Fall 2024
CLASS-GA 1014 Survey/Latin Literature
MW 2:00-3:15am, Emilia Barbiero
CLASS-GA 2832 Lucretius
W 4:55-7:25pm, David Konstan
The object of this course is to read the entire De Rerum Natura of Lucretius in Latin, and acquire a sense of its majesty as poetry and its importance for understanding the philosophy of Epicurus, in its original as well as in its new Roman context. The primary focus of the class will be on the close reading of selected passages. Secondary literature will be made available for each session. One paper of 5,000 words will be required at the end of the course.
CLASS-GA 2970 Aristophanes
R 4:55-7:25pm, Peter Meineck
Study of the structure and content of old comedy as represented by the surviving comedies of Aristophanes. Includes political invective and satire; literary parody; utopianism; comic language, gesture, and costume.
CLASS-GA 3003 Topics in Latin Literature: Roman Epic and Italy
T 4:55-7:25pm, Alessandro Barchiesi
The idea of Italy has a long history but it is a very contested and complex one. The modern nation is only as old as the battle of Gettysburg but there is much to say about the imagining and redefining of Italy during the previous generations (let's say the previous 95 generations of humans). Long before the unification of Italy, Roman epic has played a fundamental role in constructing ideas of Italy in its close relationship with Rome. The class is based on close reading from Roman epic poets such as the Republican fragmentary authors Livius Andronicus, Naevius and Ennius, and the Imperial poets Virgil, Ovid, Lucan and Silius Italicus. We will discuss the texts in Latin, and use comparative evidence from archaeology, historiography and linguistics, always with a focus on different ways to articulate the relationship between Rome, the Italic peoples, and their territory.
CUNY CLAS 74300 Roman Art from Republic to Empire
T 4:15–6:15pm, Rachel Kousser
(Course meets at CUNY Graduate Center)
This course analyzes the visual culture of Rome during a critical period of political transition: the transformation from Republic to Empire. In so doing, it examines an era — spanning
roughly the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E., and including as its centerpiece the age of Augustus — which has been a major focus of scholarship for the past thirty years. The course presents an introduction to Roman art of the Late Republic and Early Empire, with a particular emphasis on questions of art and power. At the same time, we will examine both the advantages and difficulties with current scholarly approaches to Augustan art. With a focus on major monuments such as the Ara Pacis and the Colosseum, as well as the masterpieces of Roman wall painting from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the goal of the course is a broader and more nuanced understanding of early Roman art. Major topics to be addressed include: classicism and the use of the past, the visual culture of Roman freedmen, ‘Romanization’ and the provinces, the representation of gender, and the creation, viewing, and subversion of programmatic art.
CUNY CLAS 72800 The Roman Household
W 4:15-6:15pm, Matthew Perry
(Course meets at CUNY Graduate Center)
Wives and husbands, parents and children, enslavers and enslaved, patres familias and dependents, all dwelled and labored alongside each other within the ancient Roman household. This seminar explores Roman social history through the lens of the household, one of antiquity’s most powerful and enduring institutions. Engaging with critical topics such as gender, identity, family, slavery, and status, readings will consist of primary sources (in translation), classic works of modern scholarship, and recent innovative studies.
CUNY CLAS 81100 Athens and the Democratic Ideal
W 6:30-8:30pm, Jennifer Roberts
(Course meets at CUNY Graduate Center)
The remarkable Athenian experiment in self-government has been a source of fascination throughout the centuries. Even in its own day poets sang its praises while philosophers recoiled from it. As time passed some like Cicero and John Adams found the amount of power placed in the hands of the citizens’ assembly a source of horror, while Rousseau winced at what he perceived as decadence and exalted the virtues of the Spartans. Incongruously, both the slaveholders of the antebellum south and egalitarian thinkers of the twentieth century found it an admirable model. Others have condemned it for its slaveholding and misogyny. What lessons might the Athenians have for our own day, and how has Athenian culture—tragedy in particular—been “remastered” in modern times: in Europe, in Africa, and in the African and Hispanic diasporas?
In her 1985 study of gender dynamics in Athens, Eva Keuls identified classical Athens as “a kind of concave mirror in which we can see our own foibles and institutions magnified and distorted.” If we can learn, can we also change? Over the past few years Imprint Academic has brought out a series of books exploring the prospects for making government more democratic by the use of the lottery to choose deliberative bodies, including SUNY New Paltz political scientist Jeff Miller’s 2022 book Democracy in Crisis : Lessons from Ancient Athens. This course will explore the workings of Athenian democracy and trace the way it has informed political discourse for the past 2500 years. As tragedy was a key expression of democratic ideology, we will also consider the tragedies of Sophocles and their adaptations in the modern world.