Classics (CLAS)
A selection of ancient Greek literature read in translation, from Homeric epic to classical history and drama, with a focus on the relation between literature and social conditions.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
A selection of ancient Roman literature read in translation, including authors such as Vergil, Tacitus, Cicero, and Plautus, with a focus on the relationship between literature and social conditions.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
A study of classical epic, with special emphasis on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Vergil's Aeneid, but including also other examples of the genre, such as Lucan or Statius. Topics to be considered include oral and literary epic, their social and political contexts, and the influence of classical epic on later literature.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
Study in depth of a selection of ancient Greek and/or Roman tragedies and comedies, with an emphasis on performance practices and contexts.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Every Third Year
This course primarily examines how certain themes, typological figures and universal truths which are developed in Biblical and Classical literature have been adapted to new circumstances and handed down over the past two millennia. The other main focus of the course will be daily in-class writing assignments based on class discussions which will allow students to develop their creative and critical writing skills.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
Comparison of Classical and modern versions of several ancient Greek myths. The relationships between myth and literature are considered, as well as reasons why these myths have endured through the centuries. Emphasis is on dramatic versions of the myths; narrative poetry and other genres such as music and cinema may also be explored.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
This course traces the development of the concept and experiences of the process of discernment from Antiquity to the Renaissance by looking at a wide range of texts originally written in Greek or Latin in a case-study format. The primary focus will be the "discernment of spirits" as developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises, with an emphasis on three key areas of discernment: Individual, Corporate, and Individual within Corporate.
Students who have taken MONT 109D (Model Christian Discerners) may not enroll in this course.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature, Studies in Religion
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
An exploration of the significance of myths, their meanings and functions in the cultures of Greece and Rome. Special attention is given to more recent developments in the study of myths and their relation to rituals and folk tales. Babylonian, Egyptian, Hindu and American Indian mythology may be used for comparative purposes.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
A study of the goals, methods and subject matter of Greco-Roman science. Pays special attention to how science relates to the broader social, religious and intellectual context of the ancient world.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
This course will focus on a variety of ancient Greek heroes: Herakles, Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon, MeleagerJason, Aeneas, Thesus, Perseus and more. We will read great epics such as Homer's Iliad & Odyssey, the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, Virgil's Aeneid; we will also read about these heroes in Greek tragedies, lyric poetry of Pindar and Bacchyides and the Metamorphoses of Ovid. In addition to literary sources, we will be looking at artistic representations of these heroes on Greek vases and sarcophagi, and in later art up to and including modern art.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
A study of Greek history from its beginnings to the death of Socrates. Emphasis is placed on a close analysis of the primary sources.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
Typically Offered: Fall
An analysis of the institutions, literature, and political thought inspired by the democracy of fifth- and fourth-century Athens.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature, Social Science
Typically Offered: Every Third Year
This course will look at uses of ancient Greece and Rome in American civic life and culture, with a focus on the reception of Classical ideas and models during periods of conflict in the US. This will include American engagement with the Classics in the revolutionary and constitutional periods, in the abolitionist movements of the nineteenth century and the civil rights era of the twentieth century, and in discussions about race, gender, and class identity in the twenty-first century.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies, Literature
A survey of Roman civilization from the Regal period to the late Republic, with a special focus on the political and social forces that led to the establishment of the Principate. Concentrates on the primary sources for this period, including the historians, inscriptions, and monuments.
Students who have taken HIST 110 - Rome: Republic Empire may not enroll in this course.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
Typically Offered: Spring
A survey of Roman imperial civilization from the first to the sixth century. Concentrates on the primary sources for this period, including the historians, inscriptions, monuments, and coins.
Students who have taken HIST 110 - Rome: Republic Empire may not enroll in this course.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
Typically Offered: Fall
An introduction to the methodologies employed by archaeologists. Most examples will be drawn from the artifacts, sites and monuments of the ancient Mediterranean world.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Arts
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
An exploration of myths about migration and refugees in ancient drama and epic, considered alongside contemporary narratives of global migration. Special attention will be given to the 2015 migration crisis in Greece. This class will include a community-based learning component.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Annually
Introduces students to the art of mural (wall) painting in the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age through Late Antiquity, and to the art of mosaic from its origins in Classical Greece through Late Antiquity. Topics addressed are the techniques of fresco and mosaic; the relationship of mural painting to lost panel paintings by famous artists; the social meaning of wall and floor decoration in the ancient world; the roles of artist and patron; the Roman response to Greek painting and mosaic; and the Christian response to pagan painting and mosaic.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Arts
Typically Offered: Every Third Year
Considers the political, religious, and cultural encounters between the ancient Greek world and Asia generated by the expedition of Alexander the Great and the interpretations of the story of Alexander found in different cultural traditions from antiquity to the present day, from religious texts to heavy metal music.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies, Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
Myths are a kind of traditional tale. Like any traditional story, they are multiform: there is no single, "correct" version. We can think of a mythology as the collection of myths that relates all of the (potentially contradictory) versions of many stories.In this course we'll explore large collections of myths preserved in ancient handbooks of mythology and in scholarly commentaries on the major Greek epic, the Iliad. We will learn how to use digital methods to explore questions about Greek myth we could not answer from close reading alone. The course will emphasize both content and methodology. To the course title "Digital Mythology," you may add either of two subtitles: "Reading Greek mythology using data science" or "A first encounter with data science through Greek mythology.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
TBD
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Arts
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Arts
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Examines the representations of mortal and immortal women in a variety of mythological narratives and in art. Consideration is given to the relationships between these representations and contemporary ideas about and images of women. Students should read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in translation before enrolling in this class.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
Examines the ancient city of Pompeii, with particular emphasis on the houses in which families lived. Domestic spaces both reflected and reinforced certain family structures, and so the houses of Pompeii provide us with information about subjects as varied as the power of the father, ancient slavery, the experience of childhood, the role of women, and ancient notions of public and private space, all of which topics will be addressed in this course through an examination of material culture. For purposes of comparison, the course will also briefly investigate the domestic spaces of the nearby site of Herculaneum, as well as other Italian sites like Cosa and Ostia.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
Typically Offered: Every Third Year
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Arts
Typically Offered: Every Third Year
A study of Greek and Roman oratory based on the reading and rhetorical analysis of speeches delivered in the law courts and assemblies of 5th and 4th century Athens, and the late period of the Roman Republic (80-45 BC) where the focus will be on the law court speeches of Cicero. The course involves both an introduction to the legal procedures of the Athenian and Roman courts and assemblies, and careful analysis of the literary style and forms of legal argument in selected speeches.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
Study of the power of words to create and to resolve conflict in Ancient Greek and Roman democracy. Close examination of ancient literary and historical sources in translation with comparison to modern parallels. Public speaking exercise on the model of the rhetoric of Georgias.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Historical Studies
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
In this course, we will explore how the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged with the natural world surrounding them. Our course will consider several themes, including the relationship between city and country; philosophical treatments of the natural world; the role of the environment in literature; and the conceptualization of the universe and its origins. We will base our discussion of these themes on our analysis of evidence from antiquity, which will span both material remains like Greek temples and Roman villas as well as literary and philosophical works central to western civilization. Looking back at ancient philosophy, pastoral poems, and early epics, we will read selections from authors such as the pre-Socratic philosophers, Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, and Seneca. Alongside our study of the ancient world, we will glance ahead to consider the reception of the Greeks and Romans' treatment of nature, with our contemporary readings including selections from Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si'.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature, Philosophical Studies
Typically Offered: Alternate Years
A detailed study of the archaeological remains from ancient sanctuaries. The buildings and monuments are studied in connection with other evidence for religious behavior in the different ancient cultures. Emphasis is on the cults and shrines of Ancient Greece and Rome but in different years, the ancient Near East and Egypt also are considered. Counts toward fulfillment of the Visual Arts major.
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Arts
Typically Offered: Every Third Year
How do we know that Vesuvius erupted on August 24, 79 A.D., that the Temple of Zeus at Olympia was completed by 456 B.C. or that the bulk of the construction of the Pantheon in Rome took place in the 120's A.D.? This course surveys the physical techniques and historical method that lie behind dates like these.
GPA units: 1
Typically Offered: Every Third Year
TBD
GPA units: 1
Common Area: Literature
Designed for selected students with approval of a professor and the Department Chair. This work may be done for one or two semesters.
GPA units: 1
Typically Offered: Annually
Designed for selected students with approval of a professor and the Department Chair. This work may be done for one or two semesters.
GPA units: 1
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring