Courses

Greek Rhetoric and Stylistics

CLAS 70100
Prof. Lawrence Kowerski
Hunter College
Monday 4:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m.
In-Person

This course offers a survey of the ancient Greek language through prose composition and the study of the style of selected ancient Greek prose writers.

Topics in Roman History: Roman Imperialism

CLAS 72800
Prof. Matthew Perry
The Graduate Center
Monday 4:15 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.
In-Person

Rome built an empire that stretched across continents, encompassing tens of millions of people. This seminar explores the creation and maintenance of the Roman Empire, and the diverse experiences of individuals affected by the expansion of Roman power. Engaging with critical topics such as imperialism and resistance, ethnicity and identity, and slavery and citizenship, we will examine the political, cultural, and religious mechanisms underpinning the longevity and historical influence of the Roman Empire. Course readings will consist of ancient sources (in translation), classic works of modern scholarship, and recent innovative studies.

Ancient Feasting

CLAS 82500
Prof. Rachel Kousser
The Graduate Center
Thursday 4:15 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.
In-Person

Feasting was central to Greek and Roman culture.  From the elaborate meals of Homer’s heroes, to the aristocratic symposia of Archaic Greece, the courtly banquets of Hellenistic kings, and the outrageous dinner parties of Roman emperors and arrivistes, the communal consumption of food was a key religious, political, and social act.  In recent years, anthropologists such as Michael Dietler have offered a useful theoretical lens through which to analyze feasting, and classicists have focused considerable scholarly attention on some topics, such as the Archaic symposium and Roman convivium.  This class seeks to pull together these strands of research to understand the broader context of ancient feasting and its development over time.

With an eye on the doctoral reading list at the Graduate Center, we will analyze major texts including Homeric epic, Greek sympotic poetry, Plato’s Symposium, and Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis.  We will also examine historical accounts of important banquets — for instance, those of Alexander the Great and the emperor Nero — and food-centered works like Apicius and Athenaeus’s Deipnosophistai.  Topics to be addressed include sacrifice and communal religious feasts; real and ideal symposia; Classical Greek pottery and drinking; Hellenistic courtly banquets; and the material culture of the Roman convivium.  Students’ final presentations and papers will be case studies, grounded in the material of their choice, that add to our understanding of ancient feasting practices.

Post-Colonial Perspectives: Classical Adaption in the African and Hispanic Diasporas

MALS 78500 cross listed with CLAS 82500
Prof. Jennifer Roberts
The Graduate Center
Wednesday 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
In-Person

The literatures brought to new parts of the world by European colonizers did not lose their influence when the colonial period ended. Indeed, some of the most remarkable adaptations of Greek and Roman works can be traced to post-colonial eras in Africa and in the African and Hispanic Diasporas. In this course we will explore the unique experiences of post-colonial civilizations as different as those of Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Barbados, St. Lucia, Peru, and the United States. What was the relationship of the post-colonial society to the colonizers? How is change accommodated? How did the liberation from colonizing powers affect divisions within the groups that made up the newly free nations? How were gender relations and concepts of gender affected? What new roles did the arts play in society? 

Readings will focus on dramatic adaptations of the Oedipus myth and the three Sophocles plays that grew out of it but will extend to other genres and works based on other classical material. They will include such works as Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame, dealing with ethnic tensions in Nigeria; Ali Salim’s The Comedy of Oedipus, which focuses on the cult of personality fostered by Gamel Abdel Nasser; The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, written under apartheid in South Africa and set in a prison clearly modeled on the prison on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held; Derek Walcott’s Omeros, an exploration of race and culture in the Caribbean in the context of the Homeric poems; Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s musical The Gospel at Colonus, which explores the Oedipus story in the context of African-American Christianity; Rita Dove’s The Darker Face of the Earth, which focuses on race and slavery in the ante-bellum US South; and plays by a variety of authors in the Hispanic diaspora: Puerto Rican playwright Cristina Pérez Díaz’s Western: A Play Starring Antigone and Her Brothers; Peruvian playwright José Watanabe’s Antígona, edited by Pérez Díaz (formerly a student at the Graduate Center); and the Greek trilogy of Chicano playwright Luis Alfaro. 

Latin Literature, Imperial Literature

CLASS-GA 1005
Prof. Alessandro Barchiesi
New York University
Thursday 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Extensive reading in Latin prose and poetry of the Augustan and imperial periods. Texts are studied in chronological sequence, and major themes of early imperial intellectual history are explored. Readings focus on literature of the golden and silver ages in a variety of genres, including epic, pastoral, tragic drama, satire, epigram, letters, and historical writings. 

Ovid's Metamorphoses: The Third millennium

CLASS-GA 2887
Prof. Alessandro Barchiesi 
New York University
Wednesday 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.  
In-Person

A seminar on the Latin text of Ovid's metamorphoses, with emphasis on reading in a cultural context but also on reception, medieval, modern and contemporary, in texts and media (including art and fashion). Requires previous knowledge of classical Latin. The students will be guided towards the preparation of a research paper on the Ovidian poem and its reception. Class requirements: active participation in discussion, translation in class, short presentations, final paper. 

Homer

CLASS-GA 2981
Prof. David Sider 
New York University
Wednesday 4:15 p.m. - 6:15  p.m.
In-Person

Either the Iliad or the Odyssey is read in its entirety. Topics include the conventions and development of oral poetry; the relationship of gods and man; narrative structure and design; the poems as a source for ancient historiography, tragedy, and later epic; the role of women, especially Helen and Penelope; and the education of Telemachus.

Music, Ritual & Social Change: Performance Cultures of the Ancient Mediterranean

CLASS-GA 3002
Prof. Barbara Kowalzig
New York University
Tuesday 4:15-6:15 PM 
In-Person

Medieval Latin Literature

CLAS LATN 5542
Prof. Matthew McGowan
Fordham University, Faculty Memorial Hall, Bronx Campus
Tuesday 2:30 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.
In-Person

This course offers a survey of Latin Literature from the fourth to the fourteenth century. We will focus in particular on the Latin language and its development in a wide variety of texts and contexts. Students will have the opportunity to pursue their individual interests—in history, philosophy, theology, poetry, and art history—in close consultation with the instructor over the course of the term. In general, our aim is twofold: to read as much Latin as possible and to gain a deeper understanding of Latin literary style from late antiquity to the end of the middle ages.

Interested students should feel free to reach out to Professor McGowan (mamcgowan@fordham.edu) with questions about the syllabus, course requirements, and expectations for reading ability and previous preparation in Latin.

CLAS 80100 Proseminar in Classical Studies

3 credits
Prof. Jennifer Roberts
Wednesday, 6:30PM-8:30PM
In-Person GC
Prerequisites: reading knowledge of Latin or Greek

This course is required of all CUNY graduate students in Classics. Students in other programs who can read either Latin or Greek are welcome.

Goal: students will demonstrate knowledge of the methods, materials and research tools used in the study Greco-Roman antiquity.

This is an informative and “how to” proseminar designed to introduce students to the essential tools for the study of Greco-Roman world. It is required for classics graduate students and should be taken as soon as possible after matriculation. The instructor and visiting speakers will treat topics such as:

(1) The history of the Greek and Latin languages

(2) classical bibliography

(3) textual criticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

(4) expansion and redefinition of the field

(5) race and ethnicity in the Greco-Roman world

(6) research tools including computer resources and applications

(1) Special fields in Classics: e.g., literary and documentary papyrology, paleography, text editing and criticism, metrics, numismatics, epigraphy, comparative grammar.

(2) Scholarship and education in antiquity: e.g., libraries, scholia, lexica, anthologies, commentaries.

(3) “Tools of the trade:” bibliographies, encyclopedias and major collections, important editions of ancient authors, computers, the writing of a dissertation or scholarly article.

(4) Connecting with other scholars: attending and participating in professional meetings.

Students will be encouraged to pursue aspects of the course that are of particular interest to them while at the same time broadening their grasp of the range of the sub-disciplines available for understanding antiquity.  Each student will give two oral presentations, one on an aspect of the study of antiquity (e. g., reading in the classical world, ancient libraries, a particularly knotty textual problem, a specific lexicon or commentary, a piece of pottery) and a second on the topic of his or her paper.

CLAS 70200 Latin Rhetoric and Stylistics 

3 credits
Prof. Philip Thibodeau
Thursday 6:30PM-8:30PM
In-Person GC

This course provides students advanced reading proficiency in Latin through the study of morphology and syntax, stylistic analysis of Caesar, Cicero, and other classical authors, and exercises in prose composition.

CLAS 75200 Pedagogy for Classicists

3 credits
Prof. Ronnie Ancona
Wednesday 4:15PM-6:15PM
pass/fail grading
open only to CUNY students
In-Person GC

The Workshop on Teaching Classics introduces students to the major methods for teaching Latin, Greek, and Classics as well as the practical matters of teaching, including syllabus design, classroom management, choosing textbooks and other resources, navigating the role of teacher while being a graduate student, and so forth. Geared towards teaching at the college level and at CUNY, the course will be also be useful for those who teach in other settings. No prior teaching experience is needed to enroll in the course. Experienced teachers are very welcome. The course is meant to prepare new teachers and to help experienced teachers to grow.

CLAS 72100 Roman love: Poetry, History, and Material Culture

3 credits
Prof. Rachel Kousser
Thursday 4:15PM-6:15PM
In-Person GC

The topic of Roman love is often investigated through the lens of texts written of, by, and for powerful men.  Drawing on recent interdisciplinary scholarship, this course seeks to offer a more wide-ranging and nuanced picture by juxtaposing such writings with other sources, for instance funerary inscriptions, legal texts, religious practices, domestic architecture, and mythological wall painting.  The goal is to elucidate the varied ways in which the Romans understood love, from their lofty philosophical ideals to their mundane and complicated realities. 

With an eye on the doctoral reading list at the Graduate Center, we will analyze key works of Latin love poetry by Catullus, Horace, Propertius, Sulpicia, Tibullus, and Ovid.  But we will also address topics such as love among enslaved persons and liberti; the archaeology of sex workers; the cult and representation of Venus; mythological lovers as models in art and poetry; same-sex relationships; the historical evolution of marital law; and the Late Antique idealization of chastity.  Students’ final presentations and papers will be case studies, grounded in the material of their choice, that help articulate the distinctive features of Roman amor. 

CLAS 71400 Xenophon

3 credits
Prof. David Konstan
Tuesday 6:30PM-8:30PM
In-Person NYU

Xenophon was one of the most versatile writers in all of classical Greek literature.  In addition to the justly famous Anabasis, which records the march of the 10,000 mercenaries out of Persia under his leadership, Xenophon wrote Socratic dialogues (as well as an Apology and a Symposium), a continuation of Thucydides’ history, short treatises on horsemanship and hunting (mainly with dogs), an essay on Athenian economics, a eulogy of a Spartan king, and the extraordinary proto-novel called the Cyropaedia, portraying the character of an ideal ruler – and more!  And yet, it is only recently that Xenophon has begun to command a wider interest among scholars.  Indeed, the International Xenophon Society (membership free) is only two years old.  In the seminar, we will read selections from various of Xenophon’s works, situating him in the intellectual climate of his time and developing an all-round picture of this remarkable figure.

CLAS 81100 Aristotle’s Logic

3 credits
Prof. Marko Malink
Monday 6:30PM-8:30PM
In-Person NYU

This is an overview of the main developments in formal logic throughout Greek antiquity. Topics to be covered include: Aristotle's theory of the categorical syllogism and its application in demonstrative science, Theophrastus' theory of the hypothetical syllogism, Stoic propositional logic, the development of modal logic from Aristotle to the Stoics, Galen's account of relational syllogisms, and the reception of Peripatetic and Stoic logic in late antiquity. Secondary readings will be drawn from Jonathan Barnes, Susanne Bobzien, and Michael Frede, among others.  

CLAS 81400 Ancient Education

3 credits
Prof. Raffaella Cribiore
Tuesday 4:15PM-6:15PM 
In- Person NYU

This course will be important to graduate students in order to correctly understand the works of literature and philosophy that they will encounter during their studies. Students are usually exposed to those without looking at how they originated and have some trouble identifying what is original. Besides spending some time to consider elementary education and questions whether it was open to all, the course will focus on the education by grammarians, orators, and philosophers.

CLAS 81100 Callimachus

Instructor: Dee Clayman
Thu, 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center In-Person

In this course we will read through most of the extant corpus of Callimachus of Cyrene, including the most substantial fragments of the Aitia, Iambi, and Hecale, the six Hymns and 63 epigrams. Students should purchase G. B. D’Alessio 2007 Callimaco. 4^th ed. in two volumes. Milano: BUR. It is available in paperback from IBS.it for 16,50 euros (http://www.ibs.it/code/9788817170710/callimaco/inni-epigrammi-ecale.html) or $35.49 from Amazon. Other editions and commentaries will be on reserve at the Mina Rees Library and depending on the editorial schedule we may also be able to make use of the new Loeb Callimachus. Students should be prepared to translate and reflect upon the text each week, as well as make a presentation in class and write a paper on an agreed upon topic.
 
Callimachus is the most important and influential of all the Alexandrian poets, and well worthy of the time and effort it takes to work through the mostly fragmented text. His allusive style, deep learning, and sense of humor raise the question that will organize our discussions: What’s going on here?

CLAS 75200 Classical Receptions and Black Classicism

Instructor: Gail Smith 
Wed 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center  In-Person   

As an aspect of classical receptions, this course studies the use of Classics by writers of the African diaspora and its theoretical underpinnings. An examination and analysis of  African American and African literature reveal black classicism as a vital  part of the classical tradition.
This course is cross- listed with AFCP 80000.

CLAS 72100 The Politics of Nighttime in the Late Republic: Cicero, Sallust, Caesar

Instructor: Joel Allen 
Wed 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center  In-Person

This course looks at policies concerning and attitudes toward—and the battleground that was—the night in Rome during the tumult of the Late Republic.  Nighttime has been a subject of scrutiny by historians of other periods for some time (early modern Europe; the colonial U.S.; modern Latin America; and so on), but has only recently been approached by scholars of the ancient Mediterranean (note especially Angelos Chaniotis, ed., La nuit: imaginaire et réalités nocturne dans le monde Gréco-Romain [Fondation Hardt, 2018]).  We’ll test hypotheses of the Roman night as a populist space, or as a gendered one, or as an experience of a distinct economy, society, or culture.
 
With an eye on the doctoral reading list in Latin prose at the Graduate Center and in an attempt to maintain a “control” on our inquiries, we’ll consider texts written within decades of each other—speeches by Cicero, commentaries by Caesar, and histories by Sallust.  We’ll pay particular attention to these authors’ style and technique, as well as their historical context.  While genres of Latin prose will thus be a through-line, students will be welcomed to base their final projects on any Latin text(s) of their choosing, be they poetry, epigraphy, or other genre of prose, such as philosophy or epistolography.

CLAS 74300 The Art and Archaelogy of Roman Women

Instructor: Elizabeth Macauly
Thu 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits,
The Graduate Center In-Person 

Roman women have been the topic of considerable research since Sarah Pomeroy’s seminal Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, published in 1975. Roman women—of all ranks and statuses—are well attested in the archaeological record. Drawing on surviving visual and material culture, this seminar will explore the art and archaeology of women in the Roman World, primarily during the imperial period (27 BCE to 337 CE). After a general introduction to the study of women, gender, and sexuality in Rome as well as a review of the theoretical approaches, such as gender and feminist theories, that scholars use to frame their investigations, the course will take a case study approach, with each weekly seminar being focused on a particular topic. Topics may include the following: imperial portraiture and the portraiture system; representations of imperial women on coinage and historical reliefs;  gender and space; the role of women as architectural patrons; the role of women as priestesses; personifications and goddesses; funerary reliefs and tombs of freed women; women at work; Egyptian mummy portraits; Palmyrene funerary busts; women on the limes and in the western provinces; and/or the reception of Roman women in American art. Visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and American Numismatics Society are planned. Students will selected works of art or monuments for class presentations and write final research papers on a topic of their choosing (in consultation with the instructor).

CLAS 75200 Plato and the Foreigner in Philosophy

Instructor: Nickolas Pappas
Thu 11:45 AM-1:45 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center  In-Person

A study of Plato focused on the question of who the philosopher is, and how that figure compares to the citizen or native. Those outside the ambit of philosophy in Plato’s dialogues are often also those outside Athenian citizenry, whether because they come from other Greek cities, speak another language, or live in Athens as slaves (who were usually also foreigners).

 Rather than ask whether Plato “likes” or “doesn’t like” foreigners, outsiders, non-citizens, and the like, we will look closely at examples of both orientations, asking in what ways the philosopher in Plato has to be the outsider and the insider both at once.
 
Readings in Plato will include and emphasize the Republic, but also selections from the Cratylus, Laws, Lysis, Menexenus, and Statesman. Secondary readings will include:
 
Page DuBois. Slaves and Other Objects. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Benjamin Isaac. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton University Press, 2004.
Demetra Kasimis. The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Rebecca LeMoine. “Foreigners as Liberators: Education and Cultural Diversity in Plato’s Menexenus.” American Political Science Review 111 (2017): 1-13.
Rebecca LeMoine. Plato’s Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Silvia Montiglio. “Wandering Philosophers in Classical Greece.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 120 (2000): 86-105.
Robert Parker. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford University Press, 1996.

CLAS 81800 Topics in Greek History: Hellenistic Egypt

Instructor: Andrew Monson
Tu 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU  In-Person 

The History of Ptolemaic Egypt This seminar examines the history of Ptolemaic Egypt (323-30 BC) with an emphasis on kingship/queenship and the relations between Greeks and Egyptians. We will cover the formation of the monarchy under Ptolemy I and II, Egyptian imperialism in the eastern Mediterranean under Ptolemy II and III, and the crisis of the kingdom under Ptolemy IV and V, revival and reconfiguration under Ptolemy VI and VIII, growing Roman influence, and the role of queens from Arsinoe II to the seven Cleopatras. Interspersed with these political topics will be thematic discussions of cultural, social, religious and economic history. Students will get an experience analyzing papyri and inscriptions as historical sources.

CLAS 73200 Roman Law

Instructor: Michael Peachin
Tu 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU  In-Person

This course will investigate Roman legal culture by asking, and answering, two essential questions: How did the Romans go about making law? How was that law implemented? Underlying this line of investigation is a much bigger question, which we will at least broach: In the widest sense possible, what did the Romans imagine law to be for? The answer to such a question may not be quite so simple as one might imagine. So as to get at all of this, we will study topics such as: the sources available for law; legal training; expertise in the law -- how it was construed, and what it meant; the writing(s) of the Roman jurists; how the government was structured, so as to create and/or implement law. What we will not examine, so much, are the particular areas of the substantive law -- therefore, not so much the law of sale, or obligations, or delict, or the like. We will get some sense of some of these aspects of Roman law; but, the substance of any given area of the law will not be a focus here. In short, this course is more about something that might be called legal culture.

CLAS 70200 Latin Rhetoric and Stylistic

Instructor Emilia Barbiero
Mon 4:15 PM-6:15 PM
NYU In-Person

The aim of this course is to strengthen students’ command of Latin morphology and syntax through exercises in prose composition, regular sight translation and close stylistic analysis of literature from a variety of genres and periods.

CLAS 70100 Greek Rhetoric and Stylistics

Instructor: David Sider
Tuesday, 4:15 pm-6:15 pm, 3 credits
NYU-in-person

Students will translate selected English passages into idiomatic Greek of the 5th-4th centuries.

CLAS 82100 Roman Geopoetics

Instructor: Alessandro Barchiesi
Monday, 6:30 pm-8:30 pm, 3 credits
NYU-in- person

In this class on Roman literary texts I use the term Geopoetics to describe the dynamics formed when the geography and geopolitics of the empire encounters a literary text, and the text participates to the making, mapping, renaming, and transformation of the world. The topic has analogies with modern accounts of colonization and the appropriation of places. For some examples note e.g. my papers on the Aeneid 'Trojans at Buthrotum' and 'Into the Woods' (in my academia.edu [academia.edu] website), the book by W. Thalmann on the Argonautica, or the new book by Renaud Gagné on the cosmography of Hyperborea.

The discussion will deal with texts in Latin, taken from different periods, and some texts in Greek. After some initial seminars led by the instructor on authors such as Lycophron, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan and Statius, the students will be invited to present a paper of their own, with a wide choice of texts and topics.

CLAS 81800 Cleopatra

Instructor: Prof. Joan Breton Connelly
Monday, 4:30 pm-6:30 pm, 3 credits
NYU, in- person

The old maxim “history is written by the victors” continues to challenge students engaged in reconciling the written record with that recovered from archaeological excavations.  This is especially true for the last decades of the Hellenistic period.  Our seminar focuses on the story told by material culture surviving from the first century B.C. from Alexandria in Egypt, to the eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus and the Levant, and on to Rhodes, Cyrenaica, and Rome.  Looking at architecture, sculpture, ceramics, seals, coins, mosaics, metalware and other decorative arts, we will consider the intersection of Hellenistic Greek traditions, “Alexandrianism” (and the validity of this term), Egyptian cultural traditions, and those of Rome during the Late Republic.  At the center of this intersection is Cleopatra VII.  We will examine the written sources and epigraphic evidence for her rule within the broader contexts of what archaeology can offer in balancing this picture.  Looking through the prisms of religion, demographics, social and economic histories, urbanism and the arts, we may gain new insights into the dynamics of the period and its vibrant interactions between East and West.

CLAS 71100 Sappho and Alkaios

Instructor: Lawrence Kowerski               
Thursday, 4:15 pm-6:15 pm, 3 credits
Hybrid, Graduate Center, Room 3306

This seminar is a survey of the larger surviving fragments of poetry by Sappho and Alcaeus with attention paid to their position in the broader literary and cultural history of Greece. Throughout we will consider issues that arise when reading fragmentary poetry. We will confront modern scholarly concerns such a genre, composition, performance context, authorship, and persona.  We will specifically look at the newest fragments of Sappho and the larger issues that arise from them.

CLAS 75200 Professional Writing Seminar

Instructor: Dee Clayman
Wednesday, 4:15 pm-6:15 pm, 3 credits
This course is limited to Classics, CUNY PhD students.
EO permission required
Hybrid, Graduate Center,  Room 3307

This course is designed to take students through the process of academic research and writing. Each participant will choose a text to study and will report regularly to the class on the progress of their work. By the end of the semester they will have a professional paper in a fully documented publishable format, a shorter version suitable for oral presentation and an abstract to send to conference organizers and publishers. As a capstone to the semester students will read their papers to colleagues and faculty at a Friday afternoon colloquium. Topics to be covered in class include how to choose a promising subject; what questions to ask of the text; where to find bibliographical sources and when to decide you have read enough; how many footnotes are needed and which kinds; what elements are necessary for a successful oral presentation; and where to send the abstract or paper, when it is ready.

This course is limited to CUNY Ph.D. students only with priority given to more advanced students. Instructor’s permission is required. There will be no auditors.

CLAS 72100 Poetics of the Early Empire

Instructor: John Van Sickle
Wednesday, 6:30 pm-8:30 pm, 3 credits Room 3308
Hybrid, in tandem with Prof. Clayman’s 4:15 pm class.

Text assigned: Cornelius Tacitus, Roland Mayer, Dialogus de oratoribus. Cambridge Greek and Latin classics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ix, 227 pages ; 20 cm.. ISBN 0521470404.

This edition was a bench mark two decades ago (see Sander Goldberg, BMCR 2002.03/05): useful engagement with textual criticism & intertextuality—fictions of recalling dialogue as in Cicero, Plato: here the elderly historian claiming to recount debate between poetry & oratory, which he absorbed iuvenili ardore..

CLAS 70200 Latin Rhetoric and Stylistics

Instructor: Patrick Burns
Wed, 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
Fordham

This course offers an introduction to composition in Latin and a survey of prose styles from Cato the Elder to the Vulgate. Each week we tackle a different genus scribendi and review individual points of syntax and stylistics via practice exercises and longer compositions. It is hoped that by the end of the course students will have gained a deeper knowledge of Latin sentence structure and idiom and a greater appreciation for a broad range of prose styles in Latin.

CLAS 82900 The World of Late Antiquity

Instructor: Cristiana Sogno
Mon 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
Fordham   

This course offers an introduction to the history, art and culture of the Late Antique world from the third to the sixth century. We will explore the older narratives of decline in this period alongside powerful alternatives proposed by scholars more recently, drawing on both primary sources and monuments and critically examining the secondary literature that studies them.

CLAS 71900 Papyrology

Instructor: Graham Claytor
Thu 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

This course offers an introduction to the study of ancient papyri, with a focus on Greek documents. We will explore the history of papyrology and its relationship to Classical Studies and discuss the methods of editing papyri and using papyrological evidence. Participants will learn to use the key digital tools of the field and have the opportunity to work on unpublished texts.

CLAS 71400 Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns

Instructor: Philip Thibodeau
Tue 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits,
The Graduate Center

Participants in this seminar will read the Homeric hymns to Aphrodite, Apollo, Demeter, and Hermes, along with extensive selections from the Hesiodic epics: the Shield, Theogony, and Works and Days. Close attention will be paid to the influence of oral poetics on the language and narrative of the poems. We will also consider what light they shed on the cultural and historical situation of archaic Greece, and chart their contributions to Greek mythology

CLAS 82600 Race, Ethnicity, and Power in the Ancient World

Instructor: Jennifer Roberts
Thu 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

This interdisciplinary course will explore concepts of race and ethnicity in the ancient world in  readings in English in both primary and secondary sources, with emphasis on the Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic worlds. No knowledge of Latin or Greek is required, although students who can read either or both of those languages may periodically wish to meet with me for close analysis of a particular text.

Greek and Latin literature is full of references to groups that the authors felt were “not like us.” The Greeks developed the term “barbarians” (people whose incomprehensible speech sounded like bar, bar, bar) for non-Greeks; their feelings about them were mixed, but for the most part they enjoyed articulating their own superiority. In addition, the individual Greek city-states were exclusive about their citizenship, not enfranchising immigrants or the children of immigrants, and a number of them had elaborate myths designed to explain the special characteristics they possessed that set them apart from, and above, others. Matters were more complicated in the later Greek world (the Hellenistic period of 323-30BCE) when the conquests of Alexander had spawned sprawling multi-ethnic empires, and the people we call “the Romans” were a very diverse group faced with a founding legend that painted them as the descendants of criminals and slaves.  The Roman elite was increasingly multi-ethnic as time went on; the emperors Trajan and Hadrian were both from Spain, and reign of the African emperor Septimius Severus—who spoke Latin with an accent--ushered in an era in which emperors came from all over the Mediterranean world. Despite this diversity, Roman authors enjoyed lobbing ethnic slurs at other “nationalities.”

Profiting from our own diverse backgrounds and training, we will examine the very complex picture presented by ancient notions of race and ethnicity, and students will pursue projects that grow out of their particular backgrounds and interests.

Readings will include:

• Herodotus, The Histories (any translation)
• Tacitus, Germania (any translation)
• Rebecca Futo Kennedy, C. Sydnor Roy, and Max Goldman, Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2013
• Denise McCoskey, Race in Antiquity and Its Legacy (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012)

CLAS 74100 Archaeologies of Greek Landscape

Instructor: Joan Connelly
Thu 12:30 PM-2:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU

This course investigates the archaeologies of the Athenian Acropolis through its transformations from early settlement, to Mycenaean citadel, to sacred precinct of Athena, to Late Antique town with Parthenon as Church of the Virgin Mary, to administrative center of Latin Duchy of Athens with Parthenon as the Cathedral Notre Dame D’Athènes, to Ottoman garrison with Parthenon as mosque and Erechtheion as Governor’s harem, to world famous ruin, to archaeological site, to iconic epicenter Western Art and Culture.

We will examine the geology, landscape, archaeoastronomy, topography, and topology of the Athenian Acropolis with an eye toward understanding the interrelation of landscape, myth, cult, and ritual. Topics include: the architectural phases of the Acropolis buildings and monuments, their programs of sculptural decoration, their relationships to one another, the foundation myths that lie behind their meanings, and the cult rituals celebrated within the sacred precinct.  Issues of reception, projection, and appropriation will be examined as will the history of the conservation and reconstruction of Acropolis buildings. Longstanding efforts to secure the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures will be reviewed within the broader context of global cultural heritage law and the opening of the New Acropolis Museum

CLAS 72100 Catullus

Instructor: J. David Konstan
Mon 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU

Catullus: the first romantic poet in Western literature, as Yeats seems to have thought, or a learned master of Alexandrian refinement?  His brief corpus, which includes lyric poems (and a translation of Sappho), invectives, epigrams, wedding songs, a miniature epic, a proto-elegy, and a few poems that defy easy classification, survives by a slender manuscript tradition.  In this seminar, we will read the entire collection, along with a selection of scholarly interpretations, exploring the multiple facets of his literary persona.  Class time will be devoted to discussion and occasional reports, and a paper will be due at the end of the semester.

CLAS 82800 The “Short” 3rd Century BC in Roman History

Instructor: David Levene
Tue 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU

One of the less documented periods in Roman history is also one of the most important.  Following their victory at Sentinum over a coalition of Italian nations in 295 B.C., the Romans obtained dominance - though far from unchallenged - in central and southern Italy.  Seventy-five years later, on the eve of the Second Punic War, they were not only in effective control of almost the entire Italian peninsula, but they had also made their first forays into overseas conquest and had defeated Carthage to become the most powerful empire in the Western Mediterranean.  The same period saw major cultural changes at Rome, not least the first recorded Latin literature, and also economic changes, including the first introduction of Roman coinage.

In this course we will be examining the various processes that transformed Rome in so short a time from a regional force to a Mediterranean power.  One major focus will be on tracing Rome's military and diplomatic engagement, both hostile and otherwise, with her potential rivals and challengers; we will also consider the way in which the Romans developed networks of power via colonies and alliances in Italy, both formal and informal.  Another important question is how far the Romans had (as our sources sometimes seem to suggest) genuinely overcome the legacy of social and political discord; we will also examine the cultural relationship between Rome and her neighbours inside and outside Italy, and the various influences in both directions.  We will analyze these issues in light of what are still some of the most intensely contested questions in classical scholarship, including the nature of Roman imperialism, the relationship between Rome and her colonies, the extent of aristocratic control over Roman military and political decision-making, and the reasons for the cultural shifts in the city.  We will draw on the widest possible set of evidence, primarily literary, but also archaeological, epigraphic, and numismatic.

CLAS 75200 Latin Sight Translation

Instructor:Jennifer Roberts
Mon 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 1 credit
CUNY GC

Learning goals: Students will be able to translate a Latin passage at sight at a level appropriate for accomplished MA and/or PhD students; students will pass the MA or PhD examinations in Latin translation at the first attempt.

Assessment: student performance in class; the MA or PhD examination in Latin translation.

Who should take the course: The course is ideal for students preparing to take a Latin translation exam (MA or PhD), but is not limited to such students. A knowledge of basic Latin grammar and vocabulary is assumed.  Any student enrolled in an MA or PhD program in classics or ancient history may register until the course limit is reached. Please consult the instructor if you are uncertain whether you would benefit from this course.

The class will meet for 1 hour each week. Regular attendance is required. The instructor will bring to class texts selected from the works of authors on and off the reading list, with an emphasis on prose. Students will be challenged to translate them on the spot in writing and discussion will follow of strategies for producing accurate and literal translations.

CLAS 75200 Digital Humanities in Classical Studies

Instructor: Patrick Burns
Thu. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM
Fordham

This graduate seminar introduces students to the digital tools, resources, and methods used in producing publishable data-driven scholarship in classical philology and literary criticism. The course provides a forum for students to develop hands-on skills in computer programming for literary studies (using Python), focused primarily on string manipulation, text mining and analysis,and data visualization, and with a strong emphasis on research design, reproducibility andreplicability, and changing modes of scholarly communication in the Humanities. The courseculminates in a series of Digital Classics "case studies," through which students will be invited to usethe skills acquired in the course to reproduce landmark data-driven studies in Classics by N. A.Greenberg, D. Packard, D. Clayman, and the Tesserae Project, among others. The course has no prerequisites and is open to students with no prior programming experience. While the case studies will be drawn largely from scholarship in Classics, the training acquired in the class will be useful toany GSAS student at Fordham working with digitized corpora and textual data. Moreover, studentswill have the opportunity to work on material in Latin, Ancient Greek, English, and/or, with thepermission of the instructor, another language of their own choosing

CLAS 71800 Greek Orators

Instructor: Danielle Kellogg
Mon 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

In this course, we will read one or more examples of oratorical works from Classical Athens in the original Greek. We will also read extensively from other ancient sources in translation and from a broad range of modern scholarship on Athenian oratory to examine the different types and purposes of oratory in Athens, as well as the social, historical, legal, and cultural milieux in which such speeches were transmitted. 

CLAS 80100 Proseminar in Classical Studies

Instructor: Liv Yarrow
Mon. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

This weekly seminar invites participants to think deeply and critically about the breadth of the field of classics and how both personal and shared ethics intersect with our methods and approaches.  A sample of possible weekly topics includes: (1) What is Classics? What’s wrong with “Western Civ”?; (2) Our Disciplinary Histories; (3) Race, Ethnicity and Reception Studies; (4) Gender, Politics and Classics; (5) Sexualities, Then and Now; (6) Disability Studies, Trauma Awareness, and Accessibility; (7) Intersections between Religions and Classics; (8) Material Culture and Cultural Heritage; (9) Papyrology and its Ethical Questions; (10) Numismatics and its Ethical Questions; (11) The Evolving field of Language Teaching and Language Textbooks; (12) demystifying Peer-Review and Role of Public Scholarship in the 21^stCentury; (13) Researching in Community: Grants, Large Projects and the Ethics of Professional Collaboration and Interactions.  Throughout we will return repeatedly to the question of how to cultivate healthy mentee/mentor relationships and peer-to-peer support systems.  Alternate weekly topics may be developed in collaboration with enrolled students.  The seminar will have a limited number of guest participants, but will emphasize discussion of pre-circulated readings, over lecture-style presentations.  Students will have wide latitude in developing a final project appropriate to their individual career goals, this might be a traditional term paper, or could include such projects as developing future class curriculum, prepared a grant proposal or fellowship application, creating sample job market materials, writing abstracts for submission to various conferences, or preparing a previous term paper for submission to a journal for peer-review.

CLAS 81100 Managing Information: Greek Prose Texts

Instructor: Raffaela Cibriore
Tue. 4:15 PM: 6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

This course will be based on Greek and Latin literary sources and on the papyri from Greek and Roman Egypt. It will give students notions of the paleography of literary Greek and Roman papyri and in general of literary papyrology in order to enable them to use some papyri. The course will inquire about the background of the creation, delivery, dissemination, and publication of literary texts. Among the questions this course will address are the following. Did ancient readers make notes and how did they use them in compiling their works? How can we explain the existence of different versions of some texts, for example of Plato, Dio or Lucian? What are the salient characteristics of extempore delivery and do they impact the widespread loss of declamations both Latin and Greek? In this course students will be exposed to texts and authors outside the mainstream. 

CLAS 82500 Greek & Roman Pastoral Poetry

Instructor: John Van Sickle
Tue. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503

A seminar querying such critical metonyms as epic, bucolic & pastoral by deconstructing texts that dramatize relatedness, belatedness, reception, origin through metapoetic tropes stocking epic no more with heroes but with herders engaged with neither war nor animal husbandry but with love engendering originary craft thematized as country chore & song.

Brief look at bucolic memes in older epic as corralled by Sicilian Theocritus into idylls, which get rebranded into eclogue books at Rome: Virgil’s Book of Bucolics—ten eclogues—supplanting bucolic Sicily with pastoral Arcadia; then the book of Calpurnius—seven eclogues—‘Sicilian,’ anticipating books—bucolic, eclogue, pastoral—as tradition: flower of metapoetic tropes from Dante, Petrarch, Mantuan, Sannazaro, Spenser, Pope, Wortley-Montague, or Frost.Texts may be studied in translations. Seminars, after introductory remarks, to develop by considering the texts. Intertextual relations further to be pursued in two short essays from bents peculiar to diverse readers: whether construing intertexts—Greek, Latin, Italian—philologically, rhetorically, theoretically of translation, or assaying translated texts from such standpoints as receptionistics, narratologism, cultural biastics, propagandism, courtiership, cognitive psychology & blending, metonymics, metaphorology: trahat sua quemque voluptas.

CLAS 81800 What is Hellenistic Religion? Texts, Archaeology, Epigraphy

Instructor: Barbara Kowalzig
Wed. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

‘Hellenistic religion’ used to be thought a stepping stone on the way to the monotheisms of the common area, with a focus on individual experience, spirituality and interiority, henotheism, and gradual erosion of communal ritual in the city. Recent research in Hellenistic history and epigraphy has entirely overturned this picture; we now understand that civic religion was alive and well, continuously adapting and transforming itself in the cosmopolitan Mediterranean of the Hellenistic empires while also developing new forms of religious experience, including a different role for emotions and the senses. Yet there is no study dedicated to the nature of religious change in this period. This course will seek to understand the character and degree of this transformation, while building on and developing existing theories of religious change. After introductory sessions on methods of studying Greek religion, current trends in Hellenistic history and theoretical approaches to religious change, we will use late-fourth century Athens under Lykourgos and the uses of the past in Hellenistic Athens as a starting point for investigating characteristic religious phenomena of the Hellenistic period, such as festival and spectacle culture in Asia Minor; polis-theoria and festival networks; the role of ritual, music and performance in the Hellenistic city; religion and social structure, especially women’s cults; euergetism and cult finance, priesthood sales, sacred laws (especially the new law from Marmarini). We will look at the relationship between old and new gods, i.e. ruler cult, royal authority and soteria; Alexandria and Athens; the Ptolemaic empire, Egyptian cults and the Aegean islands; the Seleucids and the Red Sea; and finally at gods and worshippers on the move transforming the Mediterranean’s cultic landscape, such the healing cults of Asklepius and especially the spread of Isis; foreign cult, religious associations and economic interaction; diaspora religions and multi-cultural emporia such as Delos, Rhodes, Demetrias; Phoenicians in a global Mediterranean; Hellenistic Judaism. Time allowing, we will also examine the relationship between religion and philosophy.

CLAS 72100 Statius, Achilleis

Instructor: Alessandro Barchiesi
Wed. 2:00 PM-4:00 PM, 3 credit
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

A seminar on the unfinished epic by Statius, the Achilleid: reading and discussion of the Latin text, accompanied by research papers presented by the participants.

The text is of interest for its later influence, especially in the medieval period in Western Europe, and for its historical positioning: composed in Imperial Rome at the end of Domitian's reign, around 93-95 CE, the Achilleid is a summa of the entire Greek and Roman tradition of poetry and mythology, archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, and a very innovative text, rich in experiments and subversive allusions.

Course requirements: reading knowledge of Classical Latin, interest in the Greek tradition.

CLAS 81900 Matter and Gender in Classical Antiquity

Instructor: Emanuela Bianchi
Wed. 4:55 PM-7:35 PM
COLIT-GA 2502/CLASS-GA 2502
19 University Place, 318

In the face of the rising popularity of “new materialisms,” this class examines the emergence of the notion of “matter” in classical antiquity. In short, matter, from the Latin ‘materia’ (related to mater,mother) is transmitted from Aristotle’s Greek innovation hulê (literally, wood). We will undertake close readings of key ancient primary texts, including various Presocratics, Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Physics, Metaphysics, and Generation of Animals, and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, tracing the discourses of materiality that arise in concert with tropes of sex and gender. The guiding question here is: what can matter’s genealogical ties to the feminine tell us about the materialization of bodies and genders? At the same time, we will attend to the topographies and texture of ancient thinking about nature and materiality more broadly. Alongside a narrative of “emergence” we will also consider hermeneutic questions – what are the ethico-political stakes of a “retrieval” of antiquity and how can we determine our relationship to these distant texts? And how does a consideration of ancient modes of thought help to enrich contemporary discourses of matter and gender? To help orient our study we will draw on contemporary thinkers including Irigaray, Kristeva, Loraux, Sallis, Cavarero, as well as critically engaging Bachofen’s 19^th century conception of Mutterrecht. Some background knowledge of psychoanalytic theory is advised, as is knowledge of Greek, however all readings will be in translation.

CLAS 70100 Greek Composition

Instructor: Andrew Foster
Thu. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM
Fordham

This course provides an introduction to prose composition in ancient Greek, with particular attention on a variety of writing styles, grammar, and diction.

Note: Four-credit that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

CLAS 70100 Greek Composition

Instructor: Andrew Foster
Thu. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM
Fordham

This course provides an introduction to prose composition in ancient Greek, with particular attention on a variety of writing styles, grammar, and diction.

Note: Four-credit that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

CLAS 74200 Island Archaeology

Instructor: Joan Breton Connelly
Monday, 4:15 PM-6:15 PM 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

This seminar traces the emergence of Mediterranean Island Archaeology as a distinct subfield from the 1970s to the present.  It examines the impact of “Insularity” on material culture and human behavior within the collective and comparative frameworks of the Mediterranean as well as within seas and oceans from across the globe.  We shall look at the function and exploitation of islands as places of isolation and connectivity; of refuge and exile; as geo-political/strategic hubs and uninhabited wastelands; as resource-rich and as utterly barren; as centers of artistic production/creativity and as ‘goat islands’.  We shall scrutinize Mediterranean archipelagos as dynamic arenas of ecological, cultural, artistic, religious, political, economic, and strategic interaction.  Special emphasis will be placed on: geomorphology and island creation, ecology and climate change; myth and history; art and architecture; cult, religion, sacred travel, and pilgrimage; populations and migrations; connectivity and networks; economies and trade; archipelagos and maritime ‘small worlds’. Readings include ancient authors as well as: Childe, Evans, Cherry, Knapp, Renfrew, Broodbank, Berg, Hunt & Fitzhugh, Bevan & Connolly, Dawson, Patton, Rainbird, Leppard, Constantakopoulou, Mazarakis Ainian, Braudel, Horden & Purcell, Abulafia, Malkin, Tartaron, Leidwanger, and Knappet, among others.

CLAS 81300 Hellenistic Poetry

Instructor: David Sider
Tuesday, 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

A survey of the authors, genres, and theories of Greek poetry produced between the third and the first centuries BCE. Authors include, in addition to the more famous ones such as Theocritus, Callimachus, Herondas, Aratus, Nicander, and Apollonius, less well known ones such as Archimedes, Hermesianax, Phanocles, Bion, Moschus, et al., to say nothing of many epigrams and some anonymous poems.

CLAS 81200 Menander

Instructor: David Konstan
Tuesday, 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

In this course we will read the five comedies by Menander of which substantial portions survive – Dycolus, Samia, Perikeiromene, Epitrepontes, and Aspis – as well as selected fragments of other plays.  Discussion will include all aspects of language and style, characterization, narrative structure, performance, social context, ethical and emotional values, and the reception of Menander in Rome and beyond.  Much new and exciting work has been done in the past few decades on Menander, and we are fortunate to have excellent recent commentaries on the plays.  A final paper will be due at the end of the semester.

CLAS 72800 The Trajanic Moment

Instructor: Joel Allen
Wednesday, 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room 3308

Proceeding chronologically, we’ll begin with an exploration of the intellectual climate of Domitianic Rome.  Some areas of inquiry include the use of memory of the Roman past among both poets and prose authors of the late Flavian period—Silius Italicus, Frontinus, Quintilian—as well as changes in the nature of public life in the city and the emperor’s role therein, as evident in Martial and Statius.  To the extent possible, we’ll seek to recover perspectives on and of the provinces, especially the Greek East (Josephus, perhaps), an area that will have more evidence as we move into the Trajanic empire with the texts of Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, and Favorinus.  Tacitus will be an obvious reference point in both chronological “halves” of the course, leading into the commentaries of his later contemporaries (the letters and Panegyricus of Pliny the Younger, the biographies of Suetonius, and the satirical poems of Juvenal) on politics, ethnicity, and what it means to be “Roman”.  All texts will be read in English translation (though knowledge of Greek and Latin would of course enrich the student’s experience!).

CLAS 71200 Xenophon: Anabasis

Instructor: Jennifer Roberts
Wednesday, 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room, 3310B

Conspicuous for the variety of genres in which he wrote, the Athenian man of letters Xenophon left behind an imposing body of work.  In this course we will read some short selections from his history of Greece (the Hellenica), his biography of the Spartan king Agesilaus II, his treatise on household management (the Economicus), his recollections of Socrates, and his treatise on the Spartan constitution.  The bulk of our time, however, will be spent reading his account of his adventures, and misadventures, in the east: the Anabasis. A hair-raising account of the desperate efforts of a Greek army in overcoming a variety of formidable obstacles to make its way home through hostile territory, the Anabasis is also a treasure trove of information about the peoples who made up the Persian empire and its environs—and about the Greeks’ definition of their own identity.

CLAS 72200 Terence and the Tradition of Latin Comedy

Instructor: Emilia Barbiero
Monday, 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU Silver Center, Room 503A

CLAS 70200 Latin Rhetoric and Stylistics

Instructor: Philip Thibodeau
Thursday, 6:30-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room 3310B

This course provides students advanced reading proficiency in Latin through the study of morphology and syntax, stylistic analysis of Caesar, Cicero, and other classical authors, and exercises in prose composition.

CLAS 75200 Aristotle and Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

Instructor: Iakovos Vasiliou
Monday and Tuesday, 4:15-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room TBA
[NOTE: This course meets twice a week for half the semester, from March 23 through May 12.]

According to most standard accounts, modern virtue ethics begins with Elizabeth Anscombe's essay "Modern Moral Philosophy" in 1958 and develops over the second half of the twentieth century as an alternative to deontological and consequentialist moral theories.   Rather than obligation as the centerpiece of moral theory, it is commonly held that virtue ethics focuses on human flourishing and the virtues of character that constitute it.  Aristotle is the patron saint of this movement.  Over the last twenty years, some have begun to question what virtue ethics is, how and whether it differs from other types of ethical theory, and even to what extent Aristotle should be called a virtue ethicist.  Some now avoid the term “virtue-ethics” and prefer to speak instead of “Neo-Aristotelian” ethics; under this label one might include the work of Julia Annas, Phillipa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, Alasdair MacIntyre, John McDowell, Martha Nussbaum, and Michael Thompson.  While all of these philosophers discuss virtue, only some would identify their positions as belonging to “virtue ethics.”

We shall examine what sort of ethical theory contemporary Neo-Aristotelian ethics is and how it fits with what we actually find in Aristotle.  What does it say about the relationships between agents and actions?  How does it contrast with deontology or consequentialism? What does it mean for ethics to be "virtue-based", "character-based" or "agent-based/centered", as opposed to "rule-based" or "act-based/centered"?  What is the role of (human) nature in Neo-Aristotelian ethics? Does practical reason operate differently in Neo-Aristotelian ethics than in other types of ethical theory?

We will do a close reading of major parts of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, including his discussions of eudaimonia, the virtues of character, practical reason, moral psychology, decision and deliberation, voluntary action, and the unity of virtues.   We will interweave this with readings from secondary literature on the Ethics as well as from the “Neo-Aristotelians” mentioned above.

It will be important for us to work from the same translation of the Nicomachean Ethics.  For various reasons, we shall use Terence Irwin's translation, second edition, Hackett Press; I ask you all to acquire a copy.  We will also consult the Rowe/Broadie translation from Oxford, and the "Revised Oxford Translation" by Ross and revised by Urmson, published in the Complete Works of Aristotle (ed. J. Barnes, Princeton University Press). 

Please read Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics for the first class. First class will meet on 3/23, not 3/17 (there will be a make-up class, TBA). The seminar fulfills Distribution Area C or D-Ancient.  Philosophy students wishing to satisfy Distribution Area D-ancient with this seminar must write a term paper that focuses on Aristotle’s ethics.

CLAS 70100 Greek Rhetoric and Stylistics

Instructor: David Petrain
Wed. 4:15-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room 3310B

An in-depth review of the morphology and syntax of Classical Greek through exercises in composition and stylistic analysis of a variety of authors. Individual weeks will be devoted to exploring the resources and current scholarship available on such topics as accentuation; particles; verbal tense and aspect; word order; syntax; prosody and rhythm; etc.

In advance of the first class session, students should acquire a copy of Eleanor Dickey's An introduction to the composition and analysis of Greek prose (CUP 2016) ISBN: 9780521184250

CLAS 71200 Aeschylus: Poetry, Democracy and War

Instructor: Peter Meineck
Thurs. 6:30-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

Aeschylus was born in Eleusis in the sixth century and died in Gela in the  fifth. Throughout these tumultous times he was said to have fought the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, been evacuated  from Athens, lost a bother at Salamis, witnessed Athens fighting on six fronts including in Egypt and the edges of the Persian empire and visited Sicily where he produced works and experimented with new dramatic forms. This new course, part of a book project, will survey the six extant works of Aeschylus, examine the question of Prometheus Bound, and look closely at the fragments. This will be set alongside the rapidly developing cultural and social environment of Attica and the wider Aegean, Mediterranean, African and Anatolian cultures of the late sixth and early fifth century BCE. Students will each pick one work to focus on and read closely while surveying the others. 

CLAS 71400 Homer’s Odyssey

Instructor: David Schur
Wed. 6:30-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room 3310B

This class focuses on the Odyssey as a literary composition. Working closely with the Greek, we will explore how various formal features (such as diction and narrative structure) put key themes in interesting perspectives. Special attention will be given to prominent types of imagery (such as paths, animals, and weaving) in the broader context of Greek thought.

CLAS 72100 Lucan's Bellum Civile

Instructor: Matthew McGowan
Tue. 6:30-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

This course covers Lucan’s Bellum Civile or Pharsalia in its entirety. We will tackle roughly one book per week of Lucan’s epic on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey and then spend the final third of the course on the reception of the Pharsalia in the medieval and early modern periods. Our aim is to situate Lucan’s poem in its immediate historical context and in relation to the broader tradition of Greek and Latin literature. In addition to surveying an array of contemporary scholarship, we will regularly consult ancient and Renaissance commentaries, which will be provided to the class in the form of a course-packet. Over the course of the semester each student will be expected to deliver an oral report and to lead the subsequent group discussion. There will be a midterm exam and final research paper. 

CLAS 73200 Sovereignty in Roman Law

Instructor: Michael Peachin and Prof. Andrew Monson
Tue. 4:15-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

Students will examine the concept of sovereignty and its relation to the law in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial period. One aspect of the course will be theoretical: how do we define sovereignty and legitimacy? We will read passages from several ancient authors (e.g. Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero) as well as modern constitutional and legal theorists from Jean Bodin to Max Weber. The emphasis in the course, however, will be on the historical aspect: to what extent did the rule of law and constitutional order exist in practice in city-states, federations, kingdoms, and empires? For the Hellenistic period, we will focus on the nature of Macedonian monarchy from Alexander onwards and its relation to the semi-autonomous Greek city-states as well as Near Eastern traditions of law and sovereignty, including kings' role as lawgivers and judges. For the Roman empire we will proceed similarly, though focusing now on the nature of the Roman emperor’s roles as lawgiver, lawyer, and legal advisor. Was the emperor truly sovereign vis à vis the law? And if he was, when and how did this come about? In additional to secondary literature, we will examine case studies for both the Hellenistic and the Roman period by reading inscriptions, papyri, and historical accounts.

CLAS 81100 Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Instructor: Laura Viidebaum
Thurs. 4:15-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

Aristotle’s Rhetoric is a fascinating work that is as complex and influential as it is controversial. Despite unsolved questions about its actual composition and difficult afterlife, the Rhetoric continues to serve as the starting point for theoretical reflections on rhetoric, oratory and prose writing. In this course we will aim to get an overall idea of the Rhetoric and delve into questions about its language, composition, subject matter, and position within Aristotle’s corpus. We’ll think about the commentary tradition and will also look at the impact and afterlife of the Rhetoric, particularly in the way in which it has contributed to discussions about ancient emotions. We will read the work in the original Greek, though students should have a read through the whole of the Rhetoric in translation before the start of the semester. For the original, we’ll work with W. D. Ross’ edition of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (OCT, 1959). We’ll have weekly reading assignments, comprising of passages of the Rhetoric and relevant secondary literature, a midterm and a final assignment, which will highly likely be a summary effort to produce a commentary of Book 3 of the Rhetoric.

CLAS 71800 Thucydides, Politics, Philosophy

Instructor: Jennifer Roberts
Mon. 6:30-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room 3306

This interdisciplinary course will be guided in part by the particular interests of the students who choose to enroll in it: historians, classicists, archaeologists, political scientists, philosophers.  Although there will be common readings, students are encouraged to pursue their own perspectives on Thucydides while at the same time coming to appreciate his relevance to other disciplines.  The text will be read in English, but I am happy to meet separately with students who would like to read selections in the original Greek.

A masterpiece of both narrative and analysis, Thucydides’ account of the war between the Athenian Empire and Peloponnesian League also merits study as a work of profound philosophical import.  The work of a man filled with a plangent sense of the sorrows of the human condition, Thucydides’ history offered a non-fiction counterpart to the tragic drama of his contemporaries Sophocles and Euripides.  

The father of political science, Thucydides has often been labeled the father of political realism.  We will explore in what ways this is and is not accurate.  Thucydides has been co-opted by one generation after another, on one continent after another, as a spokesman for its own society and identified as the one person who best understood the problems of the day.  From monarchists to republicans in Europe to 20^th and 21^st century American neoconservatives, his readers have proudly cited him in defense of their ideologies. Today students of international relations wring their hands over the newly dubbed menace, “the Thucydides trap,” a concept that draws parallels between the diplomatic situation that led up to the Peloponnesian War and America’s growing tensions with China.  Both Thucydides and his legacy will be the subjects of this course.

CLAS 70200 Latin Rhetoric and Stylistics

Instructor: David Konstan
Wed. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

This course offers an introduction to prose composition in Latin.  The course will include a review of Latin syntax (based on the textbook, “Bradley’s Arnold,” which will be distributed as a pdf) and discussion of various prose styles, with a primary focus on Cicero.  There will be weekly exercises in the translation of set passages, which will be examined for linguistic correctness and also style.  Additional materials on particular points of style will be distributed in the course of the semester.

CLAS 72400 Augustin’s Confessions

Instructor: Adam Becker
Tue. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room TBA

In this seminar we will read and discuss large portions of the whole of Augustine’s Confessions (including the commonly ignored later books). Broader questions about the genre and context of the work will be addressed throughout, whereas certain topics will be introduced each week as they arise in given books (e.g Manichaeism in Bks 3-4; Neoplatonism in Bk 7). Topics of discussion will also depend on the different students’ interests (Classical, Late Antique, Medieval, literary, philosophical, theological, etc.). Good knowledge of Latin is required. Feel free to contact the instructor if you have any questions: adam.becker@nyu.edu

CLAS 72800 Roman Family

Instructor: Matthew Perry
Thu. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room TBA

Masters and slaves, wives and husbands, parents and children, patres familias and dependents, all dwelled and labored alongside each other within the Roman household.  This seminar explores the form and function of the Roman household, considering the legal and social mechanisms making it one of the empire’s most powerful institutions.  Engaging with critical topics such as gender, family, slavery, and status, readings will consist of primary sources (in translation), classic works of modern scholarship, and recent innovative studies (all available digitally through library collections).

CLAS 74200 Antiquity at Risk: Conflict Archaeology, Conservation, International Law and Cultural Heritage

Instructor: Joan Connelly
Mon. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

This interdisciplinary course introduces students to a broad range of contemporary threats to the survival of ancient cultural heritage.  It is ideal for those who are interested in the intersection of classical archaeology and art history with international law, science, conservation, ethics, public policy, and cultural resource management. Through careful examination of case studies, we investigate objects, monuments and sites that exemplify the greatest risks faced in preserving cultural heritage today. Material is presented the within the broader context of current global developments, especially those of armed conflict, environmental issues, urban growth, dam building, tourism, looting, and the international market in illicit antiquities. Special attention is paid to international cultural heritage laws and conventions, cases of repatriation and return of cultural materials, and current discussions of identity, cosmopolitanism, and the “universal museum.”

CLAS 75200 Ancient Science

Instructor: Philip Thibodeau
Tue. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room TBA

In this seminar we will explore the literature and culture of ancient Greek and Roman science. Each week we will study a text or collection of texts that exemplify one or more key themes.  These themes will include: the origins of the secular worldview; changing conceptions of ‘nature’ (physis); the cognitive styles of technical texts; Near Eastern influences on Greek science; the translation of ideas from the Greek world to Rome; and the challenges of working with lost or incompletely preserved writings. Students will read both Greek and Latin works and representative items of scholarship. For a final project each seminar participant will translate into English and write an introduction to a short piece of ancient scientific writing which has never received such treatment before.

CLAS 81300 Sophocles

Instructor: Peter Meineck
Wed. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

In this seminar, we will be reading Sophocles' Philoctetes in Greek and paying particular attention to the playwright's dramaturgy, narrative structure, poetic imagery and inter-performative devices (inter-textualities). We will place the work within its cultural and performative contexts and examine, staging, masks, costumes, settings, music, dance, gestures, space, and the wider festival/cultic and social-political environments of the second half of fifth century BCE Athens. We will also look at receptions of Philoctetes since the 20th century.

We will be using the following edition, which students will need to provide.
Seth L. Schein, Sophocles: Philoctetes. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

CLAS 82300 Horace and the Tradition of Latin Lyric

Instructor: Matthew McGowan
Thu. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

This course provides a survey of Horace’s Odes (Carmina) for the first two-thirds of the term. The final third will be dedicated to the reception of Horace and the tradition of Latin lyric from the early medieval period (Venantius Fortunatus, Alcuin, Notker Balbus) to the Italian Renaissance (Petrarch, Pontano, Filelfo, Poliziano, Marullo) and beyond (Joannes Secundus, Conrad Celtis). There will be weekly assignments in Latin and readings from secondary scholarship on which students will be asked to give at least one report. There will be a midterm exam and final research paper (usually on a topic related to the report), and texts will be provided at the beginning of the term for a small fee. Feel free to email me with questions about the course: mamcgowan@fordham.edu.

CLAS 85200 Professional Writing

Permission of instructor required
Instructor: Dee Clayman
Tue 2:00 PM-4:00 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

This course is designed to take students through the process of academic research and writing. Each participant will choose a text to study and will report regularly to the class on the progress of their work. By the end of the semester they will have a professional paper in a fully documented publishable format, a shorter version suitable for oral presentation and an abstract to send to conference organizers and publishers. As a capstone to the semester students will read their papers to colleagues and faculty at a Friday afternoon colloquium. Topics to be covered in class include how to choose a promising subject; what questions to ask of the text; where to find bibliographical sources and when to decide you have read enough; how many footnotes are needed and which kinds; what elements are necessary for a successful oral presentation; and where to send the abstract or paper, when it is ready.

This course is limited to CUNY Ph.D. students only with priority given to more advanced students. Instructor’s permission is required. There will be no auditors.

CLAS 70100 Greek Rhetoric and Stylistics

Instructor: David Sider
Tue. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

This course offers an introduction to composition in Greek with attention paid to various prose styles. Each week we will translate set passages and then review the Greek for individual points of syntax and style. No books will be ordered, but essential to have close by are Smyth’s Greek Grammar (Harvard U Press, revised by Messing) and Denniston’s Greek Particles (Oxford UP). Those weak in grammar may also wish to own (and review in advance) Eleanor Dickey, Composition and Analysis of Greek Prose (Cambridge  UP).

CLAS 72200 Latin Elegiac Poetry

Instructor: David Petrain
Mon. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

The connotations of English "elegiac" hint at one aspect of the poetry's associations, but elegy ranges far beyond the mournful and morose. This course follows the arc of elegiac poetry in Latin from its beginnings with Ennius, to the epigrams and longer poems of Catullus and his contemporaries, and finally to its heyday as a characteristic poetic form of the Augustan Age, in the discontinuous narratives of erotic entanglement by Tibullus, Sulpicia, Propertius, Ovid, others. We will explore the meter itself (verse composition a possibility); the multiplicity of elegiac traditions (Greek, Latin; literary, inscriptional; Republican, neoteric); ancient and modern approaches to the elegiac corpus.

Students should come to the first class meeting having (re)read Ovid, Amores 1.1, preferably with the commentary of McKeown.

CLAS 72800 From the Second to the Third Sophistic

Instructor: Raffaela Cibriori
Wed. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

Were the Second and Third Sophistic “ages of anxiety”  as they have been called? What was then the relationship with mythology and Homer?  This course intends to inquire about issues of identity, rhetoric, religion and the relationship with the past especially in the Second Sophistic. In the very late part of the semester we will investigate the bridge between the Second and Third Sophistic in the fourth century East. We will inquire about the characteristics of extempore speech and the power and danger of rhetoric. The texts read will be in Greek except for some Quintilian. Among the authors read there will be Philostratus, Lucian, Dio Chrysostom, and some Libanius. In the last part of the course, some attention will be paid to the relationship between pagan and Christian intellectuals and the appropriation of classical culture by Christians.

CLAS 80100 Proseminar in Classical Studies

Instructor: John Van Sickle
Mon. 6:30 PM-8:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

CLAS 71900 Divinity, Commodity and the Sea in the Mediterranean World

Instructor: Barbara Kowalzig
Wed. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

This seminar will examine how Greek polytheism engages the economic sphere. How is the divine world implicated in production, supply and economic exchange in the Mediterranean? In particular, it will address the relationship between individual gods or sets of gods and the ‘product’ they are commonly associated with, such as Demeter and the grain, Dionysos and the wine, Athena and the olive etc. A fundamental question will be how a god’s power (‘mode of action’), such as Demeter’s ability to effect ‘production’ and ‘growth’, comes to bear on economic activity and institutions, shaping a city’s political economy, or maritime networks of supply. The course will start by introducing students to the methods used in the study of Greek polytheism, to relevant approaches in economic anthropology and economic theory and to recent work on the Mediterranean as an interconnected historical space. A number of sessions will then be dedicated to the divine world involved in agricultural production, that is to say cult, myth, and ritual associated with the Mediterranean ‘triad’ (grain, olive, wine); followed by mining and metallurgy, slave labour and slave trade; luxury commodities, such as textiles, spices and perfumes. A final part will tackle the mechanisms of divine intervention in economic transactions, i.e. examine the ‘gods of the market place’ (theoi agoraioi); and ‘gods of trade’ and ‘exchange’ such as Hermes and Aphrodite. This course will start on Wednesday, 12 September.

CLAS 81800 Modern Views on Ancient Historiography

Instructor: Liv Yarrow
Thu. 4:15 PM-6:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center

Ancient historians were self-conscious creators of narrative.  This course will explore themes traditionally associated with the genre of history in the Greco-Roman world, including, but not limited to: universalism, local histories, the role of speeches, use of sources, intersection with other genres, the role of the historian in society, intrusion of authorial voice, narrative focalization, and explanations of historical causation.  The course will simultaneously examine how these themes and related issues have been treated by both classicists and modern historical theorists.  All general course materials provided in digital format.  Students will each select a different ancient historian on which to focus their individual work for the semester.

CLAS 70200 Latin Rhetoric and Stylistics

Permission of EO required
Instructor: Matthew McGowan
Thursday, 4:00-6:00 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503

This course offers an introduction to composition in Latin and a survey of prose styles from Cato the Elder to the Vulgate. Each week we will tackle a different author from D.A. Russell's Anthology of Latin Prose (Oxford) and review individual points of syntax and stylistics via practice exercises and free composition. It is hoped that by the end of the course students will have gained a deeper knowledge of Latin sentence structure and idiom and a greater appreciation for a broad range of prose styles. Weekly assignments (pensa) will include composition and reading from E.C. Woodcock's A New Latin Syntax and from other scholars analyzing a particular author's style. The scholarly essays will provide the background for the brief report (= breviarium) that every student will be asked to do at least once over the course of the semester.

Required Texts (all available on Amazon): D.A. Russell, Anthology of Latin Prose (Oxford) E.C. Woodcock, A New Latin Syntax, and Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar by B. Gildersleeve and G. Lodge. Please bring these books to class on the first day, Thursday, January 18, 2018. If you have any questions about the content or aims of the course, feel free to email me: mamcgowan@fordham.edu.

CLAS 72100 Late Latin Verse

Instructor: Marco Formisano
Thursday, 2:30-5:00 PM, 3 credits
Fordham, LC Lowenstein

In this course we will read some of the most famous late Latin poems (Ausonius, Mosella; Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae; Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo), as well a selection of passages from other poetry by Ausonius, Proba, and Prudentius. While these texts are most often read intertextually with an almost exclusive focus on their relationships with models such as Vergil, Ovid, Horace and Statius, our aim is to study these poems on their own terms, namely as the products of late antique literary culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the concept of allegory, both as an ancient and late-antique textual phenomenon and as a topic of theorizing in twentieth-century literary criticism (e.g. Walter Benjamin, Paul De Man). On April 27, 2018 a workshop with external speakers on “Origins and Original Moments in Late Antique Literature” will take place at Fordham, and the participants in this class will be directly involved in the discussion.

CLAS 81100 Presocratic Philosophy

Instructor: David Sider
Monday, 6:30-8:30 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

In this course we shall survey the path of Greek philosophy from its beginnings until just short of Plato. Most of this will be on natural science (such as evolution, the big bang theory, and subatomic particles, to be anachronistic) and the attempts to grapple with the concept of existence, but what little remains of early philosophical ethics will also be examined. Since all of early Greek thought is known primarily from later sources who quote (not always consistently), paraphrase (often tendentiously), and interpret (often erroneously), it must be approached in the first instance philologically fragment by fragment before being put into historical and then philosophical contexts.

CLAS 82100 The Latin Novel

Instructor: David Konstan
Tuesday, 4:15-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

Ancient Rome bequeathed to literature three novels of very different character: Petronius’ Satyrica, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass, thanks to a citation by Augustine), and the anonymous History of Apollonius King of Tyre.  We shall read most (if not all) of these texts in Latin, and discuss various points of Latin style, narrative technique, and social context.  A final paper is required, due at the end of the semester.

CLAS 74100 Archaeologies of the Maritime World

Instructor: Joan Breton Connolly
Monday, 4:15-6:15 PM, 3 credits
NYU, Silver Center, Room 503A

How has archaeological investigation, both underwater and terrestrial, deepened our understanding of ancient seafaring, colonization, commerce, social interaction, pilgrimage, warfare, and piracy?  How did connectivity among far-flung ports and coastal Greek cities contribute to the emergence of a Hellenic cultural identity?  This seminar examines the maritime cultural landscape of the Mediterranean with special focus on material culture.  From the Uluburun cargo to the Antikythera shipwreck, from Phoenician purple-dye production to late Roman fish tanks, we will consider the connectivity of maritime industries, economies, visual arts, and social practices.  Special topics to be examined: climate, time-cycles, technological aspects of seafaring, ship construction, navigation, innovation, insularities, “maritime small worlds”, coastscapes, opportunistic ports, cabotage, and connections with the hinterland. Readings cover ancient authors (literature, histories, geographies); historiographic works (Braudel, Horden and Purcell, Abulafia, Broodbank); period- and region-specific works (Malkin, Tartaron, Leidwanger, Foley, Bass).

CLAS 71800 Herodotus

Instructor: Danielle Kellogg
Wednesday, 4:15 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room 3310B

This course will focus on Herodotos, one of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece and a crucial figure in Greek intellectual and literary history. Herodotos’ Histories is one of the earliest lengthy prose narratives in Ionian Greek still extant and remains the primary (and often only) source for much information about the culture and history of numerous ancient Mediterranean cultures in the late Archaic and early Classical periods. Herodotos’ status as the ‘Father of History’ has been debated in the 2500 years since he set himself the task of recording the ‘great and wonderful deeds’ of the Greeks and Persians: while Herodotos’ investigation of these events set the precedent for all subsequent historical writings, his aims and methods have been controversial since antiquity (just witness the rather uncomplimentary opinions of his near contemporary, Thucydides). Herodotos wove a number of fabulous and entertaining anecdotes and tales into his historical narrative, leading some to refer to him the ‘Father of Lies’ and even to question his status as a historian at all. Current scholarly work, however, mostly treats Herodotos’ Histories both as a carefully crafted literary work in which the supposed ‘digressions’ link together many of Herodotos’ themes and ideas, and as a genuine attempt by the author to record and explain events of the past. The course will advance the students’ fluency in reading and translating Greek prose, while at the same time enriching their understanding of Greek civilization and history and exposing them to current trends in Herodotean scholarship. 

CLAS 81200 Greek Sympotic Poetry

Instructor: Lawerence Kowerski
Wednesday, 6:30 PM, 3 credits
The Graduate Center, Room 6300

A study of the poetry and the institution of Greek symposia. 

CLAS 75200 Latin Sight Reading Workshop

Instructor: Dee Clayman
Wednesday, 3:00-4:00 PM, pass/fail, 1 credit
The Graduate Center, Room 6300

Learning goals: Students will be able to translate a Latin passage at sight at a level appropriate for accomplished MA and/or PhD students; students will pass the MA or PhD examinations in Latin translation at the first attempt.
Assessment: student performance in class; the MA or PhD examination in Latin translation

Who should take the course: The course is ideal for students preparing to take a Latin translation exam (MA or PhD), but is not limited to such students. A knowledge of basic Latin grammar and vocabulary is assumed. Any student enrolled in an MA or PhD program in classics or ancient history may register until the course limit is reached. Please consult the instructor if you are uncertain whether you would benefit from this course.

The class will meet for 1 hour each week. Regular attendance is required. The instructor will bring to class each week texts selected from the works of authors on and off the reading list, with an emphasis on prose. Students will be challenged to translate them on the spot in writing and discussion will follow of strategies for producing accurate and literal translations.