CL115-An Introduction to Classical Literature and Archaeology
Block I: Owen Cramer, Classics 115, An Introduction to Classical Literature
and Archaeology: Sounds and Sights of the Greeks and Romans
Block II: Sanjaya Thakur, Classics 115, An Introduction to Classical Literature
and Archaeology: Sounds and Sights of the Greeks and Romans
The course as a whole meets Critical Perspectives: The West in Time (2 units).
Introduction to ancient Greek and Roman cultures through reading of original sources and an examination of material culture. Students will be exposed to literature from various genres (such as epic, dramatic, lyric and philosophical) and consider modern ways of receiving and interpreting them. Texts include Homeric and Virgilian epic, Greek tragedy and comedy, Platonic and Epicurean philosophy, Greek and Roman historians. The second part of the course will focus on the art, architecture and topography that relate to the texts discussed in course. We will explore sites throughout Greece and the Roman Empire, and objects found therein, while examining monumental building and the use of public space. The course will offer an introduction to printed and online sources of information and to college-level writing.
Ancient history is the longest segment of the history of the
West, the three millennia from the start of the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity.
Within that time, ideas or concepts of ongoing importance, like the Citizen,
the Hero, Faith (Opinion), the Soul, Democracy, Empire, Beauty and Tragedy,
are established. We will examine these ideas in the literary, rhetorical and
philosophic genres they generated with seriousness justifying West in Time
credit.
A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given
for the course as a whole.