Medieval Renaissance Courses: The Ancient World - Fall 2021

Linked course titles have extended descriptions. Syllabi provided where available.

Course	Title	Day	Time	Instructor	Room	Syllabus	Description
LIT 101	Introduction to Classical Literature	MoWe	2:15-3:35	Carnes	Eggers Hall 113		Introduction to the literature and culture of Archaic and Classical Greece, from the beginnings of Greek literacy down to the fourth century BCE. Examination of literary works in their cultural context, which includes study of the social and intellectual history of the Greek world. Also touches on the influence of Greek civilization on the development of European and North American culture. Authors studied include Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Plato.
JSP/REL 135	Judaism	TuTh	12:30-1:50	Braiterman	Eggers Hall 010		The course provides a broad (but selective) survey of Jewish religious thought and practice from the biblical period through the modern. Readings focus on the way diverse Jewish thinkers have reshaped Jewish identity by reconfiguring the way in which they understand ritual life. We pay particular attention to how Jewish interpreters have constructed a changing textual tradition as an integral part of that process. This class introduces students to the Hebrew Bible, Talmud and Midrash, medieval philosophy and mysticism, and to German Jewish existentialism and American Jewish feminism in the 20th century. Special note is paid to the modern period and the role of women.
ANT 141	Introduction to Archaeology and Prehistory	MoWe	12:45-1:40	DeCourse	Hall of Langauges 107		Survey of the prehistoric past spanning the origins of humankind through the rise of complex societies. Class activities and field trip provide a hands-on introduction to archaeological in-terpretation.
ENG 174	World Literature, Beginnings to 1000	TuTh	11:00-12:20	Teres	CH 020		Gilgamesh, The Iliad, Ramayana, the Bible, Chinese and Japanese literature, the Quran, and 1001 Nights. Texts are explored in historical context, both past and present.
HST 210	The Ancient World	MoWe	10:35-11:30	Champion	HB CROUSE KITTREDGE		This course surveys the history of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, and explores the classical roots of modern civilization. We will begin with the first civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the roots of western religion in ancient Israel; then proceed through Bronze Age, archaic and classical Greece, the Persian wars, the trial of Socrates, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic world, the rise of Rome, and end with the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christianity. The course will treat political, so-cial, cultural, religious and intellectual history. We will focus on issues that the ancients themselves considered important – good and bad government, the duties of citizens and the powers of kings and tyrants – but we will also examine those who were marginalized by the Greeks and Romans: women, slaves, so-called "barbarians." The course will emphasize read-ing and discussion of primary sources, in order to provide a window into the thought-worlds and value systems of past societies.
PHI 307	Ancient Philosophy	MoWe	3:45-5:05	Noble	Eggers Hall 111		Development of Western philosophy from the Presocratic Greek philosophers to the Hellenistic period. Major figures such as Parmenides, Zeno, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
ANT 343	The Maya: Ancient and Modern	MoWe	3:45-5:05	Pezzarossi	Maxwell Hall 110		This course provides an introduction to the history and culture if the Maya; from the deep past to the modern world.
HST 352	The History of Ancient Greece	TuTh	9:30-10:50	Champion	Hall of Langauges 202		Ancient Greek political, economic, social, and cultural history based on interpretation of primary sources, both literary and archaeological, from the Bronze Age through Alexander the Great.
PHI 710	Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy	Mo	6:45-9:30	Richardson	Hall of Langauges 538		The topic of the proseminar will be the Principle of Sufficient Reason and related debates about necessitarianism and freedom in the Medieval and Early Modern periods. We will read several authors, but we will focus on Avicenna (d. 1037), Spinoza (d. 1677) and Leibniz (d. 1716).
HOA 500	Late Antique Art: Jesus to Muhammed	Tu	3:30-6:15	Peers	Hall of Languages 107		No prerequisites or even experiences of art are needed for this class! This course aims to introduce a period of great complexity, the transitional period between the Classical and Medieval worlds. The designation 'Late Antique' is necessarily vague because the transition was drawn out and often without firm definition. The exchange among cultures in this period was dynamic, and this course examines the art of Late Antiquity as a contest of cultures. In this period, art was an effective means of self-definition for Christians, pagans, Muslims and Jews alike. This course examines the tentative beginning of a Christian art and architecture beginning around 200. It follows the progress of this new art through its attempts at incorporation and alterations of pagan and Jewish art, and it follows the growth of this visual identity to its fully Christian realization into the seventh century. This broad period encompasses changes that profoundly affected the history of Europe thereafter: a truly Christian art and architecture supplanted the old forms of the pagan world. Meanwhile, Jews within the empire and Persians outside were each contending with the Roman past that allowed them to assert their own statuses and identities. The course ends with an examination of another process of supplanting and appropriation: the Islamicization from the 630s of large parts of the formerly Christian world of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Roman Christian world was itself overthrown by the forces of Islam from the east, but as Christians had not erased the past, neither did Muslims. A dynamic and compelling culture grew out of these opposing forces, a culture that has lessons of accommodation and antagonism useful for us today.