Classics

The course covers the political and social history of Rome down to Augustus, together with the material culture, monuments, art, literature and thought of the Romans during this period. Lectures cover topics such as early Rome, the conquest of Italy and the Mediterranean, Roman myth and religion, the city of Rome, Roman poetry and drama, the fall of the republic and the Augustan revolution.

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.