Classics

A broad-sweep survey across of Greek literature. All readings are in translation. Topics included vary slightly from year to year. Authors and genres covered may include the following: Homer; lyric poetry; Herodotus and Thucydides; Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides; Aristophanes; Plato and Aristotle; Hellenistic poetry; and ancient prose fiction. The course provides basic information and a chronological and thematic framework and is intended as an introduction to ancient Greek literature and theoretical approaches to literature. 

Through the reading of a selection of classical Greek and Roman literature in translation, the course aims to introduce the students to some major authors and works of the classical period, and prepare them for the study of English literature.

Using literary sources as well as material evidence (archaeological finds, artwork, inscriptions), this course explores customs, beliefs, institutions, and identities of the early Christians within the social, political, religious, and cultural context of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. The course helps students to think about central questions in the study of early Christianity such as: who were the early Christians? How did they articulate their identities across different languages and in different areas of the late antique world? How and where did they eat, pray, and live? How did they understand their beliefs and interact with the cultures around them? What did their Roman, Greek, or Syrian neighbors think about them? Students reflect on different models of cross-fertilization between emerging early Christian identities and the cultures and religious phenomena which characterized the later stages of the life of the Roman Empire.

This course provides beginners with the foundations of Latin, an ancient and influential European language. Students will learn fundamental aspects of Latin grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) and read simple original Latin texts that will enable students to acquire a substantial vocabulary. Students will start to consider approaches to analysis and translation, and receive a taste of how Latin was used in different literary and non-literary contexts and genres. Latin is famous for its literature (Cicero, Virgil, and others), and this course is the first step towards being able to read that literature in its original form; but Latin was also for many centuries an everyday language spoken by ordinary people, and the students will uncover some of that Latin too.

This course introduces the dramatic performance traditions of the ancient Greek world. Focusing on Athens, students study ancient plays as literary texts and performance scripts and explore elements of poetics, the production of drama such as performance venues (theatres, festivals, games) and the conventions and practicalities of staging, as well as drama’s civic and religious contexts, historical development, and value as source of cultural information. Students critically discuss the content, themes, and structure of the studied plays. Students analyze extracts from and aspects of the studied plays. Students situate the studied plays in their performance contexts and comment on the relevance of these contexts for their understanding. The course also explores the significance of ancient drama for the audiences of selected later restaging, translations, and adaptations, from antiquity to the present day.

This is a special studies course involving an internship with a corporate, public, governmental, or private organization, arranged with the Study Center Director or Liaison Officer. Specific internships vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. A substantial paper or series of reports is required. Units vary depending on the contact hours and method of assessment. The internship may be taken during one or more terms but the units cannot exceed a total of 12.0 for the year.

This is an independent research course with research arranged between the student and faculty member. The specific research topics vary each term and are described on a special project form for each student. A substantial paper is required. The number of units varies with the student’s project, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student’s special study project form.

This course examines a selection of epic poems from ancient Greece and Rome - all studied in translation - to trace the development of the genre from the oral tradition of Homer through the literary composition of later Greek and Latin poets. Authors and texts studied in this course may include Homer, Hesiod, Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Statius. Themes studied may include genre, gender, myth, the gods, destiny, mortality, narrative technique, oral, and literary culture, or paradigms of heroism. Students also reflect on the cultural and political contexts of these works, including differences between Greek and Roman epics.

This course discusses the oldest work in Western Literature, the Iliad, focusing on its historical and cultural background. It then examines the themes and the poetic techniques of early Greek heroic epics.