Fall 2008 Courses

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Courses
Professor
Schedule

Classical Language Courses
CLSL 001 - Latin I
 Nesholm MTWR 1:15-2:05
Slatin MTWR 11:15-12:05
Osgood MTWR 1:15-2:05
CLSL 249 - Ovid
 Noussia TR 1:15-2:30
CLSL 264 - Roman Elegy
 Nesholm MW 4:15-5:30
Osgood TR 4:15-5:30
CLSG 001 - Ancient Greek I
 Sens MTWR 12:15-1:05
Slatin MTWR 12:15-1:05
CLSG 210 - Greek Hymns
 Noussia TR 2:40-3:55
Classical Studies Courses
Keesling TR 4:15-5:30
Sens MW 2:40-3:55
Nitschke TR 2:40-3:55
Noussia TR 5:40-6:55
Slatin TR 4:15-5:30
CLSS 221 - The Trogan War
 Nesholm MW 10:15-11:30
Nitschke M 4:15-6:55
Parara MW 1:15-2:30

 

Descriptions

CLSL 001 Latin I
An intensive introduction to the Latin language and the culture of the ancient Romans. Readings and composition exercises will focus on the acquisition of solid reading skills. At the same time, the study of Latin will enlarge students' English vocabulary and their understanding of the structures of their own language.
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CLSL 101 Intermediate Latin
This class, for students with one year of college Latin or the equivalent, combines review of Latin grammar with continuous reading of what must be Cicero's most amusing speech, the Pro Caelio. While aimed primarily to teach students practical strategies for reading Latin prose, this course also introduces the day-to-day life of late Republican Rome's high society.
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CLSL 249 Ovid
An anthologic reading of the "Metamorphoses"; topics include love romances, gods and humans, Ovid’s Homer, emotions. Emphasis will be given on allusion, intertextuality, and narratology as tools of approaching the "Metamorphoses". In addition to the primary and secondary readings assigned for each class meeting, 
there will be two exams, a paper and a final essay question. Students will also be asked 
to prepare brief reports consisting of a close reading of a passage selected from the material assigned. They should also read on their own all portions of the text not covered in Latin in English.
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CLSL 264 - Roman Elegy
In this course we will explore Roman love elegy through a reading of select poems of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. We will consider such issues as the development of the genre, conventions and innovations, the representation of love, gender, the Augustan context we will supplement our investigations with readings from contemporary scholarship.
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CLSL 311 Advanced Latin Reading - The Arch-Conspirator
In 63 BC, Cicero, serving as consul of Rome, uncovered a plot by the dissolute nobleman Catiline to set fire to the City and overthrow the government. Or so, anyway, Cicero told everyone at the time, and for the remaining twenty years of his life. Catiline, whatever his true significance, was established as the paradigmatic traitor of Roman history, an evil man but also one dangerously attractive. Later writers wrote the story of this ambiguous figure anew, or used him as a template to describe others. In this class, we examine Cicero’s literary crusade, possible influences on it, and its ramifications through the later history of Latin literature. Other authors to be treated include Sallust, Livy, Vergil, Lucan, and Tacitus. Attention also will be paid to the reinvention of Catiline in medieval and Renaissancehumanistic writing as a worthy model of defiance in the face of absolutist authority.
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CLSG 001 Ancient Greek I
An intensive introduction to the ancient Greek language with primary emphasis on the acquisition of reading skills. Drills in grammar and syntax. Programmed reading selections from a variety of ancient authors.
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CLSG 101 Intermediate Ancient Greek
After reviewing the fundamentals of Greek morphology and syntax, students read representative classical texts.
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CLSG 210 - Greek Hymns
The aim of this course is to achieve a thorough knowledge of ancient Greek Hymns
through a survey of the extant remains with particular attention to diction,
compositional technique, and style. Students will also become familiar with current
methodological and critical approaches to performance, ritual and literature, as well
as the religious discourse of the polis by reading selections from the secondary literature.
The course is intended to impart an appreciation of the variety within the genre as a whole.
In addition to the primary and secondary readings assigned for each class meeting,
there will be two exams, a paper and a final essay question. Students will also be asked
to prepare brief reports consisting of a close reading of some Hymns selected from the
material assigned. They should also read on their own all portions of the text not
covered in Greek in English.
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CLSS 110 Intro to Greek Archaeology
*Readings in English*
This course examines the techniques and methods of Classical Archaeology as revealed through an examination of Greek material culture. Study and discussion focus on the major monuments and artifacts of the Greek World from Prehistory to the Hellenistic Age. Architecture, sculpture, fresco painting, and the 'minor arts' are examined at such sights as Knossos, Mycenae, Athens, Delphi, and Olympia. We consider the nature of this archaeological evidence, and the relationship of Classical Archaeology, to other disciplines such as Art History, History, and the Classical Languages.
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CLSS 150 Intro to Greek Lit.
This course surveys ancient Greek literature from the archaic period down to the Roman period (c. 750 BC-400 AD), with special attention to authors such as Hesiod, Homer, Sappho, Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Callimachus and Theocritus. In particular, the course will focus on the features of various prose and poetic genres such as epic, hymn, tragedy, comedy, history, dialogue and pastoral. A central theme of the course will be the profound importance of the Homeric poems (both the Iliad and Odyssey) as both works of art in their own right and culturally definitive artifacts, and we will consider in detail what various various Greek reactions to and interpretations of these poems reveal about the culture and literary history of the ancient world.
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CLSS 215 Religious Conflict in the Roman Empire
The Mediterranean world and the Near East under the Roman and Byzantine empires (and to a certain extent the Sassanian empire of Iran as well) served as the backdrop for the rise and development of the world's three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This course traces the development and history of these religions in the context of the Greco-Roman world out of which they emerged and with which they frequently came into conflict. The time period to be covered falls roughly between 200 BC and AD 700, although emphasis will be given to events and movements occurring between 50 BC and AD 400. Among the topics to be covered: the conflict between the Jews and Macedonian and Roman authorities; the development and spread of Christianity and its struggles with the Jews and especially the Roman state; the conflict between monotheism and the traditions of Greco-Roman civilization; conflicting ideological movements within Judaism and early Christianity; persecution and violence motivated by religious belief; the fate of "pagan" religious traditions; non-Abrahamic philosophies and religions such as Manachaeism and Zoroastrianism; the spread of Islam; notions of orthodoxy, heresy, holy war, and martyrdom.

Course requirements include active participation in all class discussions; two papers (7 pages and 10 pages, respectively); and a cumulative final exam. Weekly reading loads will average between 50 and 100 pages; special attention will be given to the close reading and critical analysis of ancient texts, including selections from the following: the Old Testament, Apocrypha (e.g. Maccabees, Daniel), Greco-Roman writers (e.g. Josephus, Tacitus, Cicero, Diodorus, Cassius Dio, Pliny, Philo of Alexandria), the New Testament, the Gnostic gospels, letters and edicts of political leaders (e.g. emperors Claudius and Trajan), the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene fathers (e.g. Ambrose, Eusebius), the martyr narratives, Christian Apologia, and Manichaean and Zoroastrian texts, among others.
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CLSS 218 Women in Antiquity
*Readings in English*
This course examines the lives of women in the ancient Greek and Roman world as these can be reconstructed through ancient literary, historical, and philosophic sources, as well as natural remains. Since very little of this evidence is from women themselves, we also consider the problem of a reconstruction that must be based on the perceptions and biases of (male) others. Readings include ancient texts in translation and critical theory. Grades will be based on class performance, quizzes, midterm, final and a piece of written work, ideally with original ideas/research.
Image
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CLSS 219 - Socrates and his Legacy
Who was Socrates? This question is not as easy to answer as you might suppose for a figure of such world-historical significance, whose name is known to everyone. Part of the problem is that Socrates himself wrote nothing, and so we are dependent upon literary works by Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes for our understanding of who he was. Yet more intriguing than the quest for the historical Socrates is the question of why this individual – whoever he really was – has exercised such an enduring fascination over thinkers from ancient times to the present, inspiring literature, philosophy, and entire ways of life. This course will be devoted to exploring Socrates’ literary and philosophical legacy. We will meet him as a character in ancient philosophical dialogues and in comedy, as a formative influence on Platonic metaphysics, as a paradigm for Cynic and Stoic lives, and finally as a nemesis for Nietzsche.
One term paper (12-15 pages) + final exam.
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CLSS 221 The Trojan War
*Readings in English*
In this course, we will read literature about the Trojan War, beginning with Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, selections of lyric poetry, and several tragedies; we will then consider how Roman authors, including Vergil, Ovid, and Seneca, adopted and adapted the myth to their own cultural and aesthetic purposes. We will consider such themes as heroism, love, betrayal, suffering, memory, identity that define this mythical war as we investigate the relationship between divinity and humanity, history and mythology, the authority and flexibility of myth, and why the Trojan War has been such a popular subject for so many artists and writers.
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CLSS 240 - Power/Image/Propaganda
In this seminar we will examine expressions of power in representational art and architecture in the ancient world, including the manipulation of images by ruling classes for purposes of propaganda and political legacy. We will examine how these ambitions impacted the development of certain artistic and architectural canons, how propaganda in art and architecture affected society and historical events in return, and how our own preconceptions and modern concerns about propaganda, media, and political manipulation color modern approaches to ancient culture. This semester, the focus will be on the Roman Empire and the role that imagery and material culture played in communicating imperial message, disseminating Roman ideals, and unifying the empire. At the same time, due attention will be given to the imagery of earlier empires for the purposes of comparative study, including Macedonian, Assyrian, Achaemenid Persian, and Athenian imperial art and building. Weekly topics will include the following: the nature and meaning of propaganda; pictorial narrative and the creation/manipulation of history; the meaning of violence in art; damnatio memoriae; coins as propaganda; the Augustan building program; the role of art and building in the spread of 'Romanization'; portraiture as a means of communicating ruler ideology; conceptions and representations of the enemy; the reception of art; the transformation of imperial art following the rise of Christianity as the official religion of the empire.

Format: Weekly meetings will be devoted to the discussion of images, relevant ancient texts, and scholarly literature. Reading assignments will average 80 – 125 pages per week. Students will be required to give regular short (5 min.) presentations on assigned reading, and success in the course will be contingent on active, regular participation in all class discussions. Further requirements include a book review, a formal presentation (ca. 20 minutes), and a research paper (ca. 20 pages).
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CLSS 262 Greek Tragedy and Politics
The course focuses upon the political analysis of Greek tragedy. It discusses how closely the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides mirror the political culture of the "polis". The fact that each tragedy was presented once to the whole citizenry indicates the specific gravity of that event. Additional readings from historiography and philosophy will introduce students to the political thought of the city state of Athens in the fifth century.
Course Syllabus
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