131 - 140 of 162 results for: CLASSICS

What is "ekphrasis"? How was it theorized and practiced in antiquity? Description, interpretation, and the senses; The relationship between the verbal and the visual in antiquity from Homer to Philostratus.

We read Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus; topics: love, beauty, language (oral and written). Graduate seminar, but open to seniors.

The class will introduce students to the most important aspects of the Second Sophistic: linguistic and literary classicism, rhetoric and performance, typical literary forms. Particular emphasis will be on the social and political background of the movement (Greek identity, social distinction, sophists and gender). For students who wish to take the class for 4 or 5 units, part of the readings will be in the original Greek.

This seminar will read much of the work of the major Latin poet Catullus (including some of the longer poems) from the perspective of textual criticism and literary interpretation: the two are necessarily closely bound up, and the minimal and imperfect nature of the Catullan textual transmission gives excellent opportunities to concentrate on trying to work out what the poet wrote and why, as well as analysing his work from a literary perspective. It will give orientation in the principles and practice of textual criticism as well as on Catullus and late republican Latin poetry. Metre will also figure. We will read up to 12 pages of Latin per week with some secondary literature. A good knowledge of Latin is required.

(Formerly CLASSGRK 354.)The entire poem in Greek, with attention to issues of style and interpretation in light of the last 50 years of Homeric studies. Readings in secondary literature including key articles in French and German.

The course focuses on Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus. It investigates the following topics: the role that eros plays in Plato's philosophy; the relation of love and beauty; the creation of metaphysical desire; Plato's conception of the gods, the divine Forms, and inspiration; philosophic madness and ecstatic thinking; oral dialogue vs. the written word; rhetoric, dialectic, and the limits of logos in the contemplation of truth.

This seminar will examine the irresistible allure of pantomime dancing and its impressive popularity for several centuries; the remarkable social and political implications of pantomime performances until their effective banning in the sixth century A.D.; the relationship between pantomime performance and ancient dramatic texts and performances; the physical, sensual, and intellectual aspects of the genre; the body as a hermeneutic topos in the Imperial period and in Late Antiquity.

In this seminar, we shall read Aristotle's Protrepticus. This is an early work of Aristotle that attempts to turn the reader to a philosophic life and it is by far the least read of his works on ethics. It was only recovered in the 19th century and only in the past 15 years or so do we have a reliable text. Thus studies of it are very much underdeveloped. We shall also read as background some other protreptic works by Plato and the rhetorician Isocrates. 2 unit option is only for Philosophy PhD students beyond the second year.

Exchange was everywhere in the Mediterranean, from the individual household to the state. Yet the specific models by which goods changed hands were as varied as the ideas and values that moved alongside them. This seminar will explore theoretical approaches to commercial and non-commercial exchange, drawing primarily on the crucial but uneven bodies of archaeological evidence and historical sources in an effort to investigate the simple but hardly straightforward question of how business was undertaken in the Greco-Roman world.