Spring 2021
CLASS-GA 1002 Archaeologies of the Athenian Acropolis: Myth, Cult, Monuments, and Reception
T 10:30-12:30, Joan Connelly
This course investigates the archaeologies of the Athenian Acropolis through its transformations from early settlement, to Mycenaean citadel, to sacred precinct of Athena, to Late Antique town with Parthenon as Church of the Virgin Mary, to administrative center of Latin Duchy of Athens with Parthenon as the Cathedral Notre Dame D’Athènes, to Ottoman garrison with Parthenon as mosque and Erechtheion as Governor’s harem, to world famous ruin, to archaeological site, to iconic epicenter Western Art and Culture.
We will examine the geology, landscape, archaeoastronomy, topography, and topology of the Athenian Acropolis with an eye toward understanding the interrelation of landscape, myth, cult, and ritual. Topics include: the architectural phases of the Acropolis buildings and monuments, their programs of sculptural decoration, their relationships to one another, the foundation myths that lie behind their meanings, and the cult rituals celebrated within the sacred precinct. Issues of reception, projection, and appropriation will be examined as will the history of the conservation and reconstruction of Acropolis buildings. Longstanding efforts to secure the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures will be reviewed within the broader context of global cultural heritage law and the opening of the New Acropolis Museum.
CLASS-GA 1005 Latin Literature Imperial Literature Survey
MW 2-3:15, Alessandro Barchiesi
Survey of texts of Imperial Roman literature in Latin at graduate level. Emphasis on translation, grammar, style, coverage of major authors and works (Virgil, Seneca, Petronius, Martial, Statius, Tacitus, Juvenal, Apuleius, Claudian, Ammianus, Augustine), and on trends, approaches and methods of research. The choice will be oriented on the required readings for grad students.
CLASS-GA 1012 (LATIN 5211) Latin Rhetoric & Stylistics
W 4:15-6:15, Patrick Burns
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 tackle a different genus scribendi and review individual points of syntax and stylistics via practice exercises and longer compositions. 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 in Latin.
CLASS-GA 3001 From Sentinum to Saguntum: The Rise of Rome in the Third Century B.C.
T 4:15-6:15, David Levene
One of the less documented periods in Roman history is also one of the most important. Following their victory at Sentinum over a coalition of Italian nations in 295 B.C., the Romans obtained dominance - though far from unchallenged - in central and southern Italy. Seventy-five years later, on the eve of the Second Punic War, they were not only in effective control of almost the entire Italian peninsula, but they had also made their first forays into overseas conquest and had defeated Carthage to become the most powerful empire in the Western Mediterranean. The same period saw major cultural changes at Rome, not least the first recorded Latin literature, and also economic changes, including the first introduction of Roman coinage.
In this course we will be examining the various processes that transformed Rome in so short a time from a regional force to a Mediterranean power. One major focus will be on tracing Rome's military and diplomatic engagement, both hostile and otherwise, with her potential rivals and challengers; we will also consider the way in which the Romans developed networks of power via colonies and alliances in Italy, both formal and informal. Another important question is how far the Romans had (as our sources sometimes seem to suggest) genuinely overcome the legacy of social and political discord; we will also examine the cultural relationship between Rome and her neighbours inside and outside Italy, and the various influences in both directions. We will analyze these issues in light of what are still some of the most intensely contested questions in classical scholarship, including the nature of Roman imperialism, the relationship between Rome and her colonies, the extent of aristocratic control over Roman military and political decision-making, and the reasons for the cultural shifts in the city. We will draw on the widest possible set of evidence, primarily literary, but also archaeological, epigraphic, and numismatic.
CLASS-GA 2872 Catullus
M 6:30-8:30, David Konstan
Catullus: the first romantic poet in Western literature, as Yeats seems to have thought, or a learned master of Alexandrian refinement? His brief corpus, which includes lyric poems (and a translation of Sappho), invectives, epigrams, wedding songs, a miniature epic, a proto-elegy, and a few poems that defy easy classification, survives by a slender manuscript tradition. In this seminar, we will read the entire collection, along with a selection of scholarly interpretations, exploring the multiple facets of his literary persona. Class time will be devoted to discussion and occasional reports, and a paper will be due at the end of the semester.
CLASS-GA 2987 Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns
T 6:30 PM-8:30, Philip Thibodeau (CUNY GC)
Participants in this seminar will read the Homeric hymns to Aphrodite, Apollo, Demeter, and Hermes, along with extensive selections from the Hesiodic epics: the Shield, Theogony, and Works and Days. Close attention will be paid to the influence of oral poetics on the language and narrative of the poems. We will also consider what light they shed on the cultural and historical situation of archaic Greece, and chart their contributions to Greek mythology.
CLASS-GA 3000 Race, Ethnicity, and Power in the Ancient World
TH 4:15-6:15, Jennifer Roberts (CUNY GC)
This interdisciplinary course will explore concepts of race and ethnicity in the ancient world in readings in English in both primary and secondary sources, with emphasis on the Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic worlds. No knowledge of Latin or Greek is required, although students who can read either or both of those languages may periodically wish to meet with me for close analysis of a particular text.
Greek and Latin literature is full of references to groups that the authors felt were “not like us.” The Greeks developed the term “barbarians” (people whose incomprehensible speech sounded like bar, bar, bar) for non-Greeks; their feelings about them were mixed, but for the most part they enjoyed articulating their own superiority. In addition, the individual Greek city-states were exclusive about their citizenship, not enfranchising immigrants or the children of immigrants, and a number of them had elaborate myths designed to explain the special characteristics they possessed that set them apart from, and above, others. Matters were more complicated in the later Greek world (the Hellenistic period of 323-30BCE) when the conquests of Alexander had spawned sprawling multi-ethnic empires, and the people we call “the Romans” were a very diverse group faced with a founding legend that painted them as the descendants of criminals and slaves. The Roman elite was increasingly multi-ethnic as time went on; the emperors Trajan and Hadrian were both from Spain, and reign of the African emperor Septimius Severus—who spoke Latin with an accent--ushered in an era in which emperors came from all over the Mediterranean world. Despite this diversity, Roman authors enjoyed lobbing ethnic slurs at other “nationalities.”
Profiting from our own diverse backgrounds and training, we will examine the very complex picture presented by ancient notions of race and ethnicity, and students will pursue projects that grow out of their particular backgrounds and interests.
Readings will include:
Herodotus, The Histories (any translation)
Tacitus, Germania (any translation)
Rebecca Futo Kennedy, C. Sydnor Roy, and Max Goldman, Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2013
Denise McCoskey, Race in Antiquity and Its Legacy (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012)
CLASS-GA 3002.01 The World of Late Antiquity
M 4:15-6:15, Cristiana Sogno (Fordham)
This course offers an introduction to the history, art and culture of the Late Antique world from the third to the sixth century. We will explore the older narratives of decline in this period alongside powerful alternatives proposed by scholars more recently, drawing on both primary sources and monuments and critically examining the secondary literature that studies them.
CLASS-GA 3000.02 Papyrology
TH 6:30-8:30, Graham Claytor (CUNY GC)
This course offers an introduction to the study of ancient papyri, with a focus on Greek documents. We will explore the history of papyrology and its relationship to Classical Studies and discuss the methods of editing papyri and using papyrological evidence. Participants will learn to use the key digital tools of the field and have the opportunity to work on unpublished texts."
CLASS-GA 3999.02 Dissertation Research
TBA, Adam Becker
Latin Sight Translation
M 4:15-6:15, Jennifer Roberts (CUNY GC), 1 credit