Classical Studies

CLS 217/ ARH 217 Greek Art and Archaeology (4 Credits)

Offered as CLS 217 and ARH 217. This course is a contextual examination of the art and architecture of Ancient Greece, from the end of the Bronze Age through the domination of Greece by Rome (ca. 1100-168 BCE) and handles an array of settlements, cemeteries and ritual sites. It tracks the development of the Greek city-state and the increasing power of the Greeks in the Mediterranean, culminating in the major diaspora of Greek culture accompanying the campaigns of Alexander the Great and his followers. The course takes a broadly chronological approach, and the question of a unified Greek culture is stressed. Continuing archaeological work is considered. {A}{H}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

CLS 218 Hellenistic Art and Archaeology (4 Credits)

This course examines the art, architecture and material culture of the Hellenistic period, spanning the years from 323 to 31 BCE and representing one of the most exciting and dynamic eras of Greek history. Beginning with the expansionist campaign of Alexander the Great and ending with the conquests of the future emperor Augustus, it is a time of fast-paced change, experimentation and diversity. In addition to examining the archaeology of this period, the course explores ideas about the accessibility of archaeological material and how this may be facilitated through digital collections and virtual reconstructions. {A}{H}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

CLS 221 From Sacrifice to Subject: Animals in Ancient Greece & Rome (4 Credits)

This course investigates the history of non-human animals in the literature and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome. Students explore animals as they appear as food, tools, companions, entertainment, and symbols across a range of Greek and Latin texts, including Homer, Aristotle, Ovid, Pliny, and others. Ancient literature is supplemented with readings and discussion on modern theories of animal studies and posthumanism as the course investigates how different thinkers and traditions across times and cultures have addressed “the question of animal.” What really differentiates humans from other species and why is thinking about animals so crucial to human cultures? {H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

CLS 223/ WLT 223 Myth in Epic: Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome (4 Credits)

Offered as CLS 225 and THE 225. This course explores mythological epics from Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome with a focus on creation narratives, conceptions of the divine, and the hero’s journey. Students engage with theories of myth’s origins and social functions and trace mythmaking strategies and motifs across time and space. How do definitions of “god,” “hero,” and “epic” change from one culture to another? What impact do gender and social status have on heroism? How did epic poetry develop, and why do ancient epics still matter today? Readings include the Atrahasis, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Apollonius’ Argonautica, and Vergil’s Aeneid. {A}{H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

CLS 225/ THE 225 Myth and Theater in Ancient Greece and Rome (4 Credits)

Offered as CLS 225 and THE 225. This course explores Greek mythology through its adaptation on the dramatic stage. While myths provided the core characters and plots for many Greek and Latin plays, ancient drama is far more than transcriptions of traditional tales. Beginning with Aristotle’s theories and early Greek performance genres, readings trace the development of tragedy and comedy through the major works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, and Seneca. Students engage with both ancient and modern performance contexts, as well as theories of myth and adaptation, to explore how myths as performed on stage address ideas, events, and institutions across eras and cultures. {A}{H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

CLS 227 Classical Mythology (4 Credits)

The principal myths as they appear in Greek and Roman literature, seen against the background of ancient culture and religion. Focus on creation myths, the structure and function of the Olympian pantheon, the Troy cycle and artistic paradigms of the hero. Some attention to modern retellings and artistic representations of ancient myths. {A}{L}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

CLS 233 Gender and Sexuality in Greco-Roman Culture (4 Credits)

The construction of gender, sexuality, and erotic experience is one of the major sites of difference between Greco-Roman culture and our own. What constituted a proper man and a proper woman in these ancient societies? Which sexual practices and objects of desire were socially sanctioned and which considered deviant? What ancient modes of thinking about these issues have persisted into the modern world? Attention to the status of women; the role of social class; the ways in which genre and convention shaped representation; the relationship between representation and reality. {H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

CLS 237 Artifacts of Daily Life in the Ancient Mediterranean (4 Credits)

This course uses the artifacts of the Van Buren Antiquities Collection as a starting point for investigating the daily life of the Greek and Roman worlds. In particular, students select and research an object or objects for which to develop an "object biography," through which the people who produced, used, and re-used these objects might be accessed. Additional attention is given to the place of objects in archaeological practice and narratives. Enrollment limited to 10. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

CLS 238 The Age of Heroes: Archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age (4 Credits)

The Mediterranean Bronze Age is often associated with mythological events like the Trojan War. But how did the people of the Bronze Age actually live? This course surveys the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, including Egypt and the Aegean, among others, from 3000 to 1100 BCE. The course explores not only the pyramids and palaces of the period, but also the evidence for day-to-day living, from crafts production to religion. The class also examines how these cultures interacted and the Mediterranean networks that both allowed them to flourish and led to their collapse. Enrollment limited to 40. {A}{H}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

CLS 400 Special Studies (1-4 Credits)

For majors, minors and advanced students. Prerequisites: Three classics or other courses on the ancient world and two intermediate courses in Greek or Latin. Instructor permission required.

Fall, Spring

CLS 430D Honors Project (4 Credits)

Department permission required.

Fall, Spring

GRK 100Y Elementary Greek (5 Credits)

A year-long course in the fundamentals of Attic Greek, the dialect of Greek spoken in antiquity in the region of Attica and its capital, Athens, and used by canonical writers such as the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, the historian Thucydides and the philosopher Plato. This course prepares students to read the works of these authors and a wide range of others through a combination of grammatical study, composition and graded reading practice, while learning about the history and culture of classical Greece. It also prepares them to make the transition to both the early Greek of Homeric epic and the later Greek (koine) of the New Testament. This course cannot be divided at midyear with credit for the first semester.

Fall, Spring, Annually

GRK 200X Greek Prose and Poetry (4 Credits)

Offered as GRK 200X and GRK 300X. Students should take GRK 200X first. This course explores Greek prose and poetry from the Archaic and Classical periods, such as Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, and Lysias, with attention to linguistic differences over time and region. Students consider themes and topics such as the connection between myth and history, the formation of pan-Hellenic identity, and the relationship between the individual and society. Includes a systematic review of grammar fundamentals, while GRK 300 develops students’ research skills through engagement with modern scholarship and close interpretive analysis of ancient sources. Prerequisite: GRK 100Y or equivalent. {F}{L}

Fall, Variable

GRK 300X Greek Prose and Poetry (4 Credits)

Offered as GRK 200X and GRK 300X. Students should take GRK 200X first. This course explores Greek prose and poetry from the Archaic and Classical periods, such as Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, and Lysias, with attention to linguistic differences over time and region. Students consider themes and topics such as the connection between myth and history, the formation of pan-Hellenic identity, and the relationship between the individual and society. GRK 200 includes a systematic review of grammar fundamentals, while GRK 300 develops students’ research skills through engagement with modern scholarship and close interpretive analysis of ancient sources. Prerequisite: GRK 200X or equivalent. {F}{L}

Fall, Variable

GRK 400 Special Studies (1-4 Credits)

For majors and honors students. Prerequisites: Four advanced courses in Greek. Instructor permission required.

Fall, Spring

GRK 430D Honors Project (4 Credits)

Department permission required.

Fall, Spring

LAT 100Y Elementary Latin (5 Credits)

The Latin language has had an extraordinarily long life, from ancient Rome through the Middle Ages to nineteenth-century Europe, where it remained the language of scholarship and science. Even today it survives in the Romance languages that grew out of it and in the countless English words derived from Latin roots. This course prepares students to read Latin texts in any period or area of interest through a study of the fundamentals of classical Latin grammar and through practice in reading from a range of Latin authors. Some attention is also given to Roman culture and Latin literary history. This is a full-year course and cannot be divided at midyear with credit for the first semester. Enrollment limited to 30.

Fall, Spring, Annually

LAT 212 Introduction to Latin Prose and Poetry (4 Credits)

Practice and improvement of reading skills through the study of a selection of texts in prose and verse. Systematic review of fundamentals of grammar. Prerequisite: LAT 100Y or equivalent. {F}{L}

Fall

LAT 214 Introduction to Latin Literature in the Augustan Age (4 Credits)

An introduction to the "Golden Age" of Latin literature which flourished under Rome's first emperor. Reading and discussion of authors exemplifying a range of genres and perspectives such as Virgil, Ovid and Horace, with attention to the political and cultural context of their work and to the relationship between literary production and the Augustan regime and its program. Practice in research skills and in reading, evaluating and producing critical essays. Prerequisite: LAT 212 or equivalent. {F}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

LAT 330ms Topics: Advanced Readings in Latin Literature-Martial and Statius (4 Credits)

The poetry of Martial and Statius offers glimpses of life in Rome under the emperor Domitian, who ruled from 81 to 96 C.E. Students read selections from Martial’s Epigrams, Statius’ Silvae, and modern scholarship, and explore issues of patronage, censorship, flattery, and artistic freedom. Domitian has gone down in history as a wicked tyrant, so did Martial and Statius really mean the flattering things they wrote? How much control did the imperial court have over literature—and when does literature become propaganda? What can the Epigrams and Silvae reveal about the relationship between class, gender, and power under Domitian? Prerequisite: LAT 214, or equivalent. {F}{H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

LAT 330rc Topics: Advanced Readings in Latin Literature-Roman Comedy (4 Credits)

Roman comedies feature a range of stock characters, from enamored youngsters and braggart soldiers to resourceful sex workers and angry matrons. Students read selections from Plautus and/or Terence in Latin alongside modern scholarship in English and explore the original performance context of Roman drama. Key course questions include: What is humor, and are Plautus and Terence still funny today? How do Roman comedies reflect cultural perceptions of social status, gender, and ethnicity? Can these comedies–mostly set in Greece–say anything about the historical reality of Republican Rome? Attention is also paid to linguistic registers, especially to colloquial Latin. Prerequisite: LAT 212 or equivalent. {F}{H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

LAT 330rn Topics: Advanced Readings in Latin Literature-The Roman Novel (4 Credits)

Though the genre of the novel is usually identified with the modern era, many argue that its origins lie in works of prose fiction by Greek and Roman authors. This course examines the two such Latin works that survive, the Satyricon of Petronius, arbiter elegantiae in the court of Nero, and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, a provincial form of what is now Algeria writing in age of the Antonines. Discussions include the genesis and features of the genre; literary precedents and literary allusion; prose style; and how the distinctive cultural background of each work frames the worlds that they conjure. Prerequisite: LAT 214 or equivalent. {F}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

LAT 330ve Topics: Advanced Readings in Latin Literature-Vergil, Eclogues and Georgics (4 Credits)

Before he produced ancient Rome’s greatest work of literature, the Aeneid, the young poet Vergil began his career with two very different works: the Eclogues, a collection of ten short pastoral poems, and the Georgics, a learned instructional poem ostensibly about agriculture. Through close readings of the Latin, translations and modern scholarship, the course explores major stylistic and thematic elements of each work, such as: how they depict the natural world, how they interact with Greek and Latin poetic models, and how they speak to the shifting cultural and political landscape of Rome as it transitions into the Augustan Age. Prerequisites: One intermediate Latin course. {F}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

LAT 400 Special Studies (1-4 Credits)

For majors and honors students. Prerequisites: Four advanced courses in Latin. Instructor permission required.

Fall, Spring

LAT 430D Honors Project (4 Credits)

Department permission required.

Fall, Spring