Adam T Rabinowitz

Say "Ancient Greece", and the words conjure up timeless images of shining white temples among olive trees, bronze-armored heroes, and bearded philosophers discussing the nature of the universe. Our popular vision of the ancient Greeks makes them seem both familiar and irrelevant to the modern world. In fact, however, Greek culture is deeply alien to our own, and at the same time surprisingly relevant. On the one hand, ancient Greek society is just as confusing, shocking, and easy to misinterpret as any other culture is for an outside observer -- even more so, because we are separated from it not only by space but by time. On the other hand, we have the Greeks to thank for much of the way we think today about politics, art, science, and the meaning of life.

This course is meant to introduce students to this complex and intriguing culture and to its legacy in our own society. We will look at ancient Greece on its own terms through the examination of primary sources of all types -- literary, artistic, archaeological -- in an attempt to develop a more detailed and nuanced understanding of Ancient Greek society and culture between the Bronze Age and the Hellenistic period. We will also place the discussion of these sources in the context of the shifting meaning of Ancient Greece in the modern world, from the Homeric romanticism of Heinrich Schliemann to the meaning of democracy in the 21st century. Within a roughly chronological framework, lectures will examine Greek literature to discover what the Greeks said about themselves; Greek art and archaeology to understand how people lived and to hear the voices of those -- women, children, slaves, foreigners and outsiders -- who left no written testimony; and modern controversies to see what the Greeks say about us.

This course carries a Global Cultures flag.

Grading:

Course requirements include frequent quizzes, an interactive group project, contributions to an online discussion board, two midterms, and a final exam. Grading will be roughly as follows: discussion board (5%), group project (10%), quizzes (15%), midterms (2 x 20% = 40%), and final exam (35%).

Required Texts:

Exploring the World of the Ancient Greeks (J. Camp and E. Fisher, Thames and Hudson, 2010: ISBN 0500288747)

Homer, Odyssey (trans. Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1997: ISBN 0140268863)

The Landmark Herodotus (R. Strassler, Anchor, 2009: ISBN 1400031141)

Aeschylus, Oresteia (trans. Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1984: ISBN 0140443339)

Thucydides on Justice (P. Woodruff, Hackett, 1993: ISBN 0872201686)

Ten Plays by Euripides (trans. P. Roche, Signet Classics, 1998: ISBN 0451527003)

Four Texts on Socrates (T. West, Cornell University Press, 1998: ISBN 0801485746)

Other readings will be made available in digital form.

This course will introduce students to the physical remains of Ancient Greek culture from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period.  The course will cover all sorts of archaeological evidence, from temples to vases to bones, but it will concentrate on the categories of architecture, sculpture, and painting (especially on ceramics). Through the examination and discussion of this evidence, students will develop a broad knowledge of Ancient Greek material culture, and a sophisticated understanding of the ways we can interpret it.  A focus on stylistic and formal changes and continuities in objects and monuments across time will help us look at long-term issues such as intercultural contact and sociopolitical development.  At the same time, in-depth treatments of particular remains and their contexts will address more specific questions of daily life, art, and ritual.

This course carries a Global Cultures flag and fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement; it may also be counted as an elective.

Grades will be based on in-class quizzes (10%), participation in discussions both in class and online (15%), a group project (15%), two hour exams (15% each) and a comprehensive final exam (30%).  The required text below will be supplemented by frequent readings in electronic form posted on Blackboard.

Texts: J. G. Pedley, Greek Art and Archaeology. 5th edition, 2012.

This course continues the introduction to reading Ancient Greek begun in Greek 506. We will complete Luschnig’s Introduction to Ancient Greek and then, if time permits, we will read selections from ancient Greek authors, with an emphasis on Attic Greek (Xenophon, Plato, and the orators). There will be daily assignments on grammar, vocabulary, and translation. Regular attendance and active participation are essential. Grades will be based on participation/preparedness (10%); homework (5%); quizzes (15%); two hour exams (22.5% each); and a final hour exam (25%). Prerequisite: Greek 506 or equivalent (i.e. one semester of Greek). This course can be counted for partial fulfillment of foreign language requirements.

Texts: C. A. E. Luschnig, An Introduction to Ancient Greek. 2nd edition, 2007.

Say "Ancient Greece", and the words conjure up timeless images of shining white temples among olive trees, bronze-armored heroes, and bearded philosophers discussing the nature of the universe. Our popular vision of the ancient Greeks makes them seem both familiar and irrelevant to the modern world. In fact, however, Greek culture is deeply alien to our own, and at the same time surprisingly relevant. On the one hand, ancient Greek society is just as confusing, shocking, and easy to misinterpret as any other culture is for an outside observer -- even more so, because we are separated from it not only by space but by time. On the other hand, we have the Greeks to thank for much of the way we think today about politics, art, science, and the meaning of life.

This course is meant to introduce students to this complex and intriguing culture and to its legacy in our own society. We will look at ancient Greece on its own terms through the examination of primary sources of all types -- literary, artistic, archaeological -- in an attempt to develop a more detailed and nuanced understanding of Ancient Greek society and culture between the Bronze Age and the Hellenistic period. We will also place the discussion of these sources in the context of the shifting meaning of Ancient Greece in the modern world, from the Homeric romanticism of Heinrich Schliemann to the meaning of democracy in the 21st century. Within a roughly chronological framework, lectures will examine Greek literature to discover what the Greeks said about themselves; Greek art and archaeology to understand how people lived and to hear the voices of those -- women, children, slaves, foreigners and outsiders -- who left no written testimony; and modern controversies to see what the Greeks say about us.

This course carries a Global Cultures flag.

Grading:

Course requirements include frequent quizzes, an interactive group project, contributions to an online discussion board, two midterms, and a final exam. Grading will be roughly as follows: discussion board (5%), group project (10%), quizzes (15%), midterms (2 x 20% = 40%), and final exam (35%).

Required Texts:

Exploring the World of the Ancient Greeks (J. Camp and E. Fisher, Thames and Hudson, 2010: ISBN 0500288747)

Homer, Odyssey (trans. Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1997: ISBN 0140268863)

The Landmark Herodotus (R. Strassler, Anchor, 2009: ISBN 1400031141)

Aeschylus, Oresteia (trans. Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1984: ISBN 0140443339)

Thucydides on Justice (P. Woodruff, Hackett, 1993: ISBN 0872201686)

Ten Plays by Euripides (trans. P. Roche, Signet Classics, 1998: ISBN 0451527003)

Four Texts on Socrates (T. West, Cornell University Press, 1998: ISBN 0801485746)

Other readings will be made available in digital form.

Classical archaeology, the first branch of archaeology to emerge as a coherent discipline, is both burdened and enriched by its heritage. Long pressed into the service of historical research or confined to a fairly narrow compass of art historical inquiry, it has broadened its scope dramatically over the last half century to include almost every possible aspect of the material remains of past human activity. Methods and perspectives developed in other fields, from social theory to literary criticism to anthropology, are increasingly incorporated into the classical archaeologist’s toolkit. At the same time, classical archaeology is intimately connected with the study of ancient Mediterranean languages and literatures, and those who seek to carry out -- or use the results of -- archaeological research in the Classical world must be aware of the particular set of issues raised by this connection.

This thematically-organized seminar provides a forum for the exploration and discussion of the intellectual principles and debates that inform modern archaeologies of the Bronze Age Aegean and the Classical Greek and Roman worlds. It is intended both for students who expect to carry out archaeological research and for students of history or literature who seek a better understanding of the issues surrounding the collection and interpretation of the archaeological evidence they may draw on in their own work. Students will be expected to evaluate a wide variety of arguments, principles, and methods introduced through readings, presentations by guest speakers and the students themselves, electronic media, and visits to various campus or regional resources (the GIS center, SAMA, etc.). Subject matter may include, on the one hand, such theoretical topics as historiography, landscape, gender, colonial and post-colonial studies, agency and habitus, ethnicity and identity, the ancient economy, and mortuary analysis; and, on the other hand, such applied topics as epigraphy and numismatics, the study of ceramics, principles of field survey, remote sensing and geophysical prospection, excavation methodologies, GIS and computer applications, archaeometric analyses, and various other technologies and approaches. 

Texts:

B. Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought, 2nd ed. (Cambridge 2006: ISBN 978-0521600491)

M. Johnson, Archaeological Theory: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Wiley-Blackwell 2010: ISBN 978-1405100151)

S. Alcock and R. Osborne, Classical Archaeology, 2nd ed. (Wiley-Blackwell 2012: ISBN 978-1444336917)

Say "Ancient Greece", and the words conjure up timeless images of shining white temples among olive trees, bronze-armored heroes, and bearded philosophers discussing the nature of the universe. Our popular vision of the ancient Greeks makes them seem both familiar and irrelevant to the modern world. In fact, however, Greek culture is deeply alien to our own, and at the same time surprisingly relevant. On the one hand, ancient Greek society is just as confusing, shocking, and easy to misinterpret as any other culture is for an outside observer -- even more so, because we are separated from it not only by space but by time. On the other hand, we have the Greeks to thank for much of the way we think today about politics, art, science, and the meaning of life.

This course is meant to introduce students to this complex and intriguing culture and to its legacy in our own society. We will look at ancient Greece on its own terms through the examination of primary sources of all types -- literary, artistic, archaeological -- in an attempt to develop a more detailed and nuanced understanding of Ancient Greek society and culture between the Bronze Age and the Hellenistic period. We will also place the discussion of these sources in the context of the shifting meaning of Ancient Greece in the modern world, from the Homeric romanticism of Heinrich Schliemann to the meaning of democracy in the 21st century. Within a roughly chronological framework, lectures will examine Greek literature to discover what the Greeks said about themselves; Greek art and archaeology to understand how people lived and to hear the voices of those -- women, children, slaves, foreigners and outsiders -- who left no written testimony; and modern controversies to see what the Greeks say about us.

This course carries a Global Cultures flag.

Grading:

 Course requirements include frequent quizzes, an interactive group project, class participation, and three hour-long in-class exams. Grading will be roughly as follows: participation (15%), group project (10%), quizzes (15%), and exams (3 x 20% each = 60%).

Required Texts:

Exploring the World of the Ancient Greeks (J. Camp and E. Fisher, Thames and Hudson, 2010: ISBN 0500288747)

Homer, Odyssey (trans. Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1997: ISBN 0140268863)

The Landmark Herodotus (R. Strassler, Anchor, 2009: ISBN 1400031141)

Thucydides on Justice (P. Woodruff, Hackett, 1993: ISBN 0872201686)

Ten Plays by Euripides (trans. P. Roche, Signet Classics, 1998: ISBN 0451527003)

Four Texts on Socrates (T. West, Cornell University Press, 1998: ISBN 0801485746)

Other readings will be made available in digital form.

CC380: Food, Drink, and the Body in Classical Archaeology

This course will explore material and iconographic evidence for the

production, consumption, and social meaning of food and drink, and for

their effects on the human body, in the Greek and Roman worlds.

Although the focus of the course will be primarily archaeological, we

will also bring literary and historical sources to bear on the

relationship between human beings and the things they ingest. In

addition, we may venture beyond the bounds of the Greek and Roman

world to discuss comparative evidence from other places and times, and

there will be extensive consideration of social and anthropological

theory related to eating and drinking. Students will be expected to

present and lead discussion of various articles, and the course will

culminate in a research paper on a topic developed by each student.

Students will also be required to write a formal book review of a book

related to the subject of the course.

Grades will be based on article presentations, participation in

discussion, the book review, and the final research paper. Readings

will be placed on physical reserve or will be available in digital

form through Blackboard. Primary texts will be read in translation,

although students with a knowledge of Greek and/or Latin are

encouraged to read in the original languages.

This course will introduce students to the physical remains of Ancient Greek culture from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period.  The course will cover all sorts of archaeological evidence, from temples to vases to bones, but it will concentrate on the categories of architecture, sculpture, and painting (especially on ceramics). Through the examination and discussion of this evidence, students will develop a broad knowledge of Ancient Greek material culture, and a sophisticated understanding of the ways we can interpret it.  A focus on stylistic and formal changes and continuities in objects and monuments across time will help us look at long-term issues such as intercultural contact and sociopolitical development.  At the same time, in-depth treatments of particular remains and their contexts will address more specific questions of daily life, art, and ritual.

This course carries a Global Cultures flag and fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement; it may also be counted as an elective.

Grades will be based on in-class quizzes, on-line discussions and assignments, two hour exams and a comprehensive final exam.  The required text below will be supplemented by frequent readings in electronic form on reserve on BlackBoard.

Texts:
J. G. Pedley, Greek Art and Archaeology. 4th edition, 2007.