Classics

CLAS 30100 - This Is Sparta (Or Is It?) (Jonathan Hall)
From Herodotos to Hitler, ancient Sparta has continued to fascinate for its supposedly balanced constitution, its military superiority, its totalitarian ideology and its brutality. Yet the image we possess of the most important state of the Peloponnese is largely the projection of outside observers for whom the objectification of Sparta could serve either as a model for emulation or as a paradigm of "otherness." This course will examine the extant evidence for Sparta from its origins through to its repackaging in Roman times and beyond and will serve as a case-study in discussing the writing of history and in attempting to gauge the viability of a non-Athenocentric Greek history.

CLAS 33822 - Mediterranean Island (Catherine Kearns)
Islands, and Mediterranean islands in particular, have long provoked curiosity and intrigue, and have persisted as places for thinking about utopia, incongruity, distinctiveness, or backwardness since antiquity. This seminar course interrogates the representations of islands in ancient thought as well as their own archaeological and historical records in order to trace their often elliptical categorization in modern scholarship. Are islands unique because they are isolated, or rather because they become crossroads of special interaction? From the mythical island of the Cyclopes, to the Aegean archipelagos, to the large masses like Sicily or Cyprus, discussions will explore approaches to insularity, isolation, connectivity, and identity using a wide range of textual and material evidence and theoretical insights from geography, anthropology, history, literature, and environmental science.

CLAS 36419 - Magic In the Ancient Mediterranean (Christopher Faraone)
In this course we will mainly focus on the magical rituals (e.g. curses, necromancy, erotic spells, amulets, and divination) practiced in the ancient Mediterranean beginning with the Greeks in archaic times and ending with the fall of the Roman Empire.

CLAS 35922 - Digital Humanities for the Ancient World (Georgios Tsolakis)
This course offers a hands-on introduction to the field of digital humanities with a special focus on ancient Greek and Roman antiquity. We will explore concepts and methods such as digital presentation of text with markup languages, text analysis with programmatic manipulation, map visualization, 3D modeling, and network analysis. Throughout the course, we will take a critical view of the existing online digital resources for Greek and Roman antiquity. The course will include weekly readings and assignments and conclude with a final research project.

A complete listing of offerings is available at the Department’s course page.

The Classical Languages Option is intended for students who wish to study Classics at the graduate level but require additional strengthening of their language skills in order to meet the admissions requirements of most major PhD programs. Students interested in the Classical Languages Option must have at least two years of either Greek or Latin and one year of the other language before beginning MAPH. All students are welcome to take Classics courses at all levels without pursuing the Classical Languages Option.

The students will take a placement test on arrival, in both Greek and Latin, and meet with the DGS and the language program director in Classics for advice on courses in Classical languages.

Students who complete the following requirements will receive a Classical Languages notation, in addition to their MAPH transcript:

• MAPH Core course (Foundations of Interpretive Theory)
• Seven elective courses, six of which must be in Greek or Latin
• Completion of a thesis on a Classical topic
• Passing the MAPH translation exam in Greek and Latin, taken in Spring quarter

The translation exam in Latin, Greek, or both languages can be taken in the Spring quarter. Two-Year Language Option students typically take one or both exams at the end of their second year, but students who feel sufficiently prepared can take it on their first year.

• The exam consists of two passages, one prose (ca 150 words), one poetry (ca 20 lines), for which the student will be given 2 hours of time and will be allowed to use a dictionary (LSJ or Brill for Greek, OLD or Lewis and Short for Latin) to produce a translation into English. Digital dictionaries will not be allowed.
• Students should register for the exam by notifying the Director of Graduate Studies in Classics by the third week of Spring quarter. The exam will be given during exam week.

"Cultural Transition from Republic to Empire: Literary Practice of the Recitationes and the Atrium Libertatis"
Ryan Alsop, MAPH TLO '22
Advisor: Clifford Ando

"On Being ἐοικώς: Towards a Non-Binary Dionysus In and Beyond Euripides’ Bacchae"
Emma Pauly, MAPH '21
Advisor: Patrice Rankine

"Hades to Hell: Ancient Greek and Roman Influence on The Gospel of Luke’s View of the Afterlife"
Brian McFadden, MAPH '20
Advisor: David Martinez

"Everyday Fictionality: Consolation, Narrative Situation, and the Narration of Suffering at Eumaeus’ Hut in the Odyssey"
Jiawen Wang, MAPH '20
Advisor: Mark Payne