GRST 200 - Antiquity Now: Reinterpreting Greece and Rome

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

In this class we consider the study of ancient Greece and Rome — what has been traditionally been called the field of “Classics.” Engaging in such a project today, with a critical and self-reflective perspective, requires interrogating the assumptions and methods employed in the past. This is necessary because Classical learning, long the province of only an elite few, has been (and in some cases, continues to be) deeply implicated in elitist, colonial, and racist agendas. We both study the uses and abuses of the classical past and consider the many ways that ancient Greece and Rome remain visible and significant in the contemporary world. Such prominence demands critical consideration, and through our study of a series of case-studies we explore the complex ways in which the past and present are mutually informed by one another. As we learn to bring new questions to ancient sources and to discover neglected voices and stories of the ancient world, we also find that the study of antiquity teaches us to see our own world anew. Indeed such study can even challenge the projects with which classical Greece and Rome have been entangled and become a support of liberatory agendas. Our multifaceted approach to this exchange between the ancient and the contemporary includes consideration of such things as: modern adaptations of ancient texts in literature and film; debates about ownership and display of cultural artifacts; the history of classics in the Vassar curriculum; and instances where examples from antiquity are cited to inform contemporary debates. Freed of a value-laden idealizing narrative of antiquity which presumes that that which is ancient has value simply because it is prior, we discover a vibrant space in which to engage in a series of conversations between the ancient world and our own.

Students should have some experience studying ancient Greece and/or Rome, in high school or at Vassar, before enrolling in this class. Rachel Friedman.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS