Classics

The course is an introduction to the study of Greek mythology in its literary, social, historical, and philosophical context. It introduces students to leading concepts and persons of Greek mythology, which form an important foundation of Greek art, literature, and ideas. Everyone is fascinated by Greek myths: but how did these extraordinary stories arise? What was their purpose? Did the Greeks really believe them and what are our sources for them? What is the connection between myth, society and politics? What is the relationship between mythical texts and myth in art? This course looks at a range of Greek myths and suggests some answers to these questions. 

This course introduces students to several foundational traditions of thought in Greek and Roman philosophy. Authors or movements covered may include the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism, and Epicureanism. Among its themes is the nature of reality, its relation to human thought and language, the purpose of life, and the way to happiness.

This course examines the nature and uses of Greek mythology in ancient Greek literature and art.

In antiquity, the city as idea and as experience provided a central trope for Greeks and Romans to think about their place in the world, their social and political organization, the relationship between culture and nature, self and other, morality, and history. This course focuses particularly on the presence of urban everyday life in classical literature and asks students to explore ancient representations through the lenses of cultural history and current critical approaches to the city. Our starting point is to think about what is ‘natural’ to us and put it at a critical distance: the ways in which the city has featured in literature and film in modernity. Students proceed to explore the extent to which these modern representations and their cultural context find antecedents in antiquity. Students pay special attention to urban space (house/home, street, theater, baths and barbershops) as well as time and occasion (city at night, erotic city, landscapes of disaster, routine).