the following three topics: the grammar of Byzantine Greek, paleography, and textual criticism.

Back to top

CSTS B375 Interpreting Mythology

Fall 2023

The myths of the Greeks have provoked outrage and fascination, interpretation and retelling, censorship and elaboration, beginning with the Greeks themselves. We will see how some of these stories have been read and understood, recounted and revised, in various cultures and eras, from ancient tellings to modern movies. We will also explore some of the interpretive theories by which these tales have been understood, from ancient allegory to modern structural and semiotic theories. The student should gain a more profound understanding of the meaning of these myths to the Greeks themselves, of the cultural context in which they were formulated. At the same time, this course should provide the student with some familiarity with the range of interpretations and strategies of understanding that people of various cultures and times have applied to the Greek myths during the more than two millennia in which they have been preserved. Preference to upperclassmen, previous coursework in myth required.

Back to top

CSTS B398 Senior Seminar

This is a bi-college seminar devoted to readings in and discussion of selected topics in the various sub-fields of Classics (e.g. literature, religion, philosophy, law, social history) and of how to apply contemporary critical approaches to the primary sources. Students will also begin developing a topic for their senior thesis, composing a prospectus and giving a preliminary presentation of their findings.

Back to top

CSTS B399 Senior Seminar

This is the continuation of CSTS B398. Working with individual advisors from the bi-college classics departments, students will continue to develop the topic sketched out in the fall semester. By the end of the course, they will have completed at least one draft and a full, polished version of the senior thesis, of which they will give a final oral presentation.

Back to top

CSTS B675 Interpreting Mythology

Fall 2023

The myths of the Greeks have provoked outrage and fascination, interpretation and retelling, censorship and elaboration, beginning with the Greeks themselves. We will see how some of these stories have been read and understood, recounted and revised, in various cultures and eras, from ancient tellings to modern movies. We will also explore some of the interpretive theories by which these tales have been understood, from ancient allegory to modern structural and semiotic theories. The student should gain a more profound understanding of the meaning of these myths to the Greeks themselves, of the cultural context in which they were formulated. At the same time, this course should provide the student with some familiarity with the range of interpretations and strategies of understanding that people of various cultures and times have applied to the Greek myths during the more than two millennia in which they have been preserved.

Back to top

LATN B001 Elementary Latin

Fall 2023

Latin 001 is the first part of a year-long course that introduces the student to the language and literature of ancient Rome. The first semester focuses upon the grammar of Latin, developing the student's knowledge of the forms of the language and the basic constructions used. Exercises in translation and composition aid in the student's learning of the language, while readings in prose and poetry from the ancient authors provide the student with a deeper appreciation of the culture which used this language.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

LATN B002 Elementary Latin

Spring 2024

Latin 002 is the second part of a year-long course that introduces the student to the language and literature of ancient Rome. The second semester completes the course of study of the grammar of Latin, improving the student's knowledge of the forms of the language and forms of expression. Exercises in translation and composition aid in the student's learning of the language, while readings in prose and poetry from the ancient authors provide the student with a deeper appreciation of the culture which used this language. Prerequisite: LATN B001.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

LATN B203 Medieval Latin Literature

Not offered 2023-24

Selected works of Latin prose and poetry from the late Roman Empire through the 12th century. Prerequisite: At least one 200-level Latin course or equivalent.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

LATN B403 Supervised Work

Writing Intensive

Back to top

LATN B620 Martyrs, Mothers, Memoirs

Not offered 2023-24

Back to top

LATN B641 Roman Emotion: Modern Approaches to Ancient Emotion

Not offered 2023-24

Emotions have long been an object of study in psychology and neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and history, and historians have long been interested in the motivations and inner lives of individuals, much as they have generalized about the emotional states of people in collectives like villages, regions, and countries. In addition to broadening student knowledge of classical texts and scholarship related to cognitive life and emotion in classical Rome, the course will introduce students to the fundamentals of embodied cognition, its linguistic implications, situatedness in culture, and role in sociological approaches to literature and history. We will explore how ancient authors discuss and use the body to create meaning, how bodily meaning emerges through ancient texts, the ways in which cultural and environmental contexts shape the meaning of bodily experiences, how language is used to represent the various forms of social knowledge extrapolated from those experiences, and what implications such representations might have for our understanding of ancient culture and its reception. Students will also be encouraged to reflect upon their status as historically contingent viewers and the properties of authority that emerge from bodily knowledge within their own readerly context.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

LATN B648 Latin Epigram

Spring 2024

In this seminar we will explore the themes and aesthetics of the Latin epigram, a genre (or is it?) best known for its brevity and wit. After orienting ourselves in the epigrams of the Neoterics (Catullus, Cinna, Calvus, Caesar), our focus will turn to the poetry of Martial, whose accounts of Rome, its inhabitants, and their foibles exerted a profound influence on subsequent epigrammatists. We will consider Martial's poetry both thematically (poems on the city; women; scoundrels; patrons; long poems) and as constituents of organized, multi-faceted libri.  To deepen our appreciation of Martial's poetic project, we will take occasional forays into para-epigrammatic genres and works (Priapea, Catalepton), as well as the scattered epigrams of authors both familiar (Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Petronius) and obscure. We will also consider the evolution the epigram from its inscriptional and epitaphic origins in Greek and Latin, and its development as a literary form by Hellenistic authors. In the final two weeks of the course, we will turn our attention to the reception of Martial by late antique (Ausonius, Claudian, Luxorius) and Neo-Latin poets (e.g. Pontano's Baiae, Panormita's Hermaphroditus, Marullo's reception of Catullus, Thomas More, John Owen).  Readings in the original will be supplemented with relevant scholarship throughout. Students will enhance their core work on Latin epigram by reading-independently or in small-groups-a complementary genre or author in the original related to their interests (e.g. Greek epigram, Horace' Satires, Latin elegy, carmina epigraphica, Juvenal, Flavian epic, Pliny's Epistles, Christian epigram).

Back to top

LATN B650 Topics in Latin Literature

Section 001 (Fall 2023): Latin in Music

Fall 2023

Advanced reading and interpretation of Latin literature: content varies

Back to top

LATN B658 Late Latin Poetry

Not offered 2023-24

This course will survey the florescence of Latin poetry in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. At the heart of the course will be a study of some of Prudentius' works, for example the Hamartigenia and the Cathemerinon; works by Claudian, Ausonius, Avitus, Dracontius, and Paulinus of Nola may also be included. We shall analyze both the literary and (where applicable) the theological properties of these great works.

Back to top

LATN B663 Epistolography

Not offered 2023-24

Ancient letter-writing is suddenly garnering scholarly attention. Letters are being read by those with literary and philosophical interests, not simply for historical detail. While this course will attend to various categories of letters - embedded letters, inscribed letters, letters primarily for literary display - our principal focus wil be letters which were actually sent, and particularly correspondence of which both sides survives to us. We shall cover a wide chronological range, from the first century BC to the fifth century AD; our most sustained investigation will be of the letters of Cicero, Pliny, and Augustine, though we shall encompass many others along the way. In addition to the specific circumstances in which the letters were sent, we shall also address wider questions: how do letters negotiate the absence of their addressee? what ideas of friendship, or other affective connection, do they perform? what ideas of the self are entailed? how are ancient ideas of public and private letters played out? Finally, does it even make sense to speak of a separate genre of epistolography? The wide range of the course should make for some exciting answers. Cross listed as CSTS 663

Writing Intensive

Back to top

ARCH B260 Daily Life in Ancient Greece and Rome

Spring 2024

The often-praised achievements of the classical cultures arose from the realities of day-to-day life. This course surveys the rich body of material and textual evidence pertaining to how ancient Greeks and Romans -- famous and obscure alike -- lived and died. Topics include housing, food, clothing, work, leisure, and family and social life.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CSTS B010 Traditional and New Testament Greek

Fall 2023

This is the first half of a year-long introductory course to ancient Greek. It is designed to familiarize students with the basic elements of classical Greek grammar and syntax as well as to provide them with experience in reading short sentences and passages in both Greek prose and poetry.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

CSTS B156 Roman Law in Action

Not offered 2023-24

This course provides an introduction to the study of Roman law and legal history by focusing on the law of the family. The family is a basic building block for society, and the aim of this course is to learn more about Roman society by examining how it developed legal rules for family organization. We will also explore the historical context behind the development of Roman legal institutions, in order to gain an appreciation for Roman law's influence on the modern civil law and common law systems.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Back to top

CSTS B201 Plato and Thucydides

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Vergil

Fall 2023

This course is designed to introduce the student to two of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, and the historian, Thucydides. These two writers set the terms in the disciplines of philosophy and history for millennia, and philosophers and historians today continue to grapple with their ideas and influence. The brilliant and controversial statesman Alcibiades provides a link between the two texts in this course (Plato's Symposium and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War), and we examine the ways in which both authors handle the figure of Alcibiades as a point of entry into the comparison of the varying styles and modes of thought of these two great writers. Suggested Prerequisites: At least 2 years of college Greek or the equivalent.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

CSTS B207 Early Rome and the Roman Republic

Not offered 2023-24

This course surveys the history of Rome from its origins to the end of the Republic, with special emphasis on the rise of Rome in Italy and the evolution of the Roman state. The course also examines the Hellenistic world in which the rise of Rome takes place. The methods of historical investigation using the ancient sources, both literary and archaeological, are emphasized.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CSTS B208 The Roman Empire

Not offered 2023-24

Imperial history from the principate of Augustus to the House of Constantine with focus on the evolution of Roman culture and society as presented in the surviving ancient evidence, both literary and archaeological.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B365 Byzantium and the Classics: The Byzantine Literary Tradition

Not offered 2023-24

This seminar approaches Byzantine literature both as a continuation of the Classical tradition and as a rich corpus that should be studied for its own sake. Each week we will survey one genre of Byzantine literature and focus on two or three texts that will be tailored to the participants' research interests as much as possible. Greek literature will provide the core of our readings, but we will occasionally turn our attention to texts composed in other languages, especially Latin and Syriac. The Byzantine Empire was a multilingual society. For 600-level students, three workshops will be offered on the following three topics: the grammar of Byzantine Greek, paleography, and textual criticism.

Back to top

CSTS B375 Interpreting Mythology

Fall 2023

The myths of the Greeks have provoked outrage and fascination, interpretation and retelling, censorship and elaboration, beginning with the Greeks themselves. We will see how some of these stories have been read and understood, recounted and revised, in various cultures and eras, from ancient tellings to modern movies. We will also explore some of the interpretive theories by which these tales have been understood, from ancient allegory to modern structural and semiotic theories. The student should gain a more profound understanding of the meaning of these myths to the Greeks themselves, of the cultural context in which they were formulated. At the same time, this course should provide the student with some familiarity with the range of interpretations and strategies of understanding that people of various cultures and times have applied to the Greek myths during the more than two millennia in which they have been preserved. Preference to upperclassmen, previous coursework in myth required.

Back to top

CSTS B398 Senior Seminar

This is a bi-college seminar devoted to readings in and discussion of selected topics in the various sub-fields of Classics (e.g. literature, religion, philosophy, law, social history) and of how to apply contemporary critical approaches to the primary sources. Students will also begin developing a topic for their senior thesis, composing a prospectus and giving a preliminary presentation of their findings.

Back to top

CSTS B399 Senior Seminar

This is the continuation of CSTS B398. Working with individual advisors from the bi-college classics departments, students will continue to develop the topic sketched out in the fall semester. By the end of the course, they will have completed at least one draft and a full, polished version of the senior thesis, of which they will give a final oral presentation.

Back to top

CSTS B609 Pindar & Greek Lyric

Not offered 2023-24

We will begin with a careful reading of Pindar's shorter odes, then proceed to his most famous long odes (Olympian 1, Pythian 3, Pythian 1) and then consider interpretative strategies (past, present, and future) as we survey the rest of the odes. One additional hour of reading TBA.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B675 Interpreting Mythology

Fall 2023

The myths of the Greeks have provoked outrage and fascination, interpretation and retelling, censorship and elaboration, beginning with the Greeks themselves. We will see how some of these stories have been read and understood, recounted and revised, in various cultures and eras, from ancient tellings to modern movies. We will also explore some of the interpretive theories by which these tales have been understood, from ancient allegory to modern structural and semiotic theories. The student should gain a more profound understanding of the meaning of these myths to the Greeks themselves, of the cultural context in which they were formulated. At the same time, this course should provide the student with some familiarity with the range of interpretations and strategies of understanding that people of various cultures and times have applied to the Greek myths during the more than two millennia in which they have been preserved.

Back to top

CSTS B010 Traditional and New Testament Greek

Fall 2023

This is the first half of a year-long introductory course to ancient Greek. It is designed to familiarize students with the basic elements of classical Greek grammar and syntax as well as to provide them with experience in reading short sentences and passages in both Greek prose and poetry.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

CSTS B108 Roman Africa

Not offered 2023-24

In 146 BCE, Rome conquered and destroyed the North African city of Carthage, which had been its arch-enemy for generations, and occupied many of the Carthaginian settlements in North Africa. But by the second and third centuries CE, North Africa was one of the most prosperous and cultured areas of the Roman Empire, and Carthage (near modern Tunis) was one of the busiest ports in the Mediterranean. This course will trace the relations between Rome and Carthage, looking at the history of their mutual enmity, the extraordinary rise to prosperity of Roman North Africa, and the continued importance of the region even after the Vandal invasions of the fifth century.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B110 Intermediate Latin

Fall 2023

Intensive review of grammar, reading in classical prose and poetry. For students who have had the equivalent of several years of high school Latin or are not adequately prepared to take LATN 101. This course meets three times a week with a required fourth hour to be arranged. Prerequisite: One year of college level Latin or equivalent.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

CSTS B112 Latin Literature

Spring 2024

In the second semester of the intermediate Latin sequence, readings in prose and poetry are frequently drawn from a period, such as the age of Augustus, that illustrate in different ways the leading political and cultural concerns of the time. The Latin readings and discussion are supplemented by readings in the secondary literature. This course meets three times a week with a required fourth hour to be arranged. Prerequisite: LATN 101 or 110 or placement by the department.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

CSTS B156 Roman Law in Action

Not offered 2023-24

This course provides an introduction to the study of Roman law and legal history by focusing on the law of the family. The family is a basic building block for society, and the aim of this course is to learn more about Roman society by examining how it developed legal rules for family organization. We will also explore the historical context behind the development of Roman legal institutions, in order to gain an appreciation for Roman law's influence on the modern civil law and common law systems.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Back to top

CSTS B175 Feminism in Classics

Not offered 2023-24

This course will illustrate the ways in which feminism has had an impact on classics, as well as the ways in which feminists think with classical texts. It will have four thematic divisions: feminism and the classical canon; feminism, women, and rethinking classical history; feminist readings of classical texts; and feminists and the classics - e.g. Cixous' Medusa and Butler's Antigone.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

CSTS B201 Plato and Thucydides

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Vergil

Fall 2023

This course is designed to introduce the student to two of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, and the historian, Thucydides. These two writers set the terms in the disciplines of philosophy and history for millennia, and philosophers and historians today continue to grapple with their ideas and influence. The brilliant and controversial statesman Alcibiades provides a link between the two texts in this course (Plato's Symposium and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War), and we examine the ways in which both authors handle the figure of Alcibiades as a point of entry into the comparison of the varying styles and modes of thought of these two great writers. Suggested Prerequisites: At least 2 years of college Greek or the equivalent.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

CSTS B201 Plato and Thucydides

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Vergil

Fall 2023

This course is designed to introduce the student to two of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, and the historian, Thucydides. These two writers set the terms in the disciplines of philosophy and history for millennia, and philosophers and historians today continue to grapple with their ideas and influence. The brilliant and controversial statesman Alcibiades provides a link between the two texts in this course (Plato's Symposium and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War), and we examine the ways in which both authors handle the figure of Alcibiades as a point of entry into the comparison of the varying styles and modes of thought of these two great writers. Suggested Prerequisites: At least 2 years of college Greek or the equivalent.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

CSTS B202 Topics: Advanced Latin Literature

Section 001 (Spring 2024): Literature of the Empire

Spring 2024

In this course typically a variety of Latin prose and poetry of the high and later Roman empire (first to fourth centuries CE) is read. Single or multiple authors may be featured in a given semester. This is a topics course, course content varies. Prerequisite: At least one 200-level Latin course or equivalent.

Current topic description: TBD

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

CSTS B203 Technology and Humanity in the Ancient World

Not offered 2023-24

In this course, we will study the development, impact, and ethical implications of technology in the ancient world. While investigating the attitudes toward technology expressed by scientific and non-scientific authors of the Graeco-Roman world, students will be exposed to perspectives and methods from a variety of disciplines including literary studies, anthropology, social psychology, and 4E cognition, engaging with questions related to areas of social justice, human ecology, artificial intelligence, urban planning, environmental management, and medicine. Through readings by authors such as Aristophanes, Euripides, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Apuleius and Galen, we will discuss the technologies used to aid memory, carry out calculative activities, perform labor, influence human behavior, and improve quality of life. In addition to gaining a broad understanding of ancient technologies (real and imagined), students will a) become familiar with the major periods and events of Graeco-Roman history and be able to contextualize attitudes towards technology within those periods; b) become familiar with the styles of literature and material arts during major periods of Graeco-Roman history, and c) develop skills necessary for reading primary texts (literary, philosophical, and historical) as documents representing the intellectual history of classical antiquity. No previous knowledge of the ancient world is required.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B205 Greek History

Not offered 2023-24

This course traces the rise of the city-state (polis) in the Greek-speaking world beginning in the seventh-century BC down to its full blossoming in classical Athens and Sparta. Students should gain an understanding of the formation and development of Greek identity, from the Panhellenic trends in archaic epic and religion through its crystallization during the heroic defense against two Persian invasions and its subsequent disintegration during the Peloponnesian war. The class will also explore the ways in which the evolution of political, philosophical, religious, and artistic institutions reflect the changing socio-political circumstances of Greece. The latter part of the course will focus on Athens in particular: its rise to imperial power under Pericles, its tragic decline from the Peloponnesian War and its important role as a center for the teaching of rhetoric and philosophy. Since the study of history involves the analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of the sources available for the culture studied, students will concentrate upon the primary sources available for Greek history, exploring the strengths and weakness of these sources and the ways in which their evidence can be used to create an understanding of ancient Greece. Students should learn how to analyze and evaluate the evidence from primary texts and to synthesize the information from multiple sources in a critical way.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CSTS B206 Cosmos: Myth, Medicine, & Law in Ancient Greece

Fall 2023

The ancient Greek word 'cosmos' means 'order' or 'system'; it also means 'beauty' or 'adornment'. The Greeks thought of the world around them as an orderly system, adorned with beauty, but their imaginings of that order took many different forms, from the most fantastic of myths to elaborate mathematical and physiological models. This course explores the systems of order that the Greeks imagined for the universe - the macrocosm, for the human body - the microcosm, and for society - the the system of laws that brings order to humans in the world. Throughout the course, we examine the ways ideas of generation, justice, and gender inflect the cosmic systems, beginning with early Greek epic and moving through the philosophical texts (especially Plato's Timaeus), Hippocratic medical treatises, and lawcourt speeches. We will explore the discourses of myth, science, and law in the ancient Greek context and their relation to contemporary discourses. Students will gain familiarity with the conceptual schemas of ancient Greek thought that have been fundamental for cosmology, medicine, and law in the Western tradition and will learn to analyze the ways in which these models have shaped ideas of generation, justice, and gender throughout the ages. Students will also improve their skills of critical reading and analytic writing through their work with the readings and writing assignments in the course, and they will hone their skills of reasoned discussion in the class.

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Back to top

CSTS B207 Early Rome and the Roman Republic

Not offered 2023-24

This course surveys the history of Rome from its origins to the end of the Republic, with special emphasis on the rise of Rome in Italy and the evolution of the Roman state. The course also examines the Hellenistic world in which the rise of Rome takes place. The methods of historical investigation using the ancient sources, both literary and archaeological, are emphasized.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CSTS B208 The Roman Empire

Not offered 2023-24

Imperial history from the principate of Augustus to the House of Constantine with focus on the evolution of Roman culture and society as presented in the surviving ancient evidence, both literary and archaeological.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B210 The Arts of Persuasion

Not offered 2023-24

In this course, we will read ancient Greek and Latin material not as passive vehicles but as agents. Indeed, we will assume that the authors of what we now call "literature" and the characters embedded within it aimed to convince, persuade, and cajole their ancient audience members and that they retain the power to convince us, too. Although this course focuses on primary sources in translation, secondary readings will support our understanding of their cultural context. We will engage with a broad constellation of ancient material, from explicitly argumentative forensic speeches and philosophy to subtly discursive scenes of seduction. Throughout the semester, we will keep in mind not only the goal of an author or character's persuasive speech, but analyze how he or she modulates her rhetoric to convince a peer, a superior, a group, or even a god!

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B211 Masks, Madness, and Mysteries: Introduction to Greek Tragedy

Not offered 2023-24

This course will introduce the student to the world of Greek Tragedy as it flourished in Athens in 5th century BC. We will read the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, & Euripides and discuss the playwrights' treatment of myth, the role of the chorus, the relation between text and performance, and the relevance of Greek tragedy for subsequent centuries, down to the present day. Special attention will be given to modern performances of these ancient plays in theater and in film as well as to the themes of choral voice, disability, euthanasia, slavery; the impact of war on women & children; and the relation between mortals and immortals. Please Note: NO KNOWLEDGE OF ANCIENT GREEK IS REQUIRED. ALL TEXTS WILL BE READ IN ENGLISH!

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B218 Reading Changes: Reflecting on Ovid's Metamorphoses

Not offered 2023-24

This course will look at scenes of (mis)communication in Ovid's Metamorphoses and consider modern (re)interpretations of the Metamorphoses-and explore why these things matter, in classics and beyond! We will look at myths such as Narcissus and Echo, Procne and Philomela, and Proserpina (aka Persephone) to think about the ways we interact with other people, whether we're reading about them or communicating with them in person. We'll define "reception;" use modern feminist, queer, and political lenses to read this ancient text (and think about how these lenses- which include Judith Butler, Bonnie Honig, and bell hooks- might apply to any text, ancient or modern); listen to some "Hadestown;" and think about ethics in ways that are just as relevant in our lives today as they are in this work written 2000 years ago. No prior classics experience required, and all readings will be in English translation.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

CSTS B219 Poetic Desires, Queer Longings

Not offered 2023-24

This course places poetry that considers love and desire from Greco-Roman antiquity in conversation with modern poetry and critical theory (queer, feminist, and literary). How are the roles of lover and beloved constructed through gender? How does queer desire and sexuality manifest in different cultural contexts? How have poets sought to express desire through language, and in what ways does language fail to capture that desire? Students in this course will face the difficulties of articulating desire head-on through both traditional literary analysis papers and a creative writing project. Texts will include love poetry by Sappho and Ovid, Trista Mateer's Aphrodite Made Me Do It, Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet, and Audre Lorde's "The Uses of the Erotic."

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

CSTS B221 Women of Roman Egypt

Not offered 2023-24

This course aims to be an introduction to the history of female persons in the ancient world. It focuses particularly on Roman Egypt, but covers a broad range of material spanning the period of 300 BCE - 476 CE. Students engage with a number of historical issues, such as legal personhood, access to education, political protest, economic freedom, religious practice, etc.. Students will acquire familiarity with a) Egypt as a part of the Greco-Roman world; b) the role of women in both Egyptian society and Rome more generally; and c) the written sources available for the study of female experience in the ancient world. Because the course focuses on the social, cultural, and institutional environments in which women operated, the topic offers itself as a useful study of the ancient world as a whole, as well as to particular issues of representation and authority. By the end of the course, students will have general understanding of Egypt as a part of the Graeco-Roman world, a keen understanding of how women operated in the society of Ancient Egypt (ca. 300 BCE - 450 CE), and the ability to form arguments about the historical relevance of our sources.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B226 Ecology of the Roman World

Not offered 2023-24

In this course, we will study Roman attitudes toward the natural world, reconstructing the environment in which Roman urban centers flourished. While investigating the attitudes towards the environment that the Romans expressed through their myths, poetry, philosophy, and material culture, students will gain exposure to perspectives and methods from a variety of disciplines including literary studies, archaeology and art history, anthropology, social psychology, and 4E cognition. Through readings by authors such as Cato, Varro, Columella, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, Pliny and Seneca, we will discuss agriculture and pre-industrial economies, social (re)evolution, disease and famine, resource exploitation, and human interaction with the landscape through engineering. In addition to gaining a broad understanding of how the Romans interacted with and explained the world around them (and how they used that world to explain themselves), students will a) become familiar with the major periods and events of Roman history and be able to contextualize attitudes towards nature and the environment within those periods; b) become familiar with the styles of literature and material arts during major periods of Roman history, and c) develop skills necessary for reading primary texts (literary, philosophical, and historical) as documents representing the intellectual history of the Roman world. No previous knowledge of the ancient world is required.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B232 Relating (to) the gods

Not offered 2023-24

How did ancient Greeks and Romans imagine their gods? How did they communicate with them? And what, exactly, happened when the gods talked back? In this course, we will grapple with questions of why and how ancient people interacted with what anthropologists call "Invisible Others": those not always perceptible beings with whom human beings nonetheless engage. To do so, we will be guided by a broad range of Greek and Latin material in translation, including but not limited to magical texts, prayers, hymns, philosophical discourse, and mythic narratives that depict and/or invite the often disastrous, sometimes miraculous, and always fascinating interaction between mortal and deity.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B240 (Re)Productions from Antiquity to Modernity

Not offered 2023-24

How might Ancient Greek and Roman values regarding leisure time, labor, poetic production, and reproduction intersect with those of modern capitalism? Why are texts considered the children of ancient (male) authors, and where do women fit into this textual reproductive activity? What does a queer (i.e. non-essentialist, non-binary) reproduction look like? What makes art art, and does the reproduction of art, such as Roman copies of Greek statues, entail the loss of some special uncapturable quality? This course considers the above questions, investigating ancient and modern cultural attitudes towards (re)production through intersectional feminist and queer theory. Students will explore modern textual and filmic representations of pregnancy, abortion, creation, domestic labor, and artistic labor to enrich their readings of ancient texts. Texts will include Ancient Greek tragedies such as Euripides' Medea and Sophocles' Antigone, Latin poetry such as Horace's Ars Poetica and Ovid's Metamorphoses, novels such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, films such as My Fair Lady, and modern poetry by Johanna Hedva and Dionne Brand.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B242 Magic in the Greco-Roman World

Not offered 2023-24

Bindings and curses, love charms and healing potions, amulets and talismans - from the simple spells designed to meet the needs of the poor and desperate to the complex theurgies of the philosophers, the people of the Greco-Roman World made use of magic to try to influence the world around them. In this course students will gain an understanding of the magicians of the ancient world and the techniques and devices they used to serve their clientele, as well as the cultural contexts in which these ideas of magic arose. We shall consider ancient tablets and spell books as well as literary descriptions of magic in the light of theories relating to the religious, political, and social contexts in which magic was used.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Back to top

CSTS B247 The Beast Within: Animality and Humanity in Antiquity

Not offered 2023-24

How are humans conceptualized as different from animals, and vice versa? How have characterizations of humans as bestial been mobilized to uphold gender, class, ability, and racial hierarchies? Why were there so many depictions in antiquity of humans transforming into animals? This course will consider the above questions by interpreting ancient literary depictions of the human and the animal through the lenses of queer, gender, and critical race theory. Readings will include Ovid's Metamorphoses, Euripides' Hippolytus, and Vergil's Eclogues and Georgics, as well as theoretical selections such as Mel Chen's Animacies, Bénédicte Boisseron's Afro-Dog, and Claire Jean Kim's Dangerous Crossings.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

CSTS B267 Interpretation of Dreams: Classical Antiquity and Beyond

Not offered 2023-24

Dreams appear to be a human universal; everyone dreams, and everyone has wondered what the meaning or import of dreams might be. Dreaming is nevertheless a culturally embedded process; every society has ways of explaining what dreams might mean and how they might produce meaning. Ancient Greco-Roman culture provides a wide range of evidence for the understanding and interpretation of dreams, from the divine epiphanies in Homer to the systematic treatise by Aristotle to the theological explanations of Plutarch and Synesius. The two most influential systems for the interpretation of dreams in the twentieth century, moreover, owe their inspiration to ancient Greek texts. Freud founds his famous Interpretation of Dreams upon the manual of dream interpretation by Artemidorus of Daldis, while the violent dream visions of the alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis provide Jung with his own theories about the nature and interpretation of dreams. This course explores the range of materials for the interpretation of dreams in Classical Antiquity and beyond, analyzing the ideas of human nature, the soul, and the divine that underlie the systems of dream interpretation. The course also examines the ways in which dreaming fits within the lived religious experience of the cultural context, from incubation practices at healing sanctuaries to consultations of dream oracles by a state representative to magical spells to bring or send dreams. The interrelation of the universal phenomenon of dreaming and the specific cultural contexts provides the focus for the analysis of the ancient materials and their reception in modern and contemporary thought. Prerequisite: One course in theory OR consent of instructor.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B310 Forming the Classics: From Papyrus to Print

Not offered 2023-24

17This course will trace the constitution of Classics as a discipline in both its intellectual and its material aspects, and will examine how the works of classical antiquity were read, interpreted, and preserved from the late Roman empire to the early modern period. Topics will include the material production and dissemination of texts, the conceptual organization of codices (e.g. punctuation, rubrication, indexing), and audiences and readers (including annotation, marginalia, and commentary). Students will also learn practical techniques for approaching these texts, such as palaeography and the expansion of abbreviations. The course will culminate in student research projects using manuscripts and early printed books from Bryn Mawr's exceptional collections. Prerequisite: a 200 level course in Greek, Latin, or Classical Studies.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B320 Martyrs, Mothers, Memoirs: Medieval Autobiographies

Not offered 2023-24

The writing of autobiography flourished in the middle ages, but there have been very few studies of the genre for the period. This course presents a range of autobiographies from the Latin West and encourages students to think about them theoretically and historically: what does it mean to write the self? what is at stake in the presentation of these stories? what notions are privileged? and how do we situate autobiographies in the wider literary landscape?

Back to top

CSTS B350 Topics in Latin Literature

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Late Latin Poetry
Section 001 (Fall 2023): Latin in Music
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Epigram

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: So much of classical Latin poetry was originally written to be sung, or at least to simulate the effect of singing; Romans were preternaturally attuned to rhythm and pitch even in prose. But the musical tradition that we have inherited really starts with Gregorian chant, and Western tonality and counterpoint expands from there. The course will treat such themes as the motif of song in classical Latin epic and lyric; Ambrose and early hymnic practice; excerpts from grammatical texts that discuss the sound of language (Priscian, Bede, Alcuin) and from treatises on music; the musical writing of Hildegard of Bingen; and case studies of the settings of particular Latin texts-for example, the Stabat Mater, which has garnered such various responses from composers. We shall also be reading excerpts from Wittgenstein's posthumous collection Culture and Value, to help us think about music as a language at the limits of language.

Current topic description: n this seminar we will explore the themes and aesthetics of the Latin epigram, a genre (or is it?) best known for its brevity and wit. After orienting ourselves in the epigrams of the Neoterics (Catullus, Cinna, Calvus, Caesar), our focus will turn to the poetry of Martial, whose accounts of Rome, its inhabitants, and their foibles exerted a profound influence on subsequent epigrammatists. We will consider Martial's poetry both thematically (poems on the city; women; scoundrels; patrons; long poems) and as constituents of organized, multi-faceted libri. To deepen our appreciation of Martial's poetic project, we will take occasional forays into para-epigrammatic genres and works (Priapea, Catalepton), as well as the scattered epigrams of authors both familiar (Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Petronius) and obscure. We will also consider the evolution the epigram from its inscriptional and epitaphic origins in Greek and Latin, and its development as a literary form by Hellenistic authors. In the final two weeks of the course, we will turn our attention to the reception of Martial by late antique (Ausonius, Claudian, Luxorius) and Neo-Latin poets (e.g. Pontano's Baiae, Panormita's Hermaphroditus, Marullo's reception of Catullus, Thomas More, John Owen). Readings in the original will be supplemented with relevant scholarship throughout. Students will enhance their core work on Latin epigram by reading-independently or in small-groups-a complementary genre or author in the original related to their interests (e.g. Greek epigram, Horace' Satires, Latin elegy, carmina epigraphica, Juvenal, Flavian epic, Pliny's Epistles, Christian epigram).

Back to top

CSTS B365 Byzantium and the Classics: The Byzantine Literary Tradition

Not offered 2023-24

This seminar approaches Byzantine literature both as a continuation of the Classical tradition and as a rich corpus that should be studied for its own sake. Each week we will survey one genre of Byzantine literature and focus on two or three texts that will be tailored to the participants' research interests as much as possible. Greek literature will provide the core of our readings, but we will occasionally turn our attention to texts composed in other languages, especially Latin and Syriac. The Byzantine Empire was a multilingual society. For 600-level students, three workshops will be offered on the following three topics: the grammar of Byzantine Greek, paleography, and textual criticism.

Back to top

CSTS B375 Interpreting Mythology

Fall 2023

The myths of the Greeks have provoked outrage and fascination, interpretation and retelling, censorship and elaboration, beginning with the Greeks themselves. We will see how some of these stories have been read and understood, recounted and revised, in various cultures and eras, from ancient tellings to modern movies. We will also explore some of the interpretive theories by which these tales have been understood, from ancient allegory to modern structural and semiotic theories. The student should gain a more profound understanding of the meaning of these myths to the Greeks themselves, of the cultural context in which they were formulated. At the same time, this course should provide the student with some familiarity with the range of interpretations and strategies of understanding that people of various cultures and times have applied to the Greek myths during the more than two millennia in which they have been preserved. Preference to upperclassmen, previous coursework in myth required.

Back to top

CSTS B398 Senior Seminar

This is a bi-college seminar devoted to readings in and discussion of selected topics in the various sub-fields of Classics (e.g. literature, religion, philosophy, law, social history) and of how to apply contemporary critical approaches to the primary sources. Students will also begin developing a topic for their senior thesis, composing a prospectus and giving a preliminary presentation of their findings.

Back to top

CSTS B399 Senior Seminar

This is the continuation of CSTS B398. Working with individual advisors from the bi-college classics departments, students will continue to develop the topic sketched out in the fall semester. By the end of the course, they will have completed at least one draft and a full, polished version of the senior thesis, of which they will give a final oral presentation.

Back to top

CSTS B403 Supervised Work

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B609 Pindar & Greek Lyric

Not offered 2023-24

We will begin with a careful reading of Pindar's shorter odes, then proceed to his most famous long odes (Olympian 1, Pythian 3, Pythian 1) and then consider interpretative strategies (past, present, and future) as we survey the rest of the odes. One additional hour of reading TBA.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B610 Forming the Classics: From Papyrus to Print

Spring 2024

This course will trace the constitution of Classics as a discipline in both its intellectual and its material aspects, and will examine how the works of classical antiquity were read, interpreted, and preserved from the late Roman empire to the early modern period. Topics will include the material production and dissemination of texts, the conceptual organization of codices (e.g. punctuation, rubrication, indexing), and audiences and readers (including annotation, marginalia, and commentary). Students will also learn practical techniques for approaching these texts, such as palaeography and the expansion of abbreviations. The course will culminate in student research projects using manuscripts and early printed books from Bryn Mawr's exceptional collections. Prerequisite: a 200 level course in Greek, Latin, or Classical Studies.

Back to top

CSTS B614 Language and Loss

Not offered 2023-24

In Lyric Philosophy, Jan Zwicky remarks that "loss is perhaps the ultimate philosophical problem." In this seminar-a joint venture of Bryn Mawr classical studies and Villanova philosophy-we will explore languages of loss and their uneasy place within philosophical forms of liberation. Our main readings will be Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, Augustine's De magistro and Confessions, and Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. No proficiency in Latin is required for the course (we will be reading texts in translation), but students who do have proficiency will have opportunities to make use of it.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B639 Italy and the Rise of Rome

Not offered 2023-24

This course examines the archaeology and history of the Italian peninsula in the first millennium BCE, with a particular focus on the dynamics of Rome's rise from small settlement to the dominant power on the Italian peninsula. Through an examination of the textual, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological evidence from Rome and the other major powers in Italy in this period, including the Etruscans, Samnites, and Greek colonial cities, we investigate the major debates and issues surrounding Rome's rise to power, including the nature of Roman imperialism, processes of "Romanization" or acculturation among non-Romans, and the social and political conflicts and pressures which played a role in shaping the character of the Roman state in the first millennium BCE.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B645 Ancient Magic

Not offered 2023-24

Magic - the word evokes the mysterious and the marvelous, the forbidden and the hidden, the ancient and the arcane. But what did magic mean to the people who coined the term, the people of ancient Greece and Rome? Drawing on the expanding body of evidence for ancient magical practices, as well as recent theoretical approaches to the history of religions, this seminar explores the varieties of phenomena labeled magic in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Bindings and curses, love charms and healing potions, amulets and talismans - from the simple spells designed to meet the needs of the poor and desperate to the complex theurgies of the philosophers, the people of the Greco-Roman world did not only imagine what magic could do, they also made use of magic to try to influence the world around them. The seminar examines the primary texts in Greek, the tablets and spell books, as well as literary descriptions of magic, in the light of theories relating to the religious, political, and social contexts in which magic was used.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

CSTS B665 Byzantium and the Classics: The Byzantine Literary Tradition

Not offered 2023-24

This seminar approaches Byzantine literature both as a continuation of the Classical tradition and as a rich corpus that should be studied for its own sake. Each week we will survey one genre of Byzantine literature and focus on two or three texts that will be tailored to the participants' research interests as much as possible. Greek literature will provide the core of our readings, but we will occasionally turn our attention to texts composed in other languages, especially Latin and Syriac. The Byzantine Empire was a multilingual society. For 600-level students, three workshops will be offered on the following three topics: the grammar of Byzantine Greek, paleography, and textual criticism.

Back to top

CSTS B675 Interpreting Mythology

Fall 2023

The myths of the Greeks have provoked outrage and fascination, interpretation and retelling, censorship and elaboration, beginning with the Greeks themselves. We will see how some of these stories have been read and understood, recounted and revised, in various cultures and eras, from ancient tellings to modern movies. We will also explore some of the interpretive theories by which these tales have been understood, from ancient allegory to modern structural and semiotic theories. The student should gain a more profound understanding of the meaning of these myths to the Greeks themselves, of the cultural context in which they were formulated. At the same time, this course should provide the student with some familiarity with the range of interpretations and strategies of understanding that people of various cultures and times have applied to the Greek myths during the more than two millennia in which they have been preserved.

Back to top

CSTS B701 Supervised Work

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Back to top

ARCH B102 Introduction to Classical Archaeology

Fall 2023

A historical survey of the archaeology and art of Greece, Etruria, and Rome.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward Museum Studies

Back to top

ARCH B110 The World Through Classical Eyes

Not offered 2023-24

A survey of the ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans perceived and constructed their physical and social world. The evidence of ancient texts and monuments will form the basis for exploring such subjects as cosmology, geography, travel and commerce, ancient ethnography and anthropology, the idea of natural and artificial wonders, and the self-definition of the classical cultures in the context of the oikoumene, the "inhabited world."

Writing Intensive

Back to top

ARCH B203 Ancient Greek Cities and Sanctuaries

Not offered 2023-24

A study of the development of the Greek city-states and sanctuaries. Archaeological evidence is surveyed in its historic context. The political formation of the city-state and the role of religion is presented, and the political, economic, and religious institutions of the city-states are explored in their urban settings. The city-state is considered as a particular political economy of the Mediterranean and in comparison to the utility of the concept of city-state in other cultures.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward Museum Studies

Back to top

ARCH B204 Animals in the Ancient Greek World

Spring 2024

This course focuses on perceptions of animals in ancient Greece from the Geometric to the Classical periods. It examines representations of animals in painting, sculpture, and the minor arts, the treatment of animals as attested in the archaeological record, and how these types of evidence relate to the featuring of animals in contemporary poetry, tragedy, comedy, and medical and philosophical writings. By analyzing this rich body of evidence, the course develops a context in which participants gain insight into the ways ancient Greeks perceived, represented, and treated animals. Juxtaposing the importance of animals in modern society, as attested, for example, by their roles as pets, agents of healing, diplomatic gifts, and even as subjects of specialized studies such as animal law and animal geographies, the course also serves to expand awareness of attitudes towards animals in our own society as well as that of ancient Greece.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

ARCH B212 Visual Culture of the Ancient Mediterranean

Not offered 2023-24

This course explores the visual culture of the ancient Mediterranean world from the second millennium BCE to early Roman times. Drawing from an extensive variety of extant evidence that includes monuments, sculpture, paintings, mosaics, and artifacts deriving from culturally and geographically distinct areas, such as the Minoan world, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Greece, Macedonia, Italy, Tunisia, and Spain, the course explores how such evidence may have been viewed and experienced and how it may have, in turn, shaped the visual culture of the well-interconnected ancient Mediterranean world. Focusing on selected examples of evidence, including its materials, style, and methods of production, the course will also consider how past and current scholarly attitudes, approaches, and terminology have affected the understanding and interpretation of this evidence.

Writing Attentive

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward MECANA Studies

Back to top

ARCH B222 Alexander the Great

Not offered 2023-24

This course examines the life, personality, career, and military achievements of Alexander the Great, as well as the extraordinary reception of his legacy in antiquity and through modern times. It uses historical, archaeological and art-historical evidence to reconstruct a comprehensive picture of Alexander's cultural background and examines the real and imaginary features of his life and afterlife as they developed in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and succeeding periods in both Europe and Asia. Special attention is also placed on the appeal that Alexander's life and achievements have generated and continue to retain in modern popular visual culture as evidenced from documentary films and motion pictures.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Back to top

ARCH B242 Colonies and Colonization in the Ancient Mediterranean

Not offered 2023-24

This course focuses on the character and consequences of colonization, colonialism, and imperialism in the ancient Mediterranean. Using archaeological and textual evidence, we will examine the history, practice, and physical manifestations of colonization from the earliest Phoenician and Greek colonies through the imperial world of the Roman Empire. We will discuss a variety of approaches and frameworks used to explore the intersection of migration and mobility, colonization and colonialism, and imperial states and identities in the Classical world, and will explore the impact of these processes on the development of wider Mediterranean networks, identities, and histories.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Back to top

ARCH B246 Classical Antiquity in Movies

Fall 2023

This course explores the visual representations and the narratives of the Graeco-Roman times on screen. From silent films to modern Hollywood productions through Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services productions, students will discuss the impact of classical antiquity in the film-making industry. We will be looking into how the depiction of different aspects of the Greek and Roman past (literature, history, art, archaeology) are used (and misused) on screen and in which way these productions influence the way we understand the ancient world.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward Film Studies

Back to top

ARCH B252 Pompeii

Not offered 2023-24

Introduces students to a nearly intact archaeological site whose destruction by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. was recorded by contemporaries. The discovery of Pompeii in the mid-1700s had an enormous impact on 18th- and 19th-century views of the Roman past as well as styles and preferences of the modern era. Informs students in classical antiquity, urban life, city structure, residential architecture, home decoration and furnishing, wall painting, minor arts and craft and mercantile activities within a Roman city.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward Museum Studies

Back to top

ARCH B254 Cleopatra

Fall 2023

This course examines the life and rule of Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, and the reception of her legacy in the Early Roman Empire and the western world from the Renaissance to modern times. The first part of the course explores extant literary evidence regarding the upbringing, education, and rule of Cleopatra within the contexts of Egyptian and Ptolemaic cultures, her relationships with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, her conflict with Octavian, and her death by suicide in 30 BCE. The second part examines constructions of Cleopatra in Roman literature, her iconography in surviving art, and her contributions to and influence on both Ptolemaic and Roman art. A detailed account is also provided of the afterlife of Cleopatra in the literature, visual arts, scholarship, and film of both Europe and the United States, extending from the papal courts of Renaissance Italy and Shakespearean drama, to Thomas Jefferson's art collection at Monticello and Joseph Mankiewicz's 1963 epic film, Cleopatra.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

ARCH B260 Daily Life in Ancient Greece and Rome

Spring 2024

The often-praised achievements of the classical cultures arose from the realities of day-to-day life. This course surveys the rich body of material and textual evidence pertaining to how ancient Greeks and Romans -- famous and obscure alike -- lived and died. Topics include housing, food, clothing, work, leisure, and family and social life.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

ARCH B301 Greek Vase-Painting

Not offered 2023-24

This course is an introduction to the world of painted pottery of the Greek world, from the 10th to the 4th centuries B.C.E. We will interpret these images from an art-historical and socio-economic viewpoint. We will also explore how these images relate to other forms of representation. Prerequisite: one course in classical archaeology or permission of instructor.

Back to top

ARCH B308 Ceramic Analysis

Not offered 2023-24

Pottery is one of the most common artifacts recovered during archaeological excavation. It is fundamental for reconstructing human behavior in the past and establishing the relative chronology of archaeological sites. This course focuses on the myriad of ways archaeologists study ceramics including the theories, methods, and techniques that bridge the gap between, on the one hand, the identification and description of pottery and, on the other, its analysis and interpretation. Topics covered include typology, seriation, production, function, exchange, specialization and standardization, site formation processes, ceramic characterization, and data management. The course will consist of lectures, discussions, student presentations on a chosen case study, and laboratory work. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

ARCH B314 Ancient Greek Seafaring and Shipwrecks

Fall 2023

This course examines the diverse evidence for ancient Greek seafaring and shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea from prehistory to the beginning of the Roman Empire. By focusing on archaeological, literary, iconographic, and epigraphic evidence, the course explores ancient Greek, Phoenician, Etruscan, and Roman interconnections in the Mediterranean Sea, through special attention to trade routes, commerce, colonization, economy, naval and maritime technology, cultural interactions, sea exploration, and piracy.

Writing Attentive

Back to top

ARCH B501 Greek Vase Painting

Not offered 2023-24

This course is an introduction to the world of painted pottery of the Greek world, from the 10th to the 4th centuries B.C.E. We will interpret these images from an art-historical and socio-economic viewpoint. We will also explore how these images relate to other forms of representation. Prerequisite: one course in classical archaeology or permission of instructor.

Back to top

ARCH B516 Trade and Transport in the Ancient World

Not offered 2023-24

Issues of trade, commerce and production of export goods are addressed with regard to the Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures of Mesopotamia, Arabia, Iran and south Asia. Crucial to these systems is the development of means of transport via maritime routes and on land. Archaeological evidence for traded goods and shipwrecks is used to map the emergence of sea-faring across the Indian Ocean and Gulf while bio-archaeological data is employed to examine the transformative role that Bactrian and Dromedary camels played in ancient trade and transport.

Back to top

CSTS B010 Traditional and New Testament Greek

Fall 2023

This is the first half of a year-long introductory course to ancient Greek. It is designed to familiarize students with the basic elements of classical Greek grammar and syntax as well as to provide them with experience in reading short sentences and passages in both Greek prose and poetry.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

CSTS B110 Intermediate Latin

Fall 2023

Intensive review of grammar, reading in classical prose and poetry. For students who have had the equivalent of several years of high school Latin or are not adequately prepared to take LATN 101. This course meets three times a week with a required fourth hour to be arranged. Prerequisite: One year of college level Latin or equivalent.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

CSTS B112 Latin Literature

Spring 2024

In the second semester of the intermediate Latin sequence, readings in prose and poetry are frequently drawn from a period, such as the age of Augustus, that illustrate in different ways the leading political and cultural concerns of the time. The Latin readings and discussion are supplemented by readings in the secondary literature. This course meets three times a week with a required fourth hour to be arranged. Prerequisite: LATN 101 or 110 or placement by the department.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

CSTS B201 Plato and Thucydides

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Vergil

Fall 2023

This course is designed to introduce the student to two of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, and the historian, Thucydides. These two writers set the terms in the disciplines of philosophy and history for millennia, and philosophers and historians today continue to grapple with their ideas and influence. The brilliant and controversial statesman Alcibiades provides a link between the two texts in this course (Plato's Symposium and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War), and we examine the ways in which both authors handle the figure of Alcibiades as a point of entry into the comparison of the varying styles and modes of thought of these two great writers. Suggested Prerequisites: At least 2 years of college Greek or the equivalent.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

CSTS B201 Plato and Thucydides

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Vergil

Fall 2023

This course is designed to introduce the student to two of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, and the historian, Thucydides. These two writers set the terms in the disciplines of philosophy and history for millennia, and philosophers and historians today continue to grapple with their ideas and influence. The brilliant and controversial statesman Alcibiades provides a link between the two texts in this course (Plato's Symposium and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War), and we examine the ways in which both authors handle the figure of Alcibiades as a point of entry into the comparison of the varying styles and modes of thought of these two great writers. Suggested Prerequisites: At least 2 years of college Greek or the equivalent.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

CSTS B202 Topics: Advanced Latin Literature

Section 001 (Spring 2024): Literature of the Empire

Spring 2024

In this course typically a variety of Latin prose and poetry of the high and later Roman empire (first to fourth centuries CE) is read. Single or multiple authors may be featured in a given semester. This is a topics course, course content varies. Prerequisite: At least one 200-level Latin course or equivalent.

Current topic description: TBD

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

CSTS B320 Martyrs, Mothers, Memoirs: Medieval Autobiographies

Not offered 2023-24

The writing of autobiography flourished in the middle ages, but there have been very few studies of the genre for the period. This course presents a range of autobiographies from the Latin West and encourages students to think about them theoretically and historically: what does it mean to write the self? what is at stake in the presentation of these stories? what notions are privileged? and how do we situate autobiographies in the wider literary landscape?

Back to top

CSTS B350 Topics in Latin Literature

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Late Latin Poetry
Section 001 (Fall 2023): Latin in Music
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Epigram

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: So much of classical Latin poetry was originally written to be sung, or at least to simulate the effect of singing; Romans were preternaturally attuned to rhythm and pitch even in prose. But the musical tradition that we have inherited really starts with Gregorian chant, and Western tonality and counterpoint expands from there. The course will treat such themes as the motif of song in classical Latin epic and lyric; Ambrose and early hymnic practice; excerpts from grammatical texts that discuss the sound of language (Priscian, Bede, Alcuin) and from treatises on music; the musical writing of Hildegard of Bingen; and case studies of the settings of particular Latin texts-for example, the Stabat Mater, which has garnered such various responses from composers. We shall also be reading excerpts from Wittgenstein's posthumous collection Culture and Value, to help us think about music as a language at the limits of language.

Current topic description: n this seminar we will explore the themes and aesthetics of the Latin epigram, a genre (or is it?) best known for its brevity and wit. After orienting ourselves in the epigrams of the Neoterics (Catullus, Cinna, Calvus, Caesar), our focus will turn to the poetry of Martial, whose accounts of Rome, its inhabitants, and their foibles exerted a profound influence on subsequent epigrammatists. We will consider Martial's poetry both thematically (poems on the city; women; scoundrels; patrons; long poems) and as constituents of organized, multi-faceted libri. To deepen our appreciation of Martial's poetic project, we will take occasional forays into para-epigrammatic genres and works (Priapea, Catalepton), as well as the scattered epigrams of authors both familiar (Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Petronius) and obscure. We will also consider the evolution the epigram from its inscriptional and epitaphic origins in Greek and Latin, and its development as a literary form by Hellenistic authors. In the final two weeks of the course, we will turn our attention to the reception of Martial by late antique (Ausonius, Claudian, Luxorius) and Neo-Latin poets (e.g. Pontano's Baiae, Panormita's Hermaphroditus, Marullo's reception of Catullus, Thomas More, John Owen). Readings in the original will be supplemented with relevant scholarship throughout. Students will enhance their core work on Latin epigram by reading-independently or in small-groups-a complementary genre or author in the original related to their interests (e.g. Greek epigram, Horace' Satires, Latin elegy, carmina epigraphica, Juvenal, Flavian epic, Pliny's Epistles, Christian epigram).

Back to top

CSTS B609 Pindar & Greek Lyric

Not offered 2023-24

We will begin with a careful reading of Pindar's shorter odes, then proceed to his most famous long odes (Olympian 1, Pythian 3, Pythian 1) and then consider interpretative strategies (past, present, and future) as we survey the rest of the odes. One additional hour of reading TBA.

Writing Intensive

Back to top

GSEM B619 Death and Beyond

Fall 2023

The question of what happens after the moment of death has always fascinated humanity - at one moment there is a living person, the next only a corpse; where did the person go? Every culture struggles with these questions of death and afterlife - what does it mean to die and what happens after death? This seminar will examine a variety of types of evidence - archaeological, poetic, and philosophical - to uncover ideas of death and afterlife in some of the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world, with particular attention to the similarities and differences between ideas of death and beyond in the cultures of Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Van Gennep's model of death as a rite de passage provides the basic structure for the class, which is divided into three sections, each concerned with one section of the transition: Dying - leaving the world of the living; Liminality - the transition between the worlds; and Afterlife - existence after death. This anthropological model allows us to analyze the different discourses about death and afterlife.

Back to top

GSEM B624 Greek Tragedy in Performance

Not offered 2023-24

In this seminar we will approach Greek dramatic texts from two angles: theoretically and experientially. On the one hand, we will be reading (in English translation) the tragedies of the three great playwrights of Classical Athens-Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides-while examining their treatment of myth, systems of metaphor and imagery, and the role of the chorus, as well as the relevance of Greek tragedy for subsequent centuries down to the present day. Special attention will be given to such themes as fate and predestination; relation between mortals and immortals; disability; euthanasia; slavery; and the impact of war on women and children. On the other, concurrent with our textual analysis, we will be reading Constantin Stanislavski, Michael Chekhov and other modern theater theorists. We will be applying these acting techniques to the texts in practice (i.e., performing them in class!) as we ask the question, What can be gained from stepping inside the plays and trying them on? No prior acting experience is necessary: just a curiosity about bringing ancient texts to life through the medium of one's body!

Back to top

GSEM B652 Interdepartmental Seminar: History and Memory

Section 001 (Fall 2022): History and Memory

Not offered 2023-24

The seminar will begin by establishing the categories of history and memory, as they have been constituted across the humanistic disciplines, defining and refining the epistemological and ontological distinctions between the two. Readings will be drawn first from the writings of Nietzsche and Freud and then move to the work of Barthes, Caruth, Connerton, Foucault, Guha, Gundaker, La Capra, Margolit, Nora, Sebald, Todorov, and Yerushalmi. Once a grounding context is established, the second half of the seminar will be organized around a set of categories, ranging from the material to the theoretical, through which we will continue our explorations in history and memory, among them, the following: trauma, witness, archive, document, evidence, monument, memorial, relic, trace. It is here that we would each draw specifically on our own disciplinary formations and call upon students to do the same. The seminar would, of course, be open to all students in the graduate group.

Back to top

HART B210 Critical Approaches to Visual Representation: The Classical Tradition

Fall 2023

This course is writing intensive. An investigation of the historical and philosophical ideas of the classical, with particular attention to the Italian Renaissance and the continuance of its formulations throughout the Westernized world. This course was formerly numbered HART B104; students who previously completed HART B104 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Writing Intensive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

PHIL B101 Happiness and Reality in Ancient Thought

Spring 2024

What makes us happy? The wisdom of the ancient world has importantly shaped the tradition of Western thought but in some important respects it has been rejected or forgotten. What is the nature of reality? Can we have knowledge about the world and ourselves, and, if so, how? In this course we explore answers to these sorts of metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and political questions by examining the works of the two central Greek philosophers: Plato and Aristotle. We will consider earlier Greek religious and dramatic writings, a few Presocratic philosophers, and the person of Socrates who never wrote a word.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

PHIL B212 Metaphysics

Not offered 2023-24

Metaphysics is inquiry into basic features of the world and ourselves. This course considers two topics of metaphysics, free will and personal identity, and their relationship. What is free will and are we free? Is freedom compatible with determinism? Does moral responsibility require free will? What makes someone the same person over time? Can a person survive without their body? Is the recognition of others required to be a person?

Writing Intensive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

POLS B224 Comparative Political Phil: China, Greece, and the "West"

Spring 2024

An introduction to the dialogic construction of comparative political philosophy, using texts from several cultures or worlds of thought: ancient and modern China, ancient Greece, and the modern West. The course will have three parts. First, a consideration of the synchronous emergence of philosophy in ancient (Axial Age) China and Greece; second, the 19th century invention of the modern "West" and Chinese responses to this development; and third, the current discussions and debates about globalization, democracy, and human rights now going on in China and the West. Prerequisite: At least one course in either Philosophy, Political Theory, or East Asian Studies, or consent of the instructor.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward International Studies

Back to top

POLS B228 Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ancient and Early Modern

Not offered 2023-24

An introduction to the fundamental problems of political philosophy, especially the relationship between political life and the human good or goods.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top