Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: FRESHMAN SEMINAR: SOCRATES: THE MAN AND HIS PHILOSOPHY

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This discussion-style seminar will consider how Socrates practiced philosophy, how Plato represented Socrates and Socratic philosophy in writing, and what effect Socrates had on Athens and his fellow Athenians. Readings will consist mainly of Plato's Socratic dialogues, with emphasis on the "Apology" and "Gorgias." In addition to papers, each participant will make one presentation and lead one discussion. This course is limited to first-year students only; any others will be removed from this course. Cross-list: FSEM 101.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF WESTERN ART I: PREHISTORIC TO GOTHIC

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 4

Description: A survey of painting, sculpture, and architecture from Antiquity through the 15th century. Students will also attend a one-hour weekly tutorial with a teaching assistant. Cross-list: HART 101, MDEM 111.

Long Title: THE PARTHENON AND PERIKLEAN ATHENS

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, we will trace the history and mythology of the Parthenon. We begin with the dawn of sacred tradition on the Acropolis, then explore the classical recreation of the city, the conversion of the Parthenon into a church, its subsequent destruction and the current debate over restoration. This course is limited to first-year students only, any others will be removed from this course. Cross-list: ARCH 110, FSEM 113, HART 110.

Long Title: GREEK CIVILIZATION AND ITS LEGACY

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An examination of the literary, artistic, and intellectual achievements of classical Greek civilization from Homer through the golden age of classical Athens to the spread of Greek culture in the Hellenistic world. The influence of ancient Greece on Western culture will be a focus. Case studies in the later reception of classical Greek literature (e.g., tragedy), philosophy (e.g., Socrates), history (e.g., democracy), and art (e.g., The Parthenon) will be examined. Cross-list: HUMA 107.

Long Title: ROMAN CIVILIZATION AND ITS LEGACY

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will investigate central aspects of Roman civilization: politics, religion, law, oratory, private life, public entertainment, literature, and visual art and architecture. We will also examine the place of ancient Rome in the western imagination, and the influence of ancient Rome on later politics, literature, and art. Cross-list: HUMA 111.

Long Title: ROMAN VS GREEK: QUESTIONING THE DEFINITION OF ART IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What's in a name? Apparently a lot. For 500 years--since the Renaissance--scholars have cleaved Roman and Greek art from one another and this division has defined how we think about art in antiquity. In this freshman seminar, we will question this paradigm. Looking at art from around the Mediterranean and reading the very scholarship that has both created these definitions and questioned them, we will work toward a new way of conceiving the art of the Ancient Mediterranean world. This course is limited to first-year students only, any others will be removed from this course. Cross-list: FSEM 179, HART 179.

Long Title: HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY I

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Survey of the major philosophers and philosophical systems of ancient Greece, from Parmenides to the Stoics. Cross-list: MDEM 201, PHIL 201.

Long Title: GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This class explores how the categories of gender and sexuality were defined, represented, replicated, and policed in ancient Greece and Rome. Students will read some of the most famous literature of antiquity, as well as examine art, architecture, and graffiti.

Long Title: GREEK TRAGEDY IN TRANSLATION

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Participants draft short papers (3 pp. double-spaced) weekly and read them aloud in class to receive constructive criticism. A different Greek play provides the focus for discussion and writing each week. No secondary literature, exams or quizzes. The final paper is a revised and extended version of a previously written draft.

Long Title: LOVE LIFE IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Love, sex, marriage and eroticism were important aspects of ancient Greek and Roman culture as they are of our own, though they were sometimes conceived of very differently. In this course we will consider the evidence for various aspects of sexual relationships in poetry, art, inscriptions, philosophy, and more.

Long Title: HOMER AND VIRGIL AND THEIR RECEPTION

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course reads Homer's ILIAD and ODYSSEY and Virgil's AENEID in translation. Topics include the nature of oral poetry, the history of the epic genre, Virgilian intertextuality, the cultural and political contexts in which the poems arose, and case studies in the poets' reception.

Long Title: WOMEN IN GREECE AND ROME

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Survey of the depiction of women in Greek and Roman mythology, literature, and art. Includes a study of the lives of Greek and Roman women as evidenced by archaeological as well as literary materials. Cross-list: SWGS 225.

Long Title: CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY: INTERPRETATION, ORIGINS, AND INFLUENCE

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: We will read and analyze some of the most influential Greek myths (including their parallels and permutations in other cultures). Employing insights from a variety of theoretical approaches to myth, we will identify typical story patterns, characters, and events, and the values, anxieties, and aspirations for which they stand.

Long Title: ART AND POLITICS IN ANCIENT ROME

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, you will learn to navigate the testy waters of artistic and political design in ancient Rome, when monumental architecture and exquisite art was often created for personal gain. Throughout the semester we will explore how would-be rulers used visual culture for professional self-aggrandizement. Cross-list: HART 214.

Long Title: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS IN ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY AND MODERN FILM

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Aristotle's seminal account of tragic drama still intrigues screenwriters, theatre students, and literary scholars - who often disagree about its interpretation and relevance. In this discussion-based course we will read the Poetics closely (in translation), compare specific Greek tragedies with Aristotle's model, and evaluate the model's usefulness for modern film criticism.

Long Title: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Topics in the history of philosophy from the 4th century B.C. through the 14th century. Graduate students require permission of instructor. Cross-list: MDEM 301, PHIL 301. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for CLAS 301 if student has credit for MDEM 481. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: THE DAWN OF ROME: GENERATING THE URBAN, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE OF THE ETERNAL CITY

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course you will uncover the roots of the Eternal City, Rome. Through analysis of archaeological remains, art historical methodologies and theories of social space, intentionality, structuration and agency, you will question how and why Rome became a city and a culture the reshaped the world. The course will focus on the first 500 years of Roman art and society, ca. 800-300 BCE, looking closely at the kingship of Rome, the genesis of the Roman Republic, and the ability to understand a distant culture through artistic manufacture, materiality and philosophical shift. Cross-list: HART 309.

Long Title: THE INVENTION OF PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This interdisciplinary course examines the development of the concept of "paganism" in the Roman empire during the first through seventh centuries AD. We will examine the mutually tolerant character of the many religions of the Roman world and see how the category of paganism was invented and applied by Christians to all the polytheists of the empire and beyond. Cross-list: HIST 316.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS IN ANCIENT ART

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will introduce you to the major monuments of Rome, Pompeii, and Herculaneum. We will focus not only on the history and functions of these monuments in antiquity but also on how their meaning and representation has changed and evolved in the post-classical world. Instructor Permission Required.Cross-list: HART 318. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: (RE)DEFINING (CLASSICAL) ART HISTORY: DIVISION, CONNECTIVITY AND SHIFT IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: For 500 years scholars have cleaved Roman and Greek art from one another in order to define the heart of antiquity. The scholarship that created such division is the very scholarship that created the discipline of Art History and redefined it through iconographical, social historical and broadly theoretical analysis: Windelmann, Droysen, Brendel, Deleuze, Gell. In this seminar, we will question the disciplinary paradigm. Looking at art from around the Mediterranean and reading the very scholarship that has both created these definitions and questioned them, we will work toward a new way of conceiving the art of the Ancient Mediterranean world. Cross-list: HART 369.

Long Title: THE GENESIS OF ROMAN ART

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the roots of the art and architecture of ancient Rome (ca. 600-200 BCE). In it we will examine the earliest vestiges of sculpture, painting and architecture from the Archaic and Classical periods to the twisted forms of Hellenistic conquest. You will grapple with the questions of cultural agency, connoisseurship, cultural interaction, network and object theories and spatial imagination to question standard narratives that divide Rome in this time from neighboring Greek polities.

Long Title: MATERIAL, FORM, SPACE, TIME: CONCRETE AND THE REVOLUTION OF SPACE IN ANCIENT ROME

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: "Architectural Revolution" has been tied to Le Corbusier, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Brunelleschi and to towering Gothic cathedrals. At the foundation of all these endeavors is the Concrete Revolution in Roman Architecture. In this course we'll look at the four essential elements of this revolution from the fourth century BCE to the fifth century CE, and we'll investigate how shifts in application and experience created a background that informs design to this day. Cross-list: ARCH 326, HART 326.

Long Title: INTRO TO INDO-EUROPEAN

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will begin with a brief survey of the Indo-European languages, followed by a detailed reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European phonology, morphology, and syntax. The second half of the course will deal with Indo-European culture, laws, society and poetics, together with a consideration of advanced topics in the individual branches. Cross-list: LING 336.

Long Title: ARCHITECTURE AND DYNASTY IN THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Nero is often remembered as the tyrannical emperor who let the city burn and gorged on ill-gotten luxury; his successors are conceived as good emperors who built the Coliseum, Imperial Palace and the vast majority of Rome's remaining monuments. In this course you will question whether things were so straightforward. Cross-list: HART 410.

Long Title: CAESAR'S PALACE: AUTHOR(ITY) AND MEANING IN THE ROMAN IMPERIAL RESIDENCE

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Described as both a “Hall of Despotism” and a “Citadel of Majesty,” the palace of the Roman emperors is one of the great enigmas of antiquity. Its vast remains (larger than Versailles) are relatively well preserved, but it is poorly understood as part of the concept of emperorship. In this course we will examine the palace within the context of Imperial Roman art and politics; then we will dissect its meaning(s), the intentions of those who created it, and generally deconstruct it, brick by brick, to question agency and spatial experience from a macro-historical perspective. Cross-list: HART 482.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Independent work. Instructor Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Independent work. Instructor Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: SENIOR THESIS

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Open to Classical Studies majors in their final year. Thesis, approximately 7,500-15,000 words (30-60 pages), on a topic of the student's choice in consultation with a faculty member. CLAS 493 and CLAS 494 form a two semester sequence. Requirements for 493 include a detailed prospectus with annotated bibliography. Instructor Permission Required.

Long Title: SENIOR THESIS

Department: Classical Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): CLAS 493

Description: Continuation of CLAS 493. Open to Classical Studies majors in their final year. Thesis, approximately 7,500-15,000 words (30-60 pages), on a topic of the student's choice in consultation with a faculty member. Instructor Permission Required.