Spring 2009

AHC 378 • Writing Ancient History Today-W

Course Description

In the past twenty years or so, the focus of much of the research into ancient history has shifted from political/military history to social/economic/cultural history. At the same time, the sources available to the ancient historian are much the same today as they were twenty years ago. Thus, ancient historians must ask new questions of the sources and develop new methods for their study of them. This course is designed to introduce students who already have some background in ancient Greek history to the questions that engage ancient historians today and to the methods that they use. Our focus will be the archaic Greek world (ca. 750-475 B.C.). The structure of the class will be problem-oriented (a selection of key topics and problems rather than a historical survey). We will explore the full range of evidence used by today's ancient historian: literary, documentary (inscriptions and papyri), the material record as documented through archaeological excavation and survey, and ancient landscape and environmental studies. Among the topics that we will consider are: " assessing Greek colonization in the post-colonial world " the bully pulpit: public discourse and democratic ideology in ancient Athens " 'orientalizing and hellenizing in elite Athenian society " literacy and the early Greek polis: the impact of writing on the early state " how different was archaic Spartan society (or, whats normative about archaic Athens?) The class will be conducted as a seminar with student participation central to its success. Grades will be based on: 35% active classroom participation 30% 3 short papers (5-7 pages) (10% each) 35% research paper (15 pages)

Texts

Books (all required): Storey, William Kelleher. 1999. Writing History: A Guide for Students. Oxford University Press. Hall, Jonathan. 2007. A history of the archaic Greek world. Blackwell Publishing. Dillon, Matthew & Linda Garland. 2000. Ancient Greece. Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. Routledge.

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