Global Arc

Who was Sappho? And what do we make of her today? In this course, students will consider in detail what remains of Sappho's work (including the latest discoveries, published in 2014), and also how her example informs later literatures, arts, identities, and sexualities. Students with no knowledge of ancient Greek and students who already know it well are equally welcome! One session per week will focus on reading and translating original texts with one group, while a parallel session will focus on translations and adaptations through time. One joint session per week will draw perspectives together.

Flourishing contemporaneously between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE, Rome and the Han controlled much of the Eurasian landmass. What does juxtaposing the two reveal about each and the possibilities of historical comparison more broadly? By focusing on common themes (including kingship, administration, society, material culture), we draw upon a range of approaches to introduce both empires and a core problem in historical enquiry. Unlike most comparative histories, we also pay close attention to how ancient participants in empire perceived, portrayed, and theorized their worlds, and the ways ideas shaped their imperial projects.

This course offers an introduction to Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon. The first half of the course introduces students to the basic concepts of Akkadian (old Babylonian) grammar and the cuneiform script. In the second half students consolidate their knowledge of the language by reading selections from classic Babylonian texts, such as the famous law code of King Hammurabi and the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Classical Ethiopic or Ge'ez is a language from the Horn of Africa (modern-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti). It is written in a unique, ancient African script called Fidel and has linguistic connections with Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and even Sanskrit. The history of Classical Ethiopic spans over two millennia and its position in East African society is often compared to Latin in Europe. It is the precursor to several modern African languages, including Tigrinya and Amharic, and lives on as the liturgical language of Christian and Jewish communities in the Horn of Africa and in its global diaspora.

What was/is Roman religion? Our main focus in this course will be the nature, variety, and geographic range of the source material for religious practice in the Mediterranean world of the Roman Republic and Empire (6th c. BCE-5th c. CE). We'll examine how, and with what repercussions, Roman religion set the terms for and changed in response to Rome's expansion into a Mediterranean empire. Finally, we'll think about the place of "Roman religion" in the global history of religion, and the usefulness of the term "religion" to characterize how the Romans related to their gods.

This one semester introduction to Sanskrit will take the form of an intensive immersion in the foundations of Sanskrit grammar and syntax. Our primary text will be Maurer's The Sanskrit Language. Further supplemental handouts and exercises will be distributed as necessary to complement daily lessons from the Maurer text.

This class teaches the fundamentals of Sanskrit grammar, with all reading and writing done in the original [devanagari] script. It prepares students to begin reading classics of Sanskrit literature in the follow-up course in the spring, CLA476.

A continuation of CLA475/LIN475. Students will continue to learn the essentials of Sanskrit Grammar, and to refine their reading skills.

This course looks at Ancient Greco-Roman sport, spectacle entertainment and games; its origin in myth, its place in religious festivals, and the increasing institutional outlay on entertainment in the Roman empire. Areas of competition include: chariot, horse and foot-races, boxing, wrestling, dance, gladiatorial fights, beast-hunts, public executions and more. We will also consider leisure activities (swimming, hunting, board games), magic and curses, sport medicine and diet, and gambling. We close with the direct interaction of Christianity with Roman spectacle entertainment and the after-life of the games in this new world order.

Living as we do in a culture that is primarily either secular or monotheistic and in which the sacred and profane are largely kept separate, how can we possibly understand the world of ancient polytheism? The ancient Greeks did not have a word for "religion", nor did they conceive of "religion" as a distinct domain of human experience. Rather, the practices, beliefs, and rituals that we would term "religious" were embedded in every aspect, public and private, of life. We will explore how people interacted with their gods in their everyday lives, both individually and collectively, and how this interaction shaped and structured Greek society.