21 - 30 of 32 results for: CLASSICS

(Formerly CLASSGEN 199.) May be repeated for credit

Graduate proseminar. Introductory overview of the heterogeneous coinages of antiquity, from the earliest coins of the Mediterranean to classical and Hellenistic Greek coins, Roman Republican, Imperial and provincial coinages as well as various ancient Oriental coinages. Topics include: numismatic terminology; techniques of coin production in antiquity; numismatic methodology (die studies; hoard studies; metrological analyses); quantifying coin production and ancient financial history; coins vs. other forms of money in antiquity; the study of ancient coinages in the Early Modern world. Students are expected to prepare talks on specific topics to be agreed upon. Required for ancient history graduate students; others by consent of instructor.

Sex and the Early Church examines the ways first- through sixth-century Christians addressed questions regarding human sexuality. We will pay particular attention to the relationship between sexuality and issues of gender, culture, power, and resistance. We will read a Roman gynecological manual, an ancient dating guide, the world's first harlequin romance novels, ancient pornography, early Christian martyrdom accounts, stories of female and male saints, instructions for how to best battle demons, visionary accounts, and monastic rules. These will be supplemented by modern scholarship in classics, early Christian studies, gender studies, queer studies, and the history of sexuality. The purpose of our exploration is not simply to better understand ancient views of gender and sexuality. Rather, this investigation of a society whose sexual system often seems so surprising aims to denaturalize many of our own assumptions concerning gender and sexuality. In the process, we will also examine the ways these first centuries of what eventually became the world's largest religious tradition has profoundly affected the sexual norms of our own time. The seminar assumes no prior knowledge of Judaism, Christianity, the bible, or ancient history. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

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.

This course is to be taken twice during the third year of the Classics PhD program. It takes the form of a tutorial based on weekly meetings, leading to the writing of the dissertation prospectus. To register, a student obtain permission from the prospective faculty advisor.

This course will investigate representations of black people in ancient Greek and Roman antiquity. In addition to interrogating the conflation of the terms "race" and "blackness" as it applies to this time period, students will learn how to critique the interference of racial ideologies in modern scholarship, and they will cross-examine the role that race and cultural imperialism have played in the formation of the current discipline of Classics. Students will be invited to incorporate materials that they deem crucial into this discussion of skin color in Greco-Roman antiquity. Therefore, this course will benefit greatly from those with a broad spectrum of interests related to this topic.