Graduate Courses

Fall 2019


CLASS-GA 1009 Greek Survey
M&W 2:00-3:15, David Sider

CLASS-GA 3000 Sovereignty and Law in the Hellenistic and Roman World
Tue 4:15-6:15, Michael Peachin and Andrew Monson
Students will examine the concept of sovereignty and its relation to the law in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial period. One aspect of the course will be theoretical: how do we define sovereignty and legitimacy? We will read passages from several ancient authors (e.g. Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero) as well as modern constitutional and legal theorists from Jean Bodin to Max Weber. The emphasis in the course, however, will be on the historical aspect: to what extent did the rule of law and constitutional order exist in practice in city-states, federations, kingdoms, and empires? For the Hellenistic period, we will focus on the nature of Macedonian monarchy from Alexander onwards and its relation to the semi-autonomous Greek city-states as well as Near Eastern traditions of law and sovereignty, including kings' role as lawgivers and judges. For the Roman empire we will proceed similarly, though focusing now on the nature of the Roman emperor’s roles as lawgiver, lawyer, and legal advisor. Was the emperor truly sovereign vis à vis the law? And if he was, when and how did this come about? In additional to secondary literature, we will examine case studies for both the Hellenistic and the Roman period by reading inscriptions, papyri, and historical accounts.

CLASS-GA 1011 Greek Rhetoric and Stylistics
Wednesday 4:15-6:15, David Petrain (course given at CUNY Graduate Center)
An in-depth review of the morphology and syntax of Classical Greek through exercises in composition and stylistic analysis of a variety of authors. Individual weeks will be devoted to exploring the resources and current scholarship available on such topics as accentuation; particles; verbal tense and aspect; word order; syntax; prosody and rhythm; etc. In advance of the first class session, students should acquire a copy of Eleanor Dickey's An Introduction to the Composition and Analysis of Greek Prose (CUP 2016) ISBN: 9780521184250

CLASS-GA 2981 Homer: Odyssey
Wednesday 6:30-8:30, David Schur (course given at CUNY Graduate Center)
This class focuses on the Odyssey as a literary composition. Working closely with the Greek, we will explore how various formal features (such as diction and narrative structure) put key themes in interesting perspectives. Special attention will be given to prominent types of imagery (such as paths, animals, and weaving) in the broader context of Greek thought.

CLASS-GA 2936 Aristotle: Rhetoric
Thursday 4:15-6:15, Laura Viidebaum
Aristotle’s Rhetoric is a fascinating work that is as complex and influential as it is controversial. Despite unsolved questions about its actual composition and difficult afterlife, the Rhetoric continues to serve as the starting point for theoretical reflections on rhetoric, oratory and prose writing. In this course we will aim to get an overall idea of the Rhetoric and delve into questions about its language, composition, subject matter, and position within Aristotle’s corpus. We’ll think about the commentary tradition and will also look at the impact and afterlife of the Rhetoric, particularly in the way in which it has contributed to discussions about ancient emotions. We will read the work in the original Greek, though students should have a read through the whole of the Rhetoric intranslation before the start of the semester. For the original, we’ll work with W. D. Ross’ edition of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (OCT, 1959). We’ll have weekly reading assignments, comprising of passages of the Rhetoric and relevant secondary literature, a midterm and a final assignment, which will highly likely be a summary effort to produce a commentary of Book 3 of the Rhetoric.

CLASS-GA 3004 Aeschylus: Poetry, Democracy and War
Thursday 6:30-8:30, Peter Meineck
Aeschylus was born in Eleusis in the sixth century and died in Gela in the  fifth. Throughout these tumultous times he was said to have fought the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, been evacuated  from Athens, lost a brother at Salamis, witnessed Athens fighting on six fronts including in Egypt and the edges of the Persian empire and visited Sicily where he produced works and experimented with new dramatic forms. This new course, part of a book project, will survey the six extant works of Aeschylus, examine the question of Prometheus Bound, and look closely at the fragments. This will be set alongside the rapidly developing cultural and social environment of Attica and the wider Aegean, Mediterranean, African and Anatolian cultures of the late sixth and early fifth century BCE. Students will each pick one work to focus on and read closely while surveying the others. 

CLASS-GA 2814 Lucan's Bellum Civile 
Tues. 6:30-8:30, Matthew McGowan 
This course covers Lucan’s Bellum Civile or Pharsalia in its entirety. We will tackle roughly one book per week of Lucan’s epic on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey and then spend the final third of the course on the reception of the Pharsalia in the medieval and early modern periods. Our aim is to situate Lucan’s poem in its immediate historical context and in relation to the broader tradition of Greek and Latin literature. In addition to surveying an array of contemporary scholarship, we will regularly consult ancient and Renaissance commentaries, which will be provided to the class in the form of a course-packet. Over the course of the semester each student will be expected to deliver an oral report and to lead the subsequent group discussion. There will be a midterm exam and final research paper. 

CLASS-GA 2914 Thucydides, Politics, Philosophy  
Monday 6:30-8:30, Jennifer Roberts (course given at CUNY Graduate Center)
This interdisciplinary course will be guided in part by the particular interests of the students who choose to enroll in it: historians, classicists, archaeologists, political scientists, philosophers.  Although there will be common readings, students are encouraged to pursue their own perspectives on Thucydides while at the same time coming to appreciate his relevance to other disciplines.  The text will be read in English, but I am happy to meet separately with students who would like to read selections in the original Greek.
A masterpiece of both narrative and analysis, Thucydides’ account of the war between the Athenian Empire and Peloponnesian League also merits study as a work of profound philosophical import.  The work of a man filled with a plangent sense of the sorrows of the human condition, Thucydides’ history offered a non-fiction counterpart to the tragic drama of his contemporaries Sophocles and Euripides.
The father of political science, Thucydides has often been labeled the father of political realism. We will explore in what ways this is and is not accurate. Thucydides has been co-opted by one generation after another, on one continent after another, as a spokesman for its own society and identified as the one person who best understood the problems of the day.  From monarchists to republicans in Europe to 20th and 21st century American neoconservatives, his readers have proudly cited him in defense of their ideologies. Today students of international relations wring their hands over the newly dubbed menace, “the Thucydides trap,” a concept that draws parallels between the diplomatic situation that led up to the Peloponnesian War and America’s growing tensions with China. Both Thucydides and his legacy will be the subjects of this course.

 


For courses at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, please click here.

Spring 2019

CLASS-GA 10002 Antiquity at Risk: Conflict Archaeology, Conservation, International Law and Cultural Heritage
Joan Connelly, Monday 4:15-6:15
This interdisciplinary course introduces students to a broad range of contemporary threats to the survival of ancient cultural heritage.  It is ideal for those who are interested in the intersection of classical archaeology and art history with international law, science, conservation, ethics, public policy, and cultural resource management. Through careful examination of case studies, we investigate objects, monuments and sites that exemplify the greatest risks faced in preserving cultural heritage today. Material is presented the within the broader context of current global developments, especially those of armed conflict, environmental issues, urban growth, dam building, tourism, looting, and the international market in illicit antiquities. Special attention is paid to international cultural heritage laws and conventions, cases of repatriation and return of cultural materials, and current discussions of identity, cosmopolitism, and the “universal museum.”

Interested students should contact Professor Connelly:  joan.connelly@nyu.edu

CLASS-GA 1005  Survey of Latin Literature
David Levene, Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:15
We will be studying a number of Latin texts from the Augustan period to late antiquity. As well as reading and understanding the texts, we will be seeking to examine their place in the development of Latin literature; we will also be surveying a variety of critical approaches adopted by modern scholars, through close readings of key articles and books on the the different authors.  

CLASS-GA 1012 Latin Prose Composition
David Konstan, Wednesday 6:30-8:30
This course offers an introduction to prose composition in Latin.  The course will include a review of Latin syntax (based on the textbook, “Bradley’s Arnold,” which will be distributed as a pdf) and discussion of various prose styles, with a primary focus on Cicero.  There will be weekly exercises in the translation of set passages, which will be examined for linguistic correctness and also style.  Additional materials on particular points of style will be distributed in the course of the semester.

CLASS-GA 2965 Sophocles
Peter Meineck, Wednesday 4:15-6:15
In this seminar, we will be reading Sophocles' Philoctetes in Greek and paying particular attention to the playwright's dramaturgy, narrative structure, poetic imagery and inter-performative devices (inter-textualities). We will place the work within its cultural and performative contexts and examine, staging, masks, costumes, settings, music, dance, gestures, space, and the wider festival/cultic and social-political environments of the second half of fifth century BCE Athens. We will also look at receptions of Philoctetes since the 20th century. We will be using the following edition, which students will need to provide:
Seth L. Schein, Sophocles: Philoctetes. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2013.

CLASS-GA 3000 Augustine’s Confessions
Adam Becker, Tuesday 6:30-8:30
CUNY Graduate Center
In this seminar we will read and discuss large portions of the whole of Augustine’s Confessions (including the commonly ignored later books). Broader questions about the genre and context of the work will be addressed throughout, whereas certain topics will be introduced each week as they arise in given books (e.g Manichaeism in Bks 3-4; Neoplatonism in Bk 7). Topics of discussion will also depend on the different students’ interests (Classical, Late Antique, Medieval, literary, philosophical, theological, etc.). Good knowledge of Latin is required. Feel free to contact the instructor if you have any questions: adam.becker@nyu.edu

CLASS-GA 3001 Roman Family
Matthew Perry, Thursday 6:30-8:30
CUNY Graduate Center, Room TBA
Masters and slaves, wives and husbands, parents and children, patres familias and dependents, all dwelled and labored alongside each other within the Roman household.  This seminar explores the form and function of the Roman household, considering the legal and social mechanisms making it one of the empire’s most powerful institutions.  Engaging with critical topics such as gender, family, slavery, and status, readings will consist of primary sources (in translation), classic works of modern scholarship, and recent innovative studies (all available digitally through library collections).

CLASS-GA 3002.01 Ancient Science
Philip Thibodeau, Tuesday 4:15-6:15
CUNY Graduate Center, Room TBA
In this seminar we will explore the literature and culture of ancient Greek and Roman science. Each week we will study a text or collection of texts that exemplify one or more key themes. These themes will include: the origins of the secular worldview; changing conceptions of ‘nature’ (physis); the cognitive styles of technical texts; Near Eastern influences on Greek science; the translation of ideas from the Greek world to Rome; and the challenges of working with lost or incompletely preserved writings. Students will read both Greek and Latin works and representative items of scholarship. For a final project each seminar participant will translate into English and write an introduction to a short piece of ancient scientific writing which has never received such treatment before.

CLASS-GA 3003 Horace and the Tradition of Latin Lyric
Matthew McGowan, Thursday 4:15-6:15
CUNY Graduate Center, Room TBA
This course provides a survey of Horace’s Odes (Carmina) for the first two-thirds of the term. The final third will be dedicated to the reception of Horace and the tradition of Latin lyric from the early medieval period (Venantius Fortunatus, Alcuin, Notker Balbus) to the Italian Renaissance (Petrarch, Pontano, Filelfo, Poliziano, Marullo) and beyond (Joannes Secundus, Conrad Celtis). There will be weekly assignments in Latin and readings from secondary scholarship on which students will be asked to give at least one report. There will be a midterm exam and final research paper (usually on a topic related to the report), and texts will be provided at the beginning of the term for a small fee. Feel free to email me with questions about the course: mamcgowan@fordham.edu.

For courses at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, please click here. 

 

Spring 2019

CLASS-GA 10002 Antiquity at Risk: Conflict Archaeology, Conservation, International Law and Cultural Heritage
Joan Connelly, Monday 4:15-6:15
This interdisciplinary course introduces students to a broad range of contemporary threats to the survival of ancient cultural heritage.  It is ideal for those who are interested in the intersection of classical archaeology and art history with international law, science, conservation, ethics, public policy, and cultural resource management. Through careful examination of case studies, we investigate objects, monuments and sites that exemplify the greatest risks faced in preserving cultural heritage today. Material is presented the within the broader context of current global developments, especially those of armed conflict, environmental issues, urban growth, dam building, tourism, looting, and the international market in illicit antiquities. Special attention is paid to international cultural heritage laws and conventions, cases of repatriation and return of cultural materials, and current discussions of identity, cosmopolitism, and the “universal museum.”

Interested students should contact Professor Connelly:  joan.connelly@nyu.edu

CLASS-GA 1005  Survey of Latin Literature
David Levene, Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:15
We will be studying a number of Latin texts from the Augustan period to late antiquity. As well as reading and understanding the texts, we will be seeking to examine their place in the development of Latin literature; we will also be surveying a variety of critical approaches adopted by modern scholars, through close readings of key articles and books on the the different authors.  

CLASS-GA 1012 Latin Prose Composition
David Konstan, Wednesday 6:30-8:30
This course offers an introduction to prose composition in Latin.  The course will include a review of Latin syntax (based on the textbook, “Bradley’s Arnold,” which will be distributed as a pdf) and discussion of various prose styles, with a primary focus on Cicero.  There will be weekly exercises in the translation of set passages, which will be examined for linguistic correctness and also style.  Additional materials on particular points of style will be distributed in the course of the semester.

CLASS-GA 2965 Sophocles
Peter Meineck, Wednesday 4:15-6:15
In this seminar, we will be reading Sophocles' Philoctetes in Greek and paying particular attention to the playwright's dramaturgy, narrative structure, poetic imagery and inter-performative devices (inter-textualities). We will place the work within its cultural and performative contexts and examine, staging, masks, costumes, settings, music, dance, gestures, space, and the wider festival/cultic and social-political environments of the second half of fifth century BCE Athens. We will also look at receptions of Philoctetes since the 20th century. We will be using the following edition, which students will need to provide:
Seth L. Schein, Sophocles: Philoctetes. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2013.

CLASS-GA 3000 Augustine’s Confessions
Adam Becker, Tuesday 6:30-8:30
CUNY Graduate Center
In this seminar we will read and discuss large portions of the whole of Augustine’s Confessions (including the commonly ignored later books). Broader questions about the genre and context of the work will be addressed throughout, whereas certain topics will be introduced each week as they arise in given books (e.g Manichaeism in Bks 3-4; Neoplatonism in Bk 7). Topics of discussion will also depend on the different students’ interests (Classical, Late Antique, Medieval, literary, philosophical, theological, etc.). Good knowledge of Latin is required. Feel free to contact the instructor if you have any questions: adam.becker@nyu.edu

CLASS-GA 3001 Roman Family
Matthew Perry, Thursday 6:30-8:30
CUNY Graduate Center, Room TBA
Masters and slaves, wives and husbands, parents and children, patres familias and dependents, all dwelled and labored alongside each other within the Roman household.  This seminar explores the form and function of the Roman household, considering the legal and social mechanisms making it one of the empire’s most powerful institutions.  Engaging with critical topics such as gender, family, slavery, and status, readings will consist of primary sources (in translation), classic works of modern scholarship, and recent innovative studies (all available digitally through library collections).

CLASS-GA 3002.01 Ancient Science
Philip Thibodeau, Tuesday 4:15-6:15
CUNY Graduate Center, Room TBA
In this seminar we will explore the literature and culture of ancient Greek and Roman science. Each week we will study a text or collection of texts that exemplify one or more key themes. These themes will include: the origins of the secular worldview; changing conceptions of ‘nature’ (physis); the cognitive styles of technical texts; Near Eastern influences on Greek science; the translation of ideas from the Greek world to Rome; and the challenges of working with lost or incompletely preserved writings. Students will read both Greek and Latin works and representative items of scholarship. For a final project each seminar participant will translate into English and write an introduction to a short piece of ancient scientific writing which has never received such treatment before.

CLASS-GA 3003 Horace and the Tradition of Latin Lyric
Matthew McGowan, Thursday 4:15-6:15
CUNY Graduate Center, Room TBA
This course provides a survey of Horace’s Odes (Carmina) for the first two-thirds of the term. The final third will be dedicated to the reception of Horace and the tradition of Latin lyric from the early medieval period (Venantius Fortunatus, Alcuin, Notker Balbus) to the Italian Renaissance (Petrarch, Pontano, Filelfo, Poliziano, Marullo) and beyond (Joannes Secundus, Conrad Celtis). There will be weekly assignments in Latin and readings from secondary scholarship on which students will be asked to give at least one report. There will be a midterm exam and final research paper (usually on a topic related to the report), and texts will be provided at the beginning of the term for a small fee. Feel free to email me with questions about the course: mamcgowan@fordham.edu.

For courses at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, please click here. 

 

Fall 2018

Introduction to Classical Studies, CLASS-GA 1001 (CUNY)
M, 6:30-8:30, Van Sickle   

Latin Survey, CLASS-GA 1003
M&W, 11:00-12:15, Barchiesi 

Roman Elegy, CLASS-GA 2876 (CUNY) 
M, 4:15-6:15, Petrain      
The connotations of English "elegiac" hint at one aspect of the poetry's associations, but elegy ranges far beyond the mournful and morose. This course follows the arc of elegiac poetry in Latin from its beginnings with Ennius, to the epigrams and longer poems of Catullus and his contemporaries, and finally to its heyday as a characteristic poetic form of the Augustan Age, in the discontinuous narratives of erotic entanglement by Tibullus, Sulpicia, Propertius, Ovid, others. We will explore the meter itself (verse composition a possibility); the multiplicity of elegiac traditions (Greek, Latin; literary, inscriptional; Republican, neoteric); ancient and modern approaches to the elegiac corpus.

Students should come to the first class meeting having (re)read Ovid, Amores 1.1, preferably with the commentary of McKeown.

Divinity, Commodity and the Sea in the Mediterranean World, CLASS-GA 3000 
W, 4:15-6:15, Kowalzig
This seminar will examine how Greek polytheism engages the economic sphere. How is the divine world implicated in production, supply and economic exchange in the Mediterranean? In particular, it will address the relationship between individual gods or sets of gods and the ‘product’ they are commonly associated with, such as Demeter and the grain, Dionysos and the wine, Athena and the olive etc. A fundamental question will be how a god’s power (‘mode of action’), such as Demeter’s ability to effect ‘production’ and ‘growth’, comes to bear on economic activity and institutions, shaping a city’s political economy, or maritime networks of supply. The course will start by introducing students to the methods used in the study of Greek polytheism, to relevant approaches in economic anthropology and economic theory and to recent work on the Mediterranean as an interconnected historical space. A number of sessions will then be dedicated to the divine world involved in agricultural production, that is to say cult, myth, and ritual associated with the Mediterranean ‘triad’ (grain, olive, wine); followed by mining and metallurgy, slave labour and slave trade; luxury commodities, such as textiles, spices and perfumes. A final part will tackle the mechanisms of divine intervention in economic transactions, i.e. examine the ‘gods of the market place’ (theoi agoraioi); and ‘gods of trade’ and ‘exchange’ such as Hermes and Aphrodite. This course will start on Wednesday, 12 September.   

Greek Prose Composition, CLASS-GA 3002  
T, 6:30-8:30, Sider
This course offers an introduction to composition in Greek with attention paid to various prose styles. Each week we will translate set passages and then review the Greek for individual points of syntax and style. No books will be ordered, but essential to have close by are Smyth’s Greek Grammar (Harvard U Press, revised by Messing) and Denniston’s Greek Particles (Oxford UP). Those weak in grammar may also wish to own (and review in advance) Eleanor Dickey, Composition and Analysis of Greek Prose (Cambridge  UP).

From Second to Third Sophistic, CLASS-GA 3004 
W, 6:30-8:30, Cribiore     
Were the Second and Third Sophistic “ages of anxiety” as they have been called? What was then the relationship with mythology and Homer?  This course intends to inquire about issues of identity, rhetoric, religion and the relationship with the past especially in the Second Sophistic. In the very late part of the semester we will investigate the bridge between the Second and Third Sophistic in the fourth century East. We will inquire about the characteristics of extempore speech and the power and danger of rhetoric. The texts read will be in Greek except for some Quintilian. Among the authors read there will be Philostratus, Lucian, Dio Chrysostom, and some Libanius. In the last part of the course, some attention will be paid to the relationship between pagan and Christian intellectuals and the appropriation of classical culture by Christians.

Modern Views on Ancient Ancient Historiography, CLASS-GA 3001 (CUNY)
Th, 4:15-6:15, Yarrow
Ancient historians were self-conscious creators of narrative.  This course will explore themes traditionally associated with the genre of history in the Greco-Roman world, including, but not limited to: universalism, local histories, the role of speeches, use of sources, intersection with other genres, the role of the historian in society, intrusion of authorial voice, narrative focalization, and explanations of historical causation.  The course will simultaneously examine how these themes and related issues have been treated by both classicists and modern historical theorists.  All general course materials provided in digital format.  Students will each select a different ancient historian on which to focus their individual work for the semester.  

Spring 2018

Survey of Greek Literature  CLASS-GA 1013, TBA, Adam Becker

Archaeologies of the Mediterranean Maritime World CLASS-GA 1002, M, 4:15-6:15, Joan Breton Connelly
How has archaeological investigation, both underwater and terrestrial, deepened our understanding of ancient seafaring, colonization, commerce, social interaction, pilgrimage, warfare, and piracy?  How did connectivity among far-flung ports and coastal Greek cities contribute to the emergence of a Hellenic cultural identity?  This seminar examines the maritime cultural landscape of the Mediterranean with special focus on material culture. From the Uluburun cargo to the Antikythera shipwreck, from Phoenician purple-dye production to late Roman fish tanks, we will consider the connectivity of maritime industries, economies, visual arts, and social practices.  Special topics to be examined: climate, time-cycles, technological aspects of seafaring, ship construction, navigation, innovation, insularities, “maritime small worlds”, coastscapes, opportunistic ports, cabotage, and connections with the hinterland. Readings cover ancient authors (literature, histories, geographies); historiographic works (Braudel, Horden and Purcell, Abulafia, Broodbank); period- and region-specific works (Malkin, Tartaron, Leidwanger, Foley, Bass).

Latin Prose Composition CLASS-GA 1012, Th, 4-6, Matthew McGowan (at NYU)
This course offers an introduction to composition in Latin and a survey of prose styles from Cato the Elder to the Vulgate. Each week we will tackle a different author from D.A. Russell's Anthology of Latin Prose (Oxford) and review individual points of syntax and stylistics via practice exercises and free composition. It is hoped that by the end of the course students will have gained a deeper knowledge of Latin sentence structure and idiom and a greater appreciation for a broad range of prose styles. Weekly assignments (pensa) will include composition and reading from E.C. Woodcock's A New Latin Syntax and from other scholars analyzing a particular author's style. The scholarly essays will provide the background for the brief report (= breviarium) that every student will be asked to do at least once over the course of the semester. 

Required Texts (all available on Amazon): D.A. Russell, Anthology of Latin Prose (Oxford), E.C. Woodcock, A New Latin Syntax, and Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar by B. Gildersleeve and G. Lodge. Please bring these books to class on the first day, Thursday, January 18, 2018. If you have any questions about the content or aims of the course, feel free to email me: mamcgowan@fordham.edu. 

Herodotus CLASS-GA 2912, W, 4:15-6:15, Danielle Kellogg (CUNY Graduate Center)
This course will focus on Herodotos, one of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece and a crucial figure in Greek intellectual and literary history. Herodotos’ Histories is one of the earliest lengthy prose narratives in Ionian Greek still extant and remains the primary (and often only) source for much information about the culture and history of numerous ancient Mediterranean cultures in the late Archaic and early Classical periods. Herodotos’ status as the ‘Father of History’ has been debated in the 2500 years since he set himself the task of recording the ‘great and wonderful deeds’ of the Greeks and Persians: while Herodotos’ investigation of these events set the precedent for all subsequent historical writings, his aims and methods have been controversial since antiquity (just witness the rather uncomplimentary opinions of his near contemporary, Thucydides). Herodotos wove a number of fabulous and entertaining anecdotes and tales into his historical narrative, leading some to refer to him the ‘Father of Lies’ and even to question his status as a historian at all. Current scholarly work, however, mostly treats Herodotos’ Histories both as a carefully crafted literary work in which the supposed ‘digressions’ link together many of Herodotos’ themes and ideas, and as a genuine attempt by the author to record and explain events of the past. The course will advance the students’ fluency in reading and translating Greek prose, while at the same time enriching their understanding of Greek civilization and history and exposing them to current trends in Herodotean scholarship.

Numismatics and the Ancient Economy CLASS-GA 3000.002, W, 3:30-6:00, Gilles Bransbourg and Peter van Alfen (both from the American Numismatic Society)
Coins are much more than just money. They are windows in the way people organize their politics, their societies, and, of course, their economies. Coins were first struck in the ancient Mediterranean world in the late 7th century BC and rapidly spread throughout Greece coinciding with the revolutionary changes that gave birth to the Greek city-state. Greek and Roman expansions led to increased monetization all across the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, shaping political structures, fiscal regimes, domestic and international trade. This course begins by looking at archaic Greece before coinage, seeking to understand what money was before coinage, and how trade and wealth were organized. Thereafter, it focuses on the ways in which coinage altered these organizations and structures through Greco-Roman antiquity, leading to entirely new concepts like fiduciarity, exchange rate risk, and inflation. The course will cover the history, methods and theories of numismatics, and will include hands-on experience with ancient coins, while dealing with the impact that coinage had on ancient societies.

Late Latin Verse, CLASS-GA 3000, Th, 2:30-5:00, Marco Formisano (Fordham College Lincoln Center)
In this course we will read some of the most famous late Latin poems (Ausonius, Mosella; Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae; Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo), as well a selection of passages from other poetry by Ausonius, Proba, and Prudentius. While these texts are most often read intertextually with an almost exclusive focus on their relationships with models such as Vergil, Ovid, Horace and Statius, our aim is to study these poems on their own terms, namely as the products of late antique literary culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the concept of allegory, both as an ancient and late-antique textual phenomenon and as a topic of theorizing in twentieth-century literary criticism (e.g. Walter Benjamin, Paul De Man). On April 27, 2018 a workshop with external speakers on “Origins and Original Moments in Late Antique Literature” will take place at Fordham, and the participants in this class will be directly involved in the discussion.

Greek Sympotic Poetry, CLASS-GA 3002, W, 6:30-8:30, Lawrence Kowerski (CUNY Graduate Center)

Roman Novel, CLASS-GA 3003, T, 4:15-6:15, David Konstan
Ancient Rome bequeathed to literature three novels of very different character: Petronius’ Satyrica, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass, thanks to a citation by Augustine), and the anonymous History of Apollonius King of Tyre.  We shall read most (if not all) of these texts in Latin, and discuss various points of Latin style, narrative technique, and social context.  A final paper is required, due at the end of the semester.

Pre-Socratic Philosophy, CLASS-GA 3004, M, 6:30-8:30, David Sider
In this course we shall survey the path of Greek philosophy from its beginnings until just short of Plato. Most of this will be on natural science (such as evolution, the big bang theory, and subatomic particles, to be anachronistic) and the attempts to grapple with the concept of existence, but what little remains of early philosophical ethics will also be examined. Since all of early Greek thought is known primarily from later sources who quote (not always consistently), paraphrase (often tendentiously), and interpret (often erroneously), it must be approached in the first instance philologically fragment by fragment before being put into historical and then philosophical contexts.

Fall 2017

Greek Survey, CLASS-GA1009   
TBA, David Sider 

Re-visiting the Classics, CLASS-GA 2502, same as COLIT-GA2502
Monday, 3:30-6:10, Emma Bianchi
In the face of the rising popularity of “new materialisms,” this class examines the emergence of the notion of “matter” in classical antiquity. In short, matter, from the Latin ‘materia’ (related to mater, mother) is transmitted from Aristotle’s Greek innovation hulê (literally, wood).  We will undertake close readings of key ancient primary texts, including various Presocratics, Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Physics, Metaphysics, and Generation of Animals, and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, tracing the discourses of materiality that arise in concert with tropes of sex and gender. The guiding question here is: what can matter’s genealogical ties to the feminine tell us about the materialization of bodies and genders? At the same time, we will attend to the topographies and texture of ancient thinking about nature and materiality more broadly. Alongside a narrative of “emergence” we will also consider hermeneutic questions – what are the ethico-political stakes of a “retrieval” of antiquity and what is the nature of our relationship to these distant texts? How does such “retrieval” function to both conceal and reveal? Why “return” to antiquity and how might resuscitation of the canon contribute to contemporary theorizing? While ancient texts are undoubtedly “good to think with,” are they capable of displacing modernity’s epistemological binds in favor of ontological or material questions? How might a consideration of these texts enrich contemporary discourses of matter and gender? To help orient our study we will draw on contemporary feminist thinkers including Irigaray, Kristeva, Loraux and Cavarero, as well as critically engaging Bachofen’s 19th century conception of Mutterrecht. Some background knowledge of psychoanalytic theory is advised as is knowledge of Greek, however all readings will be in translation.  

Aeneid, CLASS-GA2882  
Wednesday, 4:15-6:15, Alessandro Barchiesi
The class is designed to discuss contemporary approaches to the Aeneid in research, and also to increase familiarity with the text in Latin. Students are expected to give a presentation and to turn it into a final paper. We will discuss literary models, references to history and geography, and select examples of reception in various ages and contexts.

Aristophanes, CLASS-GA2970  
Tuesday, 6:30-8:30, Peter Meineck (at CUNY)
In this course we will focus on Aristophanes' Frogs, first staged in Athens around 405 BCE. We will undergo a deep reading of the Greek text and consider the staging, political and social situations, aesthetic questions, production, transmission, and translation of the text and modern incarnations of the work. A good working knowledge of ancient Greek is required for this class.

Greek Drama in the Mediterranean & Black Sea, CLASS-GA3004    
Wednesday, 6:30-8:30, Barbara Kowalzig
In recent years, our knowledge of the performance of ancient drama outside Athens and beyond the fifth century has significantly increased. We are now much better informed about theatrical cultures across the Mediterranean and Black Sea, the impact of re-performance, the organisation and financing of theatre productions, the social and economic status of actors, and the archaeology of theatre. This seminar will provide an introduction to this thriving research field. It will then look at the motivations and mechanisms governing the spread of drama during the classical period and at the performance of drama in local social and religious contexts such as Sicily, Macedonia, and the Black Sea. In particular, on the basis of a number of individual plays, we will examine the role of myth and ritual in Athenian drama in forging cultural and economic relations between Athens and peoples and places across the Mediterranean, and in conceptualizing maritime spaces, journeys, and connectivities by sea. For example, what exactly is the relationship between the mythical themes appearing on the Athenian stage and the economic significance of the area portrayed? Time and interest permitting, we will also examine Hellenistic performance culture, as well as the evidence for theatre in Roman Greece.

For a taste of the field and for some introductory reading, see O. Taplin, ‘Spreading the Word through Performance’ (1999); B. Kowalzig, ‘Nothing to do with Demeter? Something to do with Sicily! Theatre and Society in the Early Fifth-century West’ (2008); K. Bosher (ed.), Theatre Outside Athens. Drama in Greek Sicily and Italy (2013); B. Kowalzig, ‘Transcultural Chorality: Iphigenia in Tauris and Athenian Imperial Economics in a Polytheistic World’ (2013); E. Csapo, P. Wilson, ‘Drama Outside Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC’ (2015). 

Greek Prose Composition, CLASS-GA1011   
Thursday, 4:15-6:15 (Fordham)
This course offers an introduction to composition in Greek and a survey of prose styles from Lysias to Plutarch. Each week we will tackle a different genus scribendi in our reading and then review individual points of syntax and stylistics via practice exercises and free composition. Students will be asked to make presentations on the style of an author of their choice. It is hoped that by the end of the course we will have gained a deeper knowledge of Greek sentence structure and idiom and a greater appreciation for a broad range of prose styles in Greek.

Plato, CLASS-GA2932  
Monday, 4:15-6:15, Simpson (CUNY)
The course will take the form of a study of the works of Plato through selected readings from them, including in particular parts of the Republic and Apology. A large question in Platonic scholarship, however, is the order of the dialogues and whether a chronological ordering (usually favored today) is better than some other or thematic ordering. Ancient authors, Neo-Platonists in particular, favored thematic orderings. They also regarded most Platonic works that have come down to us as really by Plato (including all the letters), while modern scholars tend to reject some at least of what the Neo-Platonists accepted (e.g. most of the letters). The course will begin with some discussion of the authenticity and ordering questions and then proceed to specific selections.

Cicero's Speeches, CLASS-GA 2845
Thursday, 6:30-8:30, Leo Landrey (Fordham)
In Cicero's Speeches students will encounter and track Roman oratory over the course of the career of its most eminent stylist and theoretician. Class time will focus on analyzing the aims and means of each speech and how they connect to central ideas in Late Republican culture. These ideas may include the distribution of power within the republic, the boundaries of Roman masculinity, the construction of individual identity, and the performative nature of public speaking. Brief passages of relevant comparative material, such as excerpts from Cicero's letters, philosophy, and poetry, will complement the core assignments. A reasonably priced course pack will be available for students to purchase.

Homer: Iliad, CLASS-GA2981  
Tuesday, 4:15-6:15, Roberts (CUNY)
A close reading of the Iliad (selections).  We will pay close attention to Homer’s language and style, his portrayal of specific gods and mortals and of their interaction with one another, the notion of heroism, Homeric warfare, and the historical context of the poem, but we will also explore whatever aspects of the poem are of particular interest to students in the course.  Students will write a term paper of about 20 pages on a topic of their own choosing.

Rome & the Hellenistic East, CLASS-GA3000
Monday, 6:30-8:30, Allen (CUNY)
This course explores the vitality of the Hellenistic period, roughly defined as 330-30 BCE, by exploring interactions among the populations of the Mediterranean, including Roman, Hellenic, Egyptian, Punic, Judaean, Celtic, and various hybrids thereamong. We’ll consider a series of case studies in literature, art, epigraphy, and archaeology to understand new developments in culture, politics, and geopolitics.

Courses at ISAW (permission of the instructor required):

Course descriptions can be found here. 

Introduction to Ancient Astronomical Traditions, ISAW-GA 3002-001
Monday, 9 a.m.-12 p.m., Alexander Jones

The Transmission of Ancient Science into Arabic, ISAW-GA 3007-001
Tuesday, 9 a.m.-12 p.m., Robert Hoyland

Archaeology of Anatolia from the Neolithic to the Hellenistic Period, ISAW-GA 3012-001
Friday, 2-5 p.m., Lorenzo d’Alfonso

Art, Archaeology, & Museology, ISAW-GA 3012-002
Wednesday, 2-5 p.m., Lillian Tseng and Jennifer Chi

Historiographies of Ancient Egypt, ISAW-GA 3020-001
Thursday, 2-5 p.m., Emily Cole 

Spring 2017

CLASS-GA 1001 Introduction to Classical Studies (CUNY), R, 6:30 - 8:30, Jennifer Roberts

CLASS-GA 1002 Archaeologies of the Greek Landscape, T, 6:30 - 8:30, Joan Breton Connelly 
How did geography and the environment shape the ways that communities and individuals interacted with one another across the Greek world?   How did the Greeks perceive, experience and exploit local landscapes and resources? This seminar focuses on: myth, landscape and sacred space; location of settlements, cities, and sanctuaries; ‘socialization’ of landscape; material culture within space and place; economic and political relationships; trade and exchange networks; technological innovations in agriculture, seafaring, and metallurgy; human alteration of land/cultural modifications to landscape.  From the testimonia of ancient geographers, historians, and travellers, to Antiquarian accounts from the 16th century on, to the Topographic Tradition of the 19th century, and  “Cultural-History” Archaeology of the 20thcentury, we will track the roots and emergence of “Landscape Archaeology” as a sub-discipline in the 1960s/1970s. Developments in the decades that followed include: emphasis on surface and regional intensive/extensive surveys, quantitative studies, spatial data, archaeological prospection, modelling artifact distributions and analytical GIS. Select readings from: Herodotus, Strabo, Pausanias, Leake, Gell, Muller, Pendlebury, Hope Simpson, Bintliff, Renfrew, MacDonald, Rapp, Braudel, Snodgrass, Hodder, Cherry, Kardoulias, Horden, Purcell, Knapp, Alcock, Malkin, Elsner, and Broodbank.

CLASS-GA 1005 Latin Survey, M&W, 2:00 - 3:15, David Levene
We will be studying a number of Latin texts from the Augustan period to late antiquity. Apart from simply reading and understanding the texts, we will be seeking to examine their place in the development of Latin literature; we will also be surveying a variety of critical approaches adopted by modern scholars, through close readings of key articles and books on the the different authors.

CLASS-GA 1013 Survey of Greek Literature (Fordham), T, 4:15 - 6:15, Mathew McGowan & Sarah Peirce 
The course offers a survey of Greek literature from Homer to Plutarch. Each week we will read extensive selections from different authors that appear on the M.A./Ph.D. reading list. For our weekly meetings students will be asked to read the corresponding chapter in Albrecht Dihle’s History of Greek Literature (Routledge 1994). All are welcome to attend.

CLASS-GA 3000 Future of the Past (Fordham), T, 6:30 - 8:30, Jason Pedicone
What is Classics? Where does it come from? Where is it going? These are questions of existential importance for those who have taken a professional interest in the field of Classical Studies, but they are rarely studied formally in graduate school. This seminar will offer graduate students the opportunity to engage with and explore these questions about our field, and to examine themes of particular relevance to the future of the discipline.  It will start with an overview of the history of Classical Scholarship from Alexandria to the present day, and then explore various themes related to the future development of the field such as: the role of a classical education in American education; the development of the field of philology; comparison of current models for classical educational around the world; studies in the demographics of interest in classics worldwide; models for outreach in classics; exploration of possible alternative career outcomes for Classics Ph.D's; and the role classical studies will play in the future of higher education. The seminar will welcome guest speakers including several Paideia Legionnaires."
Readings will be drawn from the following:
History of Classical Scholarship, Volumes I and II by Rudolf Pfeiffer
Selections from History of Classical Scholarship by John Sandys
Philology by David Turner
Organizing Enlightenment by Chad Wellman
"From Polyhistor to Philolog" by Anthony Grafton
The Tyranny of Greece over Germany by E.M. Butler
Wolf's Prolegomena ad Homerum, A. Grafton, G. Most, & J. Zetzel edition
Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and Wilamotitz' Future Philology
The Founders and the Classics and The Golden Age of Classics in America, by Carl J. Richards
Who Killed Homer? by Victor Davis Hanson
Excellent Sheep by Bill Deriesewicz
The Graduate School Mess by Leonard Casutto
College: What is Is, Was, and Should Be by Andrew Del Banco
The Future of the Classical by Salvatore Settis (2006)

CLASS-GA 3000-002, Through the Eyes of Coins: Trade & Wealth in the Ancient World, T, 3:30-6:00, Gilles Bransbourg & Peter Van Alfen from the American Numismatic Society
Coins are much more than just money. They are windows in the way people organize their politics, their societies, and, of course, their economies. Coins were first struck in the ancient Mediterranean world in the late 7th century BC and rapidly spread throughout Greece coinciding with the revolutionary changes that gave birth to the Greek city-state. Greek and Roman expansions led to increased monetization all across the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, shaping political structures, fiscal regimes, domestic and international trade. This course begins by looking at archaic Greece before coinage, seeking to understand what money was before coinage, and how trade and wealth were organized. Thereafter, it focuses on the ways in which coinage altered these organizations and structures through Greco-Roman antiquity, leading to entirely new concepts like fiduciarity, exchange rate risk, and inflation. The course will cover the history, methods and theories of numismatics, and will include hands-on experience with ancient coins, while dealing with the impact that coinage had on ancient societies.

CLASS-GA 2887 Ovid’s Metamorphoses, W, 4:15 - 6:15, Alessandro Barchiesi 
The seminar addresses one of the crucial texts of the Western tradition, now in roughly its 2000th year of reception history. The main goal is to encourage participants to develop research approaches and offer fresh papers on the text but also on its reception and influence.

Knowledge of Latin, not necessarily very advanced, is necessary. The texts for the seminar discussion will be translated and explained in class.

Some of the main areas of interest: mythology, the construction of landscape, gender, metamorphosis, poetic models, tragedy and epic, cosmology, Imperial ideology, narrative style and narratology, Roman Hellenism, material culture in epic, emotions and their representation.

Text: Tarrant's Oxford Classical Text of Metamorphoses; other bibliography will be indicated in class.

CLASS-GA 3003 Latin Prose Composition (CUNY), M, 6:30 - 8:30, Philip Thibodeau 

CLASS-GA 2878  Plautus, W, 6:30 - 8:30, Emilia Barbiero 
This course focuses on the epistolary motif in Plautine comedy, exploring the complex dynamics engendered when text appears on stage. How does Plautus use the letter and its thorny conventions to create comic mischief and advance (or undo) the plot? What role do missives play in the playwright's poetics - particularly in the construction of metatheatre? After looking at the origins of the embedded epistle in Greek literature, we will investigate the reading and writing of letters on the Roman comic stage through close study of the Plautine 'letter plays' (Bacchides, Curculio, Persa, Pseudolus and Trinummus).

CLASS 3002 History from/in the Arts (CUNY), M, 4:15 - 6:15, Liv Yarrow 
An investigation into how and why we today use literary and visual media when reconstructing the past and how this intersects with context and function of ancient artistic and literary production. 

CLASS-GA 3202 Workshop on Greek Sight Reading (CUNY), R, 4:15 - 6:15, Dee Clayman (1 Credit)
A knowledge of basic Greek grammar and vocabulary is assumed. The class will meet for 1.5 hours each week. Regular attendance is required. The instructor will bring to class each week texts selected from the works of authors on the reading list, with an emphasis on prose. Students will be challenged to translate them on the spot in writing, and discussion will follow of strategies for producing accurate and literal translations. The course is ideal for students preparing to take a Greek translation exam (MA of PhD), but any student enrolled in the MA or PhD in Classics, Ancient History, or Comparative Literature may register until the course limit is reached.

ISAW Courses

ISAW-GA 3012-001
 Sciences and Intellectual Life in the Second Century Roman Empire, M, 9:00 - 12:00, 
Alexander Jones & Claire Bubb

alexander.jones@nyu.edu; cc148@nyu.edu


This seminar will cover the wide range of intellectual activity in the Roman Empire in the second century AD. Though its literature has at times been dismissed as second-rate or derivative, the second century was home to some of the most prolific and influential writers in their fields in antiquity, especially in the sciences, making it a fertile period for the study of interdisciplinary cross-pollination. The social history of the period is also of rich interest, especially that around the Second Sophistic, a rhetorical movement that offers insights into the role of Greeks and Greekness in the Roman world, as well as the social and intellectual mores of the time. We will cover a variety of topics, including, potentially, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, miscellany, rhetoric and showmanship, and autobiography.



Knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin and permission of the instructors are required.