Global Arc

Designed to serve as an introduction to the language of modern Greece. Practice in speaking, grammatical analysis, composition, and graded reading. Four classes. No credit is given for HLS 101 unless followed by HLS 102.

A continuation of 101, aiming to develop the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing modern Greek in a cultural context. Classroom activities include videos, comprehension and grammar exercises, and discussions. Four classes.

Course intended for students with little or no previous knowledge of modern Greek. Intensive focus on the fundamentals of grammar and syntax, with parallel emphasis on reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Through sustained practice and a wide range of materials and activities, students are provided with skills and vocabulary necessary in order to understand and produce written texts and communicate effectively at an elementary level. With integrated references to various aspects of everyday life and experience, the course also serves as an introduction to modern Greek society and culture.

Advanced grammatical analysis, composition, and graded reading, with further practice in speaking. An introduction to themes in the Hellenic tradition through readings in modern Greek literature. Four classes. Prerequisite: 102 or instructor's permission.

Advanced composition and oral practice aimed at developing idiomatic written and spoken style. Discussions entirely in Greek. Introduces students to contemporary Greek culture and literature through the study of works by Cavafy, Sikelianos, Seferis, Elytis, Ritsos, and Anagnostakis, among others. Readings from articles on current Greek topics. Four classes. Prerequisite: 105 or instructor's permission.

Istanbul is haunted by its doppelgängers. Poised between Europe and Asia, the city straddles both the Greco-Roman and the Ottoman-Islamic legacies that shape our world today. This course will walk students through Istanbul's streets and neighborhoods as they've been written by the living voices of those legacies: the city's natives (primarily Greeks and Turks) as well as the internal migrants, refugees, and exiles who've found their way there over the past century. Through fiction, film and essay, we'll explore the complicated histories of violence and co-existence that define Istanbul's several selves, at the crossroads of East and West.

An aspect or period of modern Greek civilization since the War of Independence (1821) as it is illuminated by literary, historical, and other relevant sources. Emphasis will be given to the cross-cultural context of the topic, including the relation of modern Greece to Western, Eastern, or Balkan cultures, or the Hellenic diaspora in America and elsewhere.

An aspect of the civilization of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, from 312 to 1453, as illuminated by literary, historical, and other relevant sources. Emphasis will be given to the cross-cultural context of the topic, including relations of the Byzantine Empire with Sassanid Persia, the Arabs, the Slavs, and Western Europe. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The diachronic development of a theme, genre, or institution, with emphasis on the continuities and discontinuities between successive periods of Hellenic culture--ancient, Byzantine, and modern. The approach will be interdisciplinary and cross-cultural.

This is an introduction to Modern Greek poetry in a broad context, with an emphasis on its relation to Anglophone poetry. How is the experience of modernity registered in poetic texts? What traditions do poets draw on, which contemporary experiences do they reflect or critique, and what futures do they envision? How are Greek poets exploring their relation to the ancient Greek past, and also responding to trends and experiments in global modernism as well as to current events? On the flipside, what kind of relationship, if any, to the Greece of the past and of the present do non-Greek poets construct?