CLA 101-8 First-Year Writing Seminar: Endless Exile: Home and Homelessness in the Ancient Mediterranean World
The topic of exile—the forced abandonment of the place and world one calls home—captured the imagination of peoples across the ancient Mediterranean. The Greek _Odyssey_ and Roman _Aeneid_, famous accounts of the predicaments of classical exile, were by no means isolated instances. These renowned poems were in conversation with narratives that circulated widely among neighboring Egyptian, Hebrew, Babylonian, Phoenician, and other ancient communities, in stories which not only produced echoes among themselves, but very likely borrowed from each other. In this seminar, we will read and discuss representative accounts of exile from the ancient Mediterranean world, foregrounding their historical and geographical specificity but also reflecting on their treatment of common concerns and themes—such as homelessness and hospitality, longing and belonging, identity and otherness, hosts and guests, refugees and havens, pain and nostalgia, presence and absence, etc. While the seminar will highlight the historical and archaeological coordinates of those narratives, we will also reflect upon their relevance in discussing the very current reality of exilic life in today’s world.
CLA 245 Classics and the Cinema: Ancient Greeks and Romans on the Big Screen
This course inquires into the phenomenon of adaptations of Greco-Roman narratives to the language and conditions of modern cinematography. The class begins with an overview of the framework and methods of Reception Studies, and a short account of some technical tools and terminology necessary to appropriately examine the audiovisual aspects of film. Equipped with these analytical instruments, we will discuss selected ancient narratives, both mythological and historical, and then interrogate the mechanisms through which those stories have been adapted to the technological apparatuses, sociocultural expectations, and economic dynamics constitutive of the practice of modern filmmaking. Through an eclectic selection of film adaptations from different periods and parts of the world, we will interrogate the way world cinema negotiates between the “old” and the “new,” both by deploying visual and narrative techniques to depict ancient motifs, and by using those tales to convey modern historical preoccupations, political ideals, and cultural expectations.
Drawing on a vast repertoire of god and hero names, plots, and narrative motifs, ancient Greek storytellers developed myths that circulated in various media throughout antiquity and continue to inspire creative artists—from novel writers through theater performers to ad designers—today. This course offers an introduction to main figures and plots from Greco-Roman mythology. In the first part of the term, we will study various incarnations of major gods across time, space, and storytelling genres. In the second part of the course, we will focus on stories related to the Trojan War and its aftermath as narrated in the two epic poems transmitted under the name of Homer, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_.
It is perhaps unsurprising that our time - obsessed as it is with GDP growth, the ups and downs of the stock market, inflation rates, the trade deficit - produces scholarship that studies the ancient Roman economy. This scholarship has made us increasingly aware of how different Rome was from the modern world. This course will focus on what that difference means for the realities of everyday life, both past and present. Questions to be addressed are: What did economic growth mean for the economy of the Romans? Can we even measure it? What role did energy consumption play in economic performance? What was the role of social class in business? What was the influence of a demographic regime with low life expectancy? How was trade conducted over long distances without fast means of communication and transportation? What was the role of technology and technological progress in the economy?
CLA 395 Research Seminar: Classics Research Methodology
The course will provide students with fundamental research skills through hands-on learning and in-class work on an individual project. Students will learn how to use reference tools and online databases allowing them to search, analyze and interpret ancient evidence ranging from literary texts to inscriptions, papyri and visual material. The course is designed to reflect current developments in the field of Classics. It therefore emphasizes digital approaches, including electronic tools for the study of ancient evidence as well as search engines that employ advanced computational methods.
CLA 400 Graduate Seminar: Interdisc Proseminar in Classical Reception Studies
This seminar is suitable for grads from all departments and satisfies a requirement of the Classics Cluster’s Classical Receptions Certificate.
This seminar introduces students to the idea of "classical presences," their complex political dimensions, and the goals and methods associated with the practice of the growing field of classical reception studies. Seminars will engage influential methodological work (e.g., Lorna Hardwick, Emily Greenwood, Chris Stray); exemplary cultural studies work that established the field early on (e.g., Edith Hall and Patrice Rankine on Homer, others on the visual arts); the start up of the Classical Receptions Journal at OUP; the development of research initiatives and collectives (e.g., Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford); model studies of intertextuality such as Richard F. Thomas' work on Bob Dylan and the Classics; work by scholars who are not professional classicists but are relevant both for content and method (e.g., psychiatrist Jonathon Shay's "Achilles in Vietnam" and "Odysseus in America" together with productions of Peter Meineck's Aquila Theatre & Bryan Doerries' Theater of War and the way historian Garry Wills' "Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America" conjures Athenian epitaphioi logoi); and initiatives based at Northwestern including the Jan 2024 sessions on Addison’s “Cato, A Tragedy" in the NU Sawyer Seminar "On Decolonizing Theater,” the Classicizing Chicago Project hosted by the Dept of Classics and Prof Monoson's Summoning Socrates Archive. For their own projects students may choose to do a methodological study, to contribute to the online profile of the NU projects, or complete a case study of material they identify that utilizes their own disciplinary skills.
GREEK 115-1 Accelerated Elementary Ancient and Biblical Greek
This course is the first in a two-quarter series designed to teach students to read ancient Greek, making accessible much of the world's most influential literature, from the biblical New Testament to Homeric poetry and Platonic philosophy. Since this is an ancient language there will be no spoken component and we will move swiftly through the grammar and basic vocabulary required to read actual texts. These two quarters will, in fact, teach all the fundamentals of the language and lead students directly into second-year courses in the New Testament, classical Greek oratory, and Homeric epic. Thereafter students will be able to progress even further to a wide range of genres from the classical and post-classical periods, including ancient Greek history, poetry, philosophy, drama, and more.
GREEK 201-2 Introduction to Greek Literature: Classical Prose
This course is the second of the second-year Greek series, designed to solidify the grammatical concepts learned in first-year while introducing students to the study of actual ancient literary texts. In this course we will focus on ancient Attic prose by reading from Lysias on the Murder of Eratosthenes and Plato's Crito. We will pay close attention to grammar and style, but we will also gain insight into the complexities of ancient Athenian law and politics.
Elementary Latin is a year-long course designed to provide students with the basic skills for reading, understanding, and translating both Latin prose and poetry.In the second quarter of the sequence students continue to acquire knowledge of the grammar and syntax of the Latin language and Latin vocabulary, and to develop an ability to read, understand, and translate passages in both adapted and un-adapted Latin.
In addition to the exercises and readings included in the textbooks, students will see and read Latin as it appeared on ancient monuments, walls, coins, and everyday objects. By uniting the study of language and culture, this course provides unique insight into the daily life of the people who spoke Latin in the Roman world.
LATIN 201-2-1 Introduction to Latin Literature: Vergil's Aeneid
Latin 201-2 is designed to improve students’ understanding of the Latin language by close reading of major poetic texts, with special attention to grammar, vocabulary, and style. Class activities will include careful reading and translation of Virgil's "Aeneid" combined with literary discussion and interpretation of the poem and its composition. The course also provides a systematic introduction to the dactylic hexameter and the basic rules of scansion.
LATIN 201-2-2 Introduction to Latin Literature: Vergil's Aeneid
Latin 201-2 is designed to improve students’ understanding of the Latin language by close reading of major poetic texts, with special attention to grammar, vocabulary, and style. Class activities will include careful reading and translation of Virgil's "Aeneid" combined with literary discussion and interpretation of the poem and its composition. The course also provides a systematic introduction to the dactylic hexameter and the basic rules of scansion.
LATIN 310 Readings in Latin Literature: The Latin Iliad: Translating Homer in Nero’s Rome
Translating Homer into Latin on a reduced scale was a popular literary endeavor in Roman antiquity. In this class, we’ll read the only surviving example of this subgenre: Baebius Italicus’ Ilias Latina, which reduces Homer’s 24-book epic to just over a thousand lines of action. At the same time, Baebius updates Homer’s poem with interpretations and details that are tailored for a Roman audience in the mid-1st century CE. Agamemnon is a Stoic's nightmare, Nero is on Achilles' shield, and Poseidon knows all about the Julio-Claudians. To appreciate this impressive feat of miniaturization and yet expansion, we’ll do a few things: (1) create a collaborative commentary on the poem, (2) read selections from the Iliad and ancient scholarship about the Iliad in translation, and (3) develop research papers for a class conference at the end of the quarter. Finally, in terms of language pedagogy, we will work to develop our sight-reading skills.
