GRST 180 - Reading Antiquity

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

This course is a chronological introduction to the vast landscape of the literature of classical antiquity. The readings span nearly one thousand years and take us not only throughout Greece and Rome proper but also as far as Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa and Spain. The course does not aim to be comprehensive, but hopes, instead, to tackle the question of how to read classical literature. We do not read all of the works on the syllabus in their entirety and leave many wonderful and important genres, works, and passages untouched. However, through the close reading of carefully chosen passages from the works that we do read, we uncover issues that are central to all of classical literature. An important goal of the course is that you become more comfortable with understanding the difference between questions that the texts ask of themselves and questions that we might inappropriately impose on them. In this regard, we pay special attention to the understanding of the cultural conditions under which these works were produced. Among the issues we will consider are the differences between Greece and Rome, orality and literacy, tradition and innovation, the central role that the divine plays in Greek and Roman society, questions pertaining to gender, and the relationship of the personal and the political. Curtis Dozier.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS