- 2024–2025 Courses:
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Fall 2024
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CLAS 100: The Trojan Legend: Mythology, Archaeology, and Legacy
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.
Prerequisites:Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
6 credits; AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1; offered Fall 2024 · Alex Knodell -
LATN 101: Elementary Latin
While many claims are made about the benefits of learning Latin, here’s what we know for sure: it’s a beautiful language, both intensely precise and rigorous, as well as poetically expressive and inviting. Spoken by millions in the ancient world and kept continuously “alive” up to the present, Latin provides a window onto an intellectual and cultural landscape that is both foreign and familiar to modern students. This beginning course will develop necessary vocabulary, forms, and grammar that allows students to begin reading short passages of unadulterated prose and poetry from the ancient Roman world right from the start. Prerequisites:Not open to students whose previous Latin language experience exceeds the requirements of LATN 101.
6 credits; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024 · Cecilia Cozzi -
GRK 103: Greek Prose
Selected prose readings. The course will emphasize review of grammar and include Greek composition. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): GRK 102 – Intermediate Greek with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024 · Anastasia Pantazopoulou -
CLAS 116: Greek Drama in Performance
What is drama? When and where were the first systematic theatrical performances put on? What can Athenian tragedies and comedies teach us about the classical world and today’s societies? This course will explore the always-relevant world of Ancient Greek theater, its history and development, through the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. We will decode the structure and content of Greek tragedies and comedies, ponder their place in the Athenian society and the modern world, and investigate the role of both ancient and contemporary productions in addressing critical questions on the construction and performance of individual and communal identities. 6 credits; LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis, WR2 Writing Requirement 2; offered Fall 2024 · Anastasia Pantazopoulou -
LATN 204: Intermediate Latin Prose and Poetry
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.
Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): LATN 103 – Introduction to Latin Prose and Poetry with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; LP Language Requirement, No Exploration; offered Fall 2024 · Clara Hardy, Cecilia Cozzi -
GRK 285: Weekly Greek
This course is intended for students who have completed Greek 204 (or equivalent) and wish to maintain and deepen their language skills. Students will meet weekly to review prepared passages, as well as reading at sight. Actual reading content will be determined prior to the start of term by the instructor in consultation with the students who have enrolled. There will be brief, periodic assessments of language comprehension throughout the term. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): GRK 204 – Intermediate Greek Prose and Poetry with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
2 credits; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024, Winter 2025 · Clara Hardy, Alex Knodell -
LATN 285: Weekly Latin
This course is intended for students who have completed Latin 204 (or equivalent) and wish to maintain and deepen their language skills. Students will meet weekly to review prepared passages, as well as reading at sight. Actual reading content will be determined prior to the start of term by the instructor in consultation with the students who have enrolled. There will be brief, periodic assessments of language comprehension throughout the term. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): LATN 204 – Intermediate Latin Prose and Poetry with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
2 credits; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024 · William North -
CLAS 384: Food and Foodways of the Ancient Mediterranean
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.
Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): Two Classics (CLAS) courses with a grade of C- or better.
6 credits; HI, Humanistic Inquiry; offered Fall 2024 · Jake Morton
Winter 2025
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GRK 101: Elementary Greek
From the triceratops (“three-horned-face”) to the antarctic (“opposite-the-bear-constellation”), ancient Greek has left traces in our language, literature (epic, tragedy, comedy), ways of organizing knowledge (philosophy, history, physics), and society (democracy, oligarchy, autocracy). It gives access to original texts from ancient Greece, early Christianity, and the Byzantine Empire, not to mention modern scientific terminology. In Greek 101 students will develop knowledge of basic vocabulary and grammar, and will begin reading short passages of prose and poetry. The class will meet five days a week. Prerequisites:Not open to students whose previous Greek language experience exceeds the requirements of GRK 101.
6 credits; No Exploration; offered Winter 2025 · Anastasia Pantazopoulou -
LATN 102: Intermediate Latin
Continuation of essential forms and grammar. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): LATN 101 – Elementary Latin with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; No Exploration; offered Winter 2025 · Jake Morton -
CLAS 134: “Nothing stays the same”: Embracing Change in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
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.
6 credits; LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis, WR2 Writing Requirement 2; offered Winter 2025 · Cecilia Cozzi -
CLAS 135: Ancient World in Popular Culture
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.
6 credits; LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Winter 2025 · Anastasia Pantazopoulou -
GRK 204: Intermediate Greek Prose and Poetry
The goal for Intermediate Greek Prose and Poetry is to gain experience in the three major modes of Greek expression most often encountered “in the wild”—prose, poetry, and inscriptions—while exploring the notion of happiness and the good life. 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 Greek literature and culture. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): GRK 103 – Greek Prose with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; LP Language Requirement, No Exploration; offered Winter 2025 · Clara Hardy -
LATN 237: Amor, Furor, Ira: The Epics of Vergil and Ovid
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.
Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): LATN 204 – Intermediate Latin Prose and Poetry with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; IS, International Studies, LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Winter 2025 · Clara Hardy -
GRK 285: Weekly Greek
This course is intended for students who have completed Greek 204 (or equivalent) and wish to maintain and deepen their language skills. Students will meet weekly to review prepared passages, as well as reading at sight. Actual reading content will be determined prior to the start of term by the instructor in consultation with the students who have enrolled. There will be brief, periodic assessments of language comprehension throughout the term. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): GRK 204 – Intermediate Greek Prose and Poetry with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
2 credits; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024, Winter 2025 · Clara Hardy, Alex Knodell -
CLAS 400: Senior Research Project
From topics developed in Classics 384, 385, 386, or 387, departmental majors will expand and refine their research into articles to be submitted to a journal of professional style, accepted and edited by the group into a presentable volume. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): CLAS 384 – Food and Foodway Ancient Mediterranean or CLAS 385 – Islands in Time or CLAS 386 – Classical Myth: Theory, Function, Afterlife or CLAS 387 – Expectasne Patronum? Magical Practice in the Greco-Roman World with a grade of C- or better AND is a Classics major AND has Senior Priority.
3 credits; S/NC; offered Winter 2025 · Jake Morton
Spring 2025
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GRK 102: Intermediate Greek
Study of essential forms and grammar, with reading of original, unadapted passages. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): GRK 101 – Elementary Greek with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; No Exploration; offered Spring 2025 · Clara Hardy -
LATN 103: Introduction to Latin Prose and Poetry
This course completes the formal textbook introduction to the morphology and syntax of Latin. The focus will be on consolidating and applying grammatical concepts learned throughout the Latin sequence to the reading of extended selections of authentic Roman prose and poetry. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): LATN 102 – Intermediate Latin with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; No Exploration; offered Spring 2025 · Cecilia Cozzi -
CLAS 123: Greek Archaeology and Art
This course explores the archaeology and art of the Ancient Greek world. Beginning with prehistory, we will track the development of the material culture of Ancient Greece through the Classical and Hellenistic periods, and conclude by discussing aspects of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires that followed. We will focus throughout on aspects of archaeological practice, material culture and text, art and society, long-term social change, and the role of the past in the present. 6 credits; CX, Cultural/Linguistics, HI, Humanistic Inquiry, IS, International Studies, QRE, Quantitative Reasoning; offered Spring 2025 · Alex Knodell -
CLAS 142: “No, Luke, I Am Your Father!”: Being an Heir in the Ancient Family
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.
6 credits; LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Spring 2025 · Cecilia Cozzi -
CLAS 214: Gender and Sexuality in Classical Antiquity
In both ancient Greece and Rome, gender (along with class and citizenship status) largely determined what people did, where they spent their time, and how they related to others. This course will examine the ways in which Greek and Roman societies defined gender categories, and how they used them to think about larger social, political, and religious issues. Primary readings from Greek and Roman epic, lyric, and drama, as well as ancient historical, philosophical, and medical writers; in addition we will explore a range of secondary work on the topic from the perspectives of Classics and Gender Studies. 6 credits; CX, Cultural/Linguistics, HI, Humanistic Inquiry, IS, International Studies, QRE, Quantitative Reasoning, WR2 Writing Requirement 2; offered Spring 2025 · Clara Hardy -
GRK 226: Heroes and Monsters in Ancient Greek Thought
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.
Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): GRK 204 – Intermediate Greek Prose and Poetry with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Spring 2025 · Anastasia Pantazopoulou -
CLAS 240: Rome: From Village to Superpower
This class will investigate how Rome rose from a humble village of outcasts and refugees to become the preeminent power in the entire Mediterranean. We will trace Rome’s political evolution from kings to the Republic, alongside their gradual takeover of the Italian peninsula. We will study how Rome then swiftly overpowered what had been the most powerful kingdoms in the Mediterranean and established themselves as dominant. Who were these Romans and what were their political, military, religious, and social systems that enabled them to accomplish so much? What critical events shaped their development and ultimately led to total political control of the Mediterranean world? 6 credits; CX, Cultural/Linguistics, HI, Humanistic Inquiry, IS, International Studies; offered Spring 2025 · Jake Morton -
LATN 240: The Tortured Poets: Love Poetry from Catullus to Taylor Swift
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.
Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): LATN 204 – Intermediate Latin Prose and Poetry with a grade of C- or better or equivalent.
6 credits; LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis; offered Spring 2025 · Anastasia Pantazopoulou