Courses for Srping 2012

100-level Courses

Greek 112: Intermediate Greek. The continuation from Greek 111, students will continue their adventures with Homeric Greek as we begin reading the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops from Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey. Prerequisite: Greek 111

Latin 112: Intermediate Latin. The second semester of first year Latin, students will be developing their Latin skills further with complex grammar and readings on Roman culture and daily life. Prerequisite: Latin 111 or placement by examination.

 300-level Courses

Classics 301: Art and Politics in Antiquity. This is a new course on the way the ancient Persians, Greeks and Romans used public art and architecture to promote certain political values. We'll be looking at four particular places and times. First, we examine the royal architecture and iconography of the Achaemenid Kings of Persia, Darius and Xerxes (5th cent. BCE). We then move to democratic Athens and look at how the major public building programs in the Agora and on the Acropolis functioned to promote democratic ideals and civic identity as well as their image as an imperial power. We then move to Hellenistic Alexandria under the Ptolemies and study this Greek capital in Egypt with regards royal patronage, fusion of Greek and Egyptian styles and the use of the image of Alexander the Great. Finally we will look at Rome from the Late Republic to the emperor Trajan and examine how aristocrats and then emperors promoted their person and the Empire (often synonymous) in public fora. In each case the art and architecture will be placed in the contexts of other public art forms such as drama, oratory and panegyric poetry. Time permitting, we will end the class with a look at the influence of the monuments of ancient Greece and Rome on the architecture of Washington, DC and in the fascist regimes of Mussolini and Hitler.

Greek 331: Plato's Symposium. Reading Plato's Symposium in Greek is one of the great pleasures in life. In this most famous dialogue, Socrates and friends explore the meaning of love. Is it (homo)erotic? Is it friendship? Can men and women ever truly be friends? Is our "other half" truly out there somewhere? Prerequisites: Greek 211 or previous Greek 300-level course.

Latin 341: Magic, Religion, and Love. Should these three things ever be combined? And what happens when they are? In this class, we explore different ways in which love, magic and religion blended in the later Roman world through readings in Apuleius' Golden Ass, one of the most famous novels from antiquity, and the autobiographical Perpetua's Passion, which describes the final days in the life of a Christian martyr. Prerequisites: Latin 211, previous enrollment in Latin 300-level, or placement by examination.