GRST 100 - Then and Now: Reinterpreting Greece and Rome

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Here we are at the beginning of the 21st century, yet all around us we continue to see allusions to and creative engagements with Greek and Roman antiquity. From the bestseller list which features a novel claiming to reveal recently discovered books of the Odyssey to an HBO series that takes place in ancient Rome and comparisons of the post 9/11 United States to the Roman Empire in the news, the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome continue to be viscerally alive and compelling as sources for artistic and cultural production. Why is this so? In this course we examine the ways that the legacies of classical antiquity continue to be felt today and invite us to explore the cultures of Greece and Rome. The course serves as an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of Greek and Roman languages, literature, history, and archaeology and the interpretation of these cultures by subsequent civilizations. The course addresses both the complex political, social, intellectual, and cultural settings of the ancient world and the ways in which the study of antiquity can challenge and enrich our experience of the present. To pursue these questions we read ancient texts, examine material artifacts, study linguistic evidence, and engage with creative contemporary responses to antiquity and recent theoretical work on the study of the ancient world. In serving as an overview of the kinds of questions that contemporary culture inspires us to ask of and about antiquity and the materials and approaches that scholars use for their inquiries, the course prepares the student for further work in the department. Rachel Friedman.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS