81 - 90 of 151 results for: CLASSICS

Chronological survey of Byzantine, Islamic, and Western Medieval art and architecture from the early Christian period to the Gothic age. Broad art-historical developments and more detailed examinations of individual monuments and works of art. Topics include devotional art, court and monastic culture, relics and the cult of saints, pilgrimage and crusades, and the rise of cities and cathedrals.

By employing a methodology based in psychoacoustics, semiotics, and phenomenology, this course explores the relationship among sound, water, marble, meaning, and religious experience in the sixth-century church of HagianSophia built by emperor Justinian in Constantinople. We will read medieval sources describing the interior and ritual, make short movies exploring the shimmer of marble in buildings on campus, and study the acoustics of domed buildings through computer auralization done at Stanford's CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics)

This course presents a comparative study of Christian and Islamic paradigms (sixth to the thirteenth centuries) in the construction of religious experience through the material fabric of the building, the interior decor, objects, and rituals. We will read medieval ekphrastic texts and poetry, which stirred the viewer/participant to experience the building/object as animate. Among the sites we will study are: Hagia Sophia, the Ka'ba, the Dome of teh Rock, the Mosque at Damascus and at Cordoba. We will read Byzantine and Arabic writers such as Paul the Silentiary, Patriarch Germanos, Maximus Confessor, Shahrawardi, and Ibn Arabi.

Onassis Seminar "Icons of Sound: Architecture, Acoustics and Ritual in Byzantium". This year-long seminar explores the creation and operations of sacred space in Byzantium by focusing on the intersection of architecture, acoustics, music, and ritual. Through the support of the Onassis Foundation (USA), nine leading scholars in the field share their research and conduct the discussion of their pre-circulated papers. The goal is to develop a new interpretive framework for the study of religious experience and assemble the research tools needed for work in this interdisciplinary field.

In numismatics, as in all other disciplines dealing with documentary sources of the ancient world (like epigraphy and papyrology), it is essential to work hands-on with the primary material. This course, an optional accompaniment to the graduate seminar in ancient numismatics, will focus on practical work with ancient coins from the collection at the Cantor Arts Center: students will learn how to describe and identify ancient coins and how to properly catalogue and classify them. A special focus will be on the identification of fakes. Participants will be trained to use the main reference works on ancient coinages in the Frank L. Kovacs library, recently donated to Stanford University.

This class traces some of the intellectual roots of modern political thought to authors of classical antiquity, such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle. We will read portions of their work, in translation, as well as discuss the historical background. Topics will include: political duty, citizenship, and leadership; the origins and rise of Athenian direct democracy; the development of Greek law, constitutional change, and responses to civic strife and civil war.

(Formerly CLASSHIS 114.) Cultural and political background for Athens of the 5th and 4th century BC. Athenian economy of the 4th century BC. Economic ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon. Pros and Cons of utilitarianism in light of the ethical theories of Plato and Aristotle. Economy and economics of ancient Greece will be compared to the same of ancient China. There is an interesting parallel.

The ancient Greeks and Roman created the largest and most durable slave system in world history. It formed one of the foundations of classical civilization. While cruelty and exploitation were ever-present features, ancient slavery was not race-based and many slaves came to be freed and fully integrated into society. We will investigate this complex institution from a comparative perspective and in the context of the experience of modern colonial slavery.

(Formerly CLASSGEN 160.) May be repeated for credit.