Courses

The rage of Achilles, the face that launched a thousand ships, Greeks bearing gifts, Brad Pitt's leg double…The Trojan Legend is one of the most reproduced, adapted, and controversial stories of all time. Troy's roots at the foundations of western literature have inspired countless works of art, literature, and film, which for millennia have retold this epic set of tales. In this seminar we will explore the legend of the Trojan War through ancient and modern literature and art, as well as the archaeological sites, civilizations, and imaginary places that have contributed to this legend down to the present.

When did science-fiction first appear in literature? The beginnings of modern fantasy and science-fiction are set around the nineteenth and seventeenth century respectively. However, fantasy and science-fiction stories and themes are already present in the Greco-Roman world. In this course, we will focus on one of the first fantasy and science-fiction works, Lucian’s True History, to trace the development of these genres in literature and cinema. Examining True History in parallel with works from Homer, Plato, Aristophanes, and Virgil as well as contemporary films, we will explore the influence of classical literature on the genres of fantasy and science-fiction.

We are immersed in such a fast-paced, constantly changing world, that we have no choice but to keep up with it and be as adaptable as possible. This makes us the perfect audience for Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The Latin poet guides his readers through endless stories of gods, heroes and heroines, whose transformations have inspired artists for centuries. This course will investigate how characters cope with the changeable nature of human and divine relationships. By looking closely at their mythical sagas and fleeting romances, we will explore how each character is, like us, suspended between old and new.

From fantasy novels, like Percy Jackson, to superhero films (Wonder Woman) to viral hashtags on social-media, the ancient world has a constant presence in our modern world. Greco-Roman history, myths, stories, and literature are still actively used, but also misused, within the framework of “western” and global culture. In this course, we will discuss how Classical antiquity has been received, interpreted, or appropriated in the twenty-first century through different popular media, such as movies, TV shows, comic books, video games, and social-media, in order to gain a better understanding of what the ancient world can tell us about the modern.

The bond between fathers and sons is prominent in cinematic sagas, from Star Wars to The Lion King. But is it only a modern concern? What can Greek literature teach us about this relationship in today’s societies? This course explores the literary representations of ancient heroic families and traces their portrayals through the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. We will discuss the context and aims of Greek epic, tragedies and comedies, and investigate the representation of familial legacy, examining how sons can shape their own identity and emerge from their parents’ shadows, both then and now.

What are the “rules” of friendship? Would you do anything for a friend? Anything? The ancient Romans were no strangers to the often paradoxical demands of friendship and love. The goal for Intermediate Latin Prose and Poetry is to gain experience in the three major modes of Latin expression most often encountered “in the wild”—prose, poetry, and inscriptions—while exploring the notion of friendship. By combining all three modes into this one course, we hope both to create a suitable closure to the language sequence and to provide a reasonable foundation for further exploration of Roman literature and culture.

Greek literature abounds in stories of hostile encounters between heroes and monsters. Perseus vs. Medusa, Theseus and the Minotaur, Bellerophon vs. the Chimera are only a few of these stories that feature larger-than-life individuals who confront otherworldly creatures. But why is there such a fascination in the Greek mind? In this course, we will examine such stories in the original Greek, looking at authors such as Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, and Lucian, and we will discuss what the socio-cultural constructions of the hero and the monster show us about what it means to be human both in antiquity and in modern times.

Homer is perhaps the foundational poet of the western canon, and his work has been justly admired since its emergence out of the oral tradition of bardic recitation in the eighth century BCE. This course will sample key events and passages from the Odyssey, exploring the fascinating linguistic and metrical features of the epic dialect, as well as the major thematic elements of this timeless story of homecoming.

Two superlative Latin poets; two radically different epic poems. In this course we will read selections from the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses, focusing in particular on each poet's depiction of powerful emotions and their consequences. 

Poetry has always offered people a way to express their feelings and connect to their emotions, especially those related to love. From the thrill of new romance to the pain of heartbreak, poets find a haven in their art to declare their conflicting feelings and explore the ecstasy of mutual love or the torture of unrequited love. In this course, we will focus on Roman love/elegiac poetry (poems by Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid) in their original language and cultural context, while exploring themes and tropes that define the genre and still inspire modern love poetry and songs.

We need food to live, but food also plays a crucial cultural, social, and economic role in our lives. As such, the study of food and foodways offers a cornucopia of approaches and insights into the lives of ancient peoples. This seminar will explore what, why, and how food was consumed, produced, traded, and thought about in the ancient Mediterranean world. We will study archaeological and literary sources of ancient evidence alongside modern scholarship and theoretical frameworks. Topics in the second half of the course will be driven by student interests as they develop their own research and present it at the department Symposium.