161 - 170 of 187 results for: CLASSICS

The ancient world enjoys scholarly traditions of both grand pan-Mediterranean narratives and focused studies of the individual landscapes and peoples who comprise them. Within archaeology, these latter explorations generally rely on expedient geographical designations, modern political boundaries, or survey areas as focused ¿regions¿ for discussion. Defining and interrogating the regions created and experienced by ancient peoples and assembling these into a coherent larger ancient picture proves far more difficult. This seminar explores the varied forms of ancient regionalisms¿from archaeological (architecture, ceramics, coinage, sculpture, etc.) to social (language, religion, etc.)¿and tools for investigating such patterns of human interaction.

This seminar examines the interplay between classical archaeologists¿ conceptions and analyses of ancient Mediterranean environments. These themes loom large now - during what might be called the ¿environmental turn¿ of the Anthropocene in the humanities and social sciences - and their increasing resonance provides the basis for critical reflection of the discipline¿s past and future trends. Topics will include: environmental determinism, ¿non-human¿ agency, the role of science in archaeological/historical practice, and the compartmentalization of environment/climate as analytic focus.

As ¿nodes of density in the matrix of connectivity¿ (Horden and Purcell 2000), ports provided the fundamental infrastructure for interaction on which ancient Mediterranean societies were built. This seminar explores the interrelated cultural and environmental factors behind maritime landscape development, as well as the comparative and complementary roles played by diverse port facilities in the socioeconomic life of local Mediterranean communities, from massive built harbors to unassuming beachside anchorages.

Roman comedy was a truly popular genre, enjoyed by audiences of every background. Comic texts are used as evidence for many (contradictory) reconstructions of early Roman society, but many central questions central to the genre remain opaque: Who watched it? Where was it performed? Who was it for? This seminar explores the social, literary, and material background of Roman comedy, from its Greek exemplars and an efflorescence in the Middle Republic, to its decline (and semi-revival) in the Imperial period.

The the ancient Mediterranean was highly interconnected is common knowledge, and the idea of integration has become a defining factory in current approaches to Greco-Roman cultural identities. Yet how connectivity functiond, and how we should effectively analyze it, are less well understood. This seminar highlights emerging network approaches--both broad theoretical network paradigms and specific network science methodologies--as conceptual tools for archaeological and historical investigations of cultural interaction (economic, religious, artistic, colonial, etc.) across the Mediterranean world.

Ancient Roman visual culture both reflected and actively shaped political, social, cultural and economic situations. Artworks, imagery and things seen played roles in constructing experience, intervening in human relationships, representing meaning, and framing possibility in particular ways. This seminar explores some of the most exciting recent work on Roman art and visual culture. Topics may include viewing and reception, materiality and object relations, framing, and others.

The archaeological study of Roman slavery has been severely limited by a focus on identifying the traces of slaves in the material record. This seminar explores a range of newer and more broadly conceived approaches to understanding slavery and slaves' experiences, including spatial analysis, bioarchaeology, epigraphy, visual imagery, and comparative archaeologies of slavery. Students will learn about the current state of research, work with different kinds of evidence and a range of methodologies, and develop original research projects of their own.

(Formerly CLASSART 322.) Beyond a focus on artists and patrons: how Roman art was seen and understood by its contemporary viewers. Themes include memory, performance, gender, replication, and constructions of space. Goal is to draft a differentiated model of viewing and literacy, with attention to collective experience, hierarchy, access, and subversion.

Focus is on the interrelation of art, architecture, verbal description, poetry, and music, including the singing of psalms and recitation of the Qur'an. How ekphrasis, the style of writing vividly intended to transform the listeners into spectators, structures the perception of and response to artistic production be it an art object, building, or a musical performance. The role of ekphrasis in animating the inanimate and the importance of breath and spirit, which become manifest in visual, acoustic, olfactory, and gustatory terms. Religious and courtly settings: Hagia Sophia, the Great Palace of Constantinople, the Dome of the Rock, the palaces of Baghdad and Samarra, the mosque at Cordoba, Medinat al-Zahra and the Alhambra. Greek and Arabic writers on ekphrasis in translation, juxtaposing the medieval material to the ancient theories of ekphrasis and modern scholarship.