11 - 20 of 32 results for: CLASSICS

Why do imperialists conquer people? Why do some people resist while others collaborate? This course tries to answer these questions by looking at some of the world's earliest empires. The main focus is on the expansion of the Assyrian and Persian Empires between 900 and 300 BC and the consequences for the ancient Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks. The main readings come from the Bible, Herodotus, and Assyrian and Persian royal inscriptions, and the course combines historical and archaeological data with social scientific approaches. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required.

Advanced Greek class on the poet Theocritus, the Hellenistic poet who invented the pastoral genre. Most of the class will be spent translating his poems. Discussion of the poems with readings of secondary scholarship will also be included. Virgil's Eclogues which were modeled on Theocritus' Idylls will be read in translation, but not in Latin. Other Greek pastoral poets like Bion and Moschus may be read if time permits. Readings of Theocritus out loud and in meter will be encouraged, but this will not be the main focus of the class. Grad students are welcome in the class and can write a paper for extra units. No paper required for undergrads. Classics majors and minors must take course for letter grade. Classics majors and minors may repeat for credit with advance approval from the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Books I-V of Livy's monumental History of Rome blend myth, legend, and historical truth to recount the period 'from the founding of the city' to the Gallic Sack in 390/387 BCE. In this course, we will examine large sections of Book I concerning the brothers Romulus and Remus, the kings of the Roman monarchy, and the fall of the Tarquins, as well as key episodes from Books II-V: the foundation of the Republic, the conflict of the orders, and Rome's wars with Latins, Etruscans, and Celts. Concurrently, we will discuss the purpose of Livy's composition, its value as a historical source, the circumstances of its production, and the narrative strategies employed by Livy. The course aims to improve reading fluency, and we will review grammar and vocabulary as necessary. Classics majors and minors must take for a letter grade and may repeat for degree credit with advance approval from the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

This course explores controversial artworks and artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum which have been historically deemed as "erotic" and "pornographic," from wall paintings displaying sexual intercourse to ornaments in the shape of winged phalluses. Students learn about the early excavations of this material, the invention of the word "pornography," and the history of the "Secret Cabinet" in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, where items deemed too sensitive for the public eye were locked away for decades in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through this, we consider and engage with our own changing societal values surrounding such themes and objects. Students also learn and engage with multiple methodological and theoretical approaches that have been used to analyze "erotic" wall paintings and artifacts, including but not limited to psychoanalysis, "male gaze" theory, queer theory, and master-slave narratives.

Long-term, comparative and archaeological view of urban planning and design. Cities are the fastest changing components of the human landscape and are challenging our relationships with nature. They are the historical loci of innovation and change, are cultural hotspots, and present a tremendous challenge through growth, industrial development, the consumption of goods and materials. We will unpack such topics by tracking the genealogy of qualities of life in the ancient Near Eastern city states and those of Graeco-Roman antiquity, with reference also to prehistoric built environments and cities in the Indus Valley and through the Americas. The class takes an explicitly human-centered view of urban design and one that emphasizes long term processes.

The class considers the development of Greek art from 1000-480 and poses the question, how Greek was Greek art? In the beginning, as Greece emerges from 200 years of Dark Ages, their art is cautious, conservative and more abstract than life-like, closer to Calder than Michelangelo. While Homer describes the rippling muscles (and egos) of Bronze Age heroes, his fellow painters and sculptors prefer abstraction. This changes in the 7th century, when travel to and trade with the Near East transform Greek culture. What had been an insular society becomes cosmopolitan, enriched by the sophisticated artistic traditions of lands beyond the Aegean "frog pond." Imported Near Eastern bronzes and ivories awaken Greek artists to a wider range of subjects, techniques and ambitions. Later in the century, Greeks in Egypt learn to quarry and carve hard stone from Egyptian masters. Throughout the 6th century, Greek artists absorb what they had borrowed, compete with one another, defy their teachers, test the tolerance of the gods and eventually produce works of art that speak with a Greek accent. By the end of the archaic period, images of gods and mortals bear little trace of alien influence or imprint, yet without the contributions of Egypt and the Near East, Greek art as we know it would have been unthinkable.

The seminar examines a range of topics devoted to the makers of Greek art and artifacts, the men and women who used them in life and the afterlife, and the miscreants - from Lord Elgin to contemporary tomb-looters and dealers - whose deeds have damaged, deracinated and desecrated temples, sculptures and grave goods. Readings include ancient texts in translation, books and articles by classicists and art historians, legal texts and lively page-turners. Students will discuss weekly readings, give brief slide lectures and a final presentation on a topic of their choice, which need not be confined to the ancient Mediterranean.

In this course we learn to read Medieval Greek manuscripts, concentrating on the most exciting of them all: the Archimedes Palimpsest. We begin by learning the Greek mathematical language, through a brief reading of Euclid. Following that, we learn how to read Euclid from manuscript and, following that, we proceed to read the Archimedes palimpsest itself. Course requires one year of Greek.

From street names to monuments, the material sediments of colonial time can be seen, heard, and felt in the diverse cultural archives of ancient and contemporary Africa. This seminar aims to examine the role of ethnographic practice in the political agendas of past and present African nations. In the quest to reconstruct an imaginary of Africa in space and time, students will explore these social constructs in light of the rise of archaeology during the height of European empire and colonization. Particularly in the last 50 years, revived interest in African cultural heritage and preservation raises complex questions about the problematic tensions between European, American, and African theories of archaeological and ethnographic practice.