Classics

This course explores the ancient Greek world through its material culture, covering a time span from the collapse of Mycenaean palatial cultures through to the Classical period. The approach is thematic and topics may include state (polis) formation, colonization and cultural interaction in the Mediterranean, the development of Greek sanctuaries, the archaeology of the Greek countryside, the social and political roles of art and architecture in Archaic and Classical Athens, gender and sexuality, death and society, and archaeology and modern politics.

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate sound geographical knowledge of the Greek world
• Apply visual and spatial skills to the analysis of artefacts, architectural plans and other archaeological diagrams.
• Demonstrate knowledge of primary sources (archaeological, artistic, textual) relevant to the module topics.
• Evaluate the major theoretical approaches, debates and scholarship relevant to the module topics.
• Discuss the above, both orally and in written form, in a clear and scholarly manner.
• Work effectively in small groups.

This course examines issues of gender and sexuality in either the Greek or the Roman world. Students study contrastive portrayals of women and men, ideals of masculinity and femininity, sexual norms and codes, theories about the male and female body, views on marriage, rape, adultery and prostitution, and the relation between art and ‘real life’: what we may deduce from texts and visual sources about the gender roles men and women were expected to play within family and state.

This course explores some of the most dynamic literary and artistic achievements of archaic and classical Greek culture. Using a twin focus on myth and on ideas of community, the course ranges across Homeric epic, Athenian tragedy, Aristophanic comedy, and the writings of intellectuals; it studies the relationship between texts and images in the expression of cultural values; and it examines a series of major themes in Greek views of identity, morality, politics and religion. 

This course examines the period from the fall of the empires of the Bronze Age Near East (ca. 1150 BCE) until the time when the city of Rome began to expand its power into the Mediterranean (ca. 31 BCE), as well as exploring the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt, and the Near East. Students enrolled in this course undertake only the fall semester (semester 1) of the year-long course.

This course offers a study of the politics, society, and culture of the Roman Empire-- the first union of the European world under a single order, a single language, and a single law. 

What is myth? How do myths deal with fundamental human concerns about who we are and the world we live in? What is the relationship between myth and religion? Why did the Greeks and Romans worship many gods, believe in oracles, or perform animal sacrifice? This course is an introduction to the major myths and religions of the classical world using the full range of primary source material: literary, artistic and archaeological. The course CLU11200 is only available to full-year visiting students. 

This course examines how the tragic worldview is expressed in the great dramas of Greek antiquity, such as Aeschylus’ Prometheus, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, and Antigone and Euripides’ Bacchae.  Attention is paid – through the study of the Old Testament book of Job and Marlowe’s Faust – to the continuing importance of the tragic worldview in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Finally, after exploring the political and philosophical conditions that caused the ever-decreasing importance of tragic modes of thought in modern times, the course turns to the remarkable new meaning the tragic legacy of the Greeks took on at the end of the nineteenth century. Through Friedrich Nietzsche’s mightily influential The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music and a series of important works it inspired, it will be shown how the tragic worldview of the Greeks inspired artists to reject the dogmatism of reason and to find beauty, happiness, and truth in the irrational, subconscious and at times dark recesses of the human soul.

This course examines the classical mythology of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It looks at the ways myths found their way into the art and literature of the ancient world and their intersections with other ancient oral genres such as legend and folktale, and with the mythological systems of nearby cultures such as the Persians and Egyptians.