CLASS-UA 002 Intensive Elementary Latin
M-F 8:00-9:15, Benjamin Nikota
Introduction to the essentials of Latin vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. Open to students with no previous training in Latin. Completes the equivalent of a year's elementary level in one semester.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous
CLASS-UA 004 Elementary Latin II
001. M-TH 9:30-10:45, Greta Gualdi
002. M-TH 3:30-4:45, Nicholas Rynearson
Continuation of Elementary Latin I. Introduction to the essentials of Latin vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. Five hours of instruction weekly, with both oral and written drills and an emphasis on the ability to read Latin rather than merely translate it.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous for both sections
CLASS-UA 006 Intermediate Latin II: Virgil
001. MTW, 9:30-10:45, Matthew Santirocco
002. M, T, TH 3:30-4:45, Andrea Pozzana
Writings of the greatest Roman poet, focusing on the most generally read portions of his most celebrated poem, the Aeneid. The meter of the poem is studied, and the student learns to read Latin metrically to reflect the necessary sound for full appreciation of the writing. Readings in political and literary history illustrate the setting in the Augustan Age in which the Aeneid was written and enjoyed, the relationship of the poem to the other classical epics, and its influence on the poetry of later times.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous for both sections
CLASS-UA 008 Elementary Ancient Greek II
M-TH 11:00-12:15, Nicholas Rynearson
Introduction to the complex but highly beautiful language of ancient Greece--the language of Homer, Sophocles, Thucydides, and Plato. Students learn the essentials of ancient Greek vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. Five hours of instruction weekly, with both oral and written drills and an emphasis on the ability to read Greek rather than merely translate it.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous
CLASS-UA 10 Intermediate Ancient Greek II: Homer
MTW 9:30-10:45, David Sider
Extensive readings from the Odyssey. Emphasized will be translation, grammar, Homeric dialect forms, reading aloud in meter, as well as literary matters, such as similes, imagery, typical scenes, and the meaning of it all.
Mode of instruction: in person
CLASS-UA 210 Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece & Rome
M&W 2:00-3:15, David Sider
In this course we shall examine the various ways the sexual lives and gender roles of men and women were socially constructed from birth to old age, primarily in ancient Greece, with some attention paid to Rome. Since the readings, taken as much as possible from contemporary (or nearly so) documents, were for the most part written by men, we shall make a special effort to read the few texts that have come down to us which were (or purported to have been) written by women. We shall also be viewing ancient art that complements the written evidence.
Mode of instruction: in person
CLASS-UA 242 (identical to HIST-UA 200 & HELL-UA 242) Greek History from the Bronze Age-Alexander
T&TH 2:00-3:15, Barbara Kowalzig
This course will trace the history of ancient Greece from the Bronze Age to the death of Alexander in 323 BCE. Emerging from the margins of powerful empires to the east, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Hittite Anatolia, Greece during most of this period consisted of small, fractious, and highly competitive city-states. Yet the Greek world saw rapid transformation in all areas of human activity, politics, society, economics, religion, literature and the arts. Within the broad outlines of Greek history, we will study major historical and social developments, such as the structural collapse of the Bronze Age Mediterranean around the time of the fall of Troy, the spread of Greeks, Phoenicians and others across the Mediterranean; the emergence of the city-state and ideas of citizenship, civic community and identity; Athenian imperialism and the development of radical democracy during the Peloponnesian War; the lives of women, foreigners, and slaves. We will discuss the role of religion and the arts and a flourishing theatre culture in generating social identities and in problematizing issues that concern us to the present day, such as economic inequalities, gender relations, and not least the role of the individual in society. Students will read primary sources drawn from the Homeric epics, the Greek historians, drama and oratory, while also being treated to epigraphic evidence and recent archaeological discoveries.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous
CLASS-UA 291 (identical to RELST-UA 991) St. Augustine’s “City of God”
W 2:00-4:45, Adam Becker
In 410 CE the Germanic tribe of Visigoths sacked the city of Rome. In response some blamed Christianity, accusing this new-fangled religion of displeasing the ancient gods and thus being the underlying cause for the violence suffered in the ancient imperial capital. From his bishopric in North Africa St. Augustine began to pen a defense of Christianity against such accusations. However, as he wrote the plan of the work expanded and in the end he composed his well known, massive City of God, a foundational text in Christian theology and Western philosophy. What began as a response to the apparent decline of Roman imperial power became more than just an apology for Christianity. The City of God also provides a theory of history, an outline of Augustine’s theology, and an articulation of Christianity’s alleged superiority over the philosophical systems of the ancient world, in particular, Neoplatonism. Few other individual works cover such a broad range of significant topics.
This seminar will focus on St. Augustine’s City of God. Brief lectures will set out the historical, literary, and intellectual context. However, a work such as this allows for questions and conversation that go well beyond its original setting. Our focus will be the text itself and the dialogue it provokes.
Topics addressed include: Augustine’s critique of Roman religion, his relationship to Virgil and other Classical authors, his engagement with Greek philosophy, Christian political theology, the Christian understanding of history, the problem of suffering, demonology, the origin of evil, the creation of the human being, Original Sin, war and peace, judgment and punishment, eschatology (the end time), envisioning God, and Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities.
No Latin is required. However, the professor is willing to run a separate, extra reading group with students who have some Latin and are interested in reading selections from the work in the original.
Online mini-lectures
The seminar is officially scheduled to run for 2 hours and 45 minutes. However, the meeting time will only last for 2 hours because students will be expected to watch brief online lectures on the week’s reading before each seminar meeting.
Mode of instruction: online
CLASS-UA 314 (identical to ARTH-UA 15.002) Greek Sculpture: Prayers in Stone
M&W 3:30-6:00, Joan Connelly
From the “Snake Goddesses” of Minoan Crete, to the marble kouroi of archaic sanctuaries, from the Parthenon sculptures to the Pergamene Altar, the Greeks devoted enormous resources to the sculpting of images. This course examines sculptural production in Greece from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period, with careful attention to materials, techniques, styles, iconography, authorship, patronage, and settings. The votive function of images as “pleasing gifts” for the gods, their apotropaic role in protecting tombs and temples, and the commemorative function of sculptured grave markers will be considered within the broader context of signification. Special topics include: divine images, corporality, athletic statuary, portraiture, and architectural decoration. Sculptures will be examined within the framework of critical theories of representation, mimesis, aesthetics, and reception, as well as within their broader social, political, and historical contexts.
Mode of instruction: blended
CLASS-UA 404 (identical to RELST-UA 404) Classical Mythology
T&TH 11:00-12:15, Peter Meineck
This course is an examination of the meaning, form and function of Greek and Roman mythology especially its transmission via the literature, art and material culture of the ancient Mediterranean world. We explore the way in which these stories operated in Greek and Roman culture and seek to understand what they were articulating in contemporary social, political, military, economic and artistic life. Consequently, a number of ancient texts will be read in translation and set against iconographic evidence from vase paintings, sculpture and architecture. The course begins by surveying the various ways in which mythology has been catalogued and studied from the ancient mythographers to Freud, Propp. Levi-Strauss, and Burkert. Then ancient texts are used to explore how myth developed throughout the classical period. These will include Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Hesiod’s Work and Days and Theogony, the Homeric hymns to the gods, Greek tragedy and comedy, Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The influence of mythology on the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare and in film will also be discussed. The class meets twice a week and students are expected to complete bi-weekly readings, contribute to in class discussions and a class Blackboard discussion board, sit a mid term and a final complete one essay and attend at least one related theatre performance.
This class is taught by Peter Meineck who is Clinical Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Studies at NYU, Artistic Director of the Aquila Theatre Company and National Director of the National Endowment for the Humanities supported Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives program. He has published several translations of ancient drama and numerous articles on ancient drama and acted as a mythological consultant to Will Smith on the movieI am Legend, National Geographic, Disney, and Fuse TV. He has also published recorded lectures on mythology and ancient drama with Barnes and Noble and Recorded Books. He was awarded a 2009 Golden Dozen Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Science at NYU, the 2000 Lewis Galantiere Award for Outstanding Literary Translation by the American Translator’s Association, a 2010 Chairman’s Special Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 2010 Prize for Outreach from the American Philological Association.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous
CLASS-UA 700 (identical to PHIL-UA 122) Greek Thinkers
T&TH 8:00-9:15, Laura Viidebaum
Western theorizing begins with the Greeks, who can be said to have invented or introduced all manner of thinking about the universe and human nature. Illustrative texts from the presocratics, mathematicians, philosophers, historians, and tragedians will be read.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous
CLASS-UA 871 Advanced Latin: Vergil’s Aeneid Book XII
M&W 9:30-10:45, Alessandro Barchiesi
Reading, analysis of grammar and style, meter, and discussion of a masterpiece of Latin Literature, Aeneid book XII. Assignments of about 40-50 lines of Latin text, with class discussion and exercises in language and text comprehension. Required text: R.J. Tarrant (ed.) A Commentary on Virgil, Aeneid XII, Cambridge
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous
CLASS-UA 972 Advanced Greek II: Greek Drama - Euripides' Hippolytus
T&TH 3:30-4:45, Barbara Kowalzig
The class will read Euripides’ Hippolytos of 428 BCE, a play immensely popular in antiquity. Besides translation of the Greek and revision of grammar, syntax and morphology where appropriate, we will read other treatments of this myth in Greek literature, discuss the play’s historical context, and, time allowing, study its reception in vase painting. Commentary: R. Hamilton, Euripides’ Hippolytos, Bryn Mawr Commentaries, 2nd edn. 1982; W.S. Barrett, Hippolytus (Oxford, 1964), published online in the Oxford Scholarly Editiion online and available through Bobst.
Mode of instruction: Remote, synchronous