Global Arc

"What is a Classic?" asks what goes into the making of a classic text. It focuses on four, monumental poems from the ancient Mediterranean and Near East: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Gilgamesh, which are discussed through comparison across traditions, ranging as far as Chinese poetry. Students will consider possible definitions and constituents of a classic, while also reflecting on the processes of chance, valorization, and exclusion that go into the formation of a canon. Topics will include transmission, commentary, translation, religion, race, colonization, empire, and world literature.

The origins and nature of English vocabulary, from proto-Indo-European prehistory to current slang. Emphasis on the Greek and Latin component of English vocabulary, including technical terminology (medical/scientific, legal, and humanistic). Related topics: the alphabet and English spelling, slang and jargon, social and regional variation, vocabulary changes in progress, the "national language'' debate. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Stylish, seductive, surreptitious, and scorned, the ubiquitous art of persuasion will be the focus of this course. We will first approach rhetoric through the classical tradition, learning to recognize basic figures of speech and thought with an eye towards identifying what is persuasive and why. We will then consider how rhetoric continues to thrive, despite abundant moral and philosophical attacks, in public self-presentation, whether of household products, of politicians, or institutions such as Princeton.

An introduction to Greek mythology in its cultural context and in relationship to broader human concerns (e.g., creation, mortality and immortality, sexuality, marriage, and reproduction). The course presents a who's who of the ancient Greek and Roman imaginative world, offers opportunities for in-depth reading of the main ancient sources for myth, and looks at select modern adaptations.Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An introduction to Roman culture emphasizing tensions within Roman imperial ideology, the course explores attitudes toward issues such as gender and sexuality, conspicuous consumption, and ethnicity through the works of authors such as Petronius, Lucan, and Tacitus. It also considers the role of cinematic representations of ancient Rome in 20th-century America. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A formative episode in Western civilization: the Greeks from the rise of the city-state, through the conflict between Athens and Sparta, to the emergence of Macedon in the fourth century B.C. Emphasis on cultural history, political thought, and the development of techniques of historical interpretation through analysis of original sources (Herodotus, Thucydides, and others). Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The Greek experience from Alexander the Great through Cleopatra. An exploration of the dramatic expansion of the Greek world into the Near East brought about by the conquests and achievements of Alexander. Study of the profound political, social, and intellectual changes that stemmed from the interaction of the cultures, and the entrance of Greece into the sphere of Rome. Readings include history, biography, religious narrative, comedy, and epic poetry. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A study of the causes and unforeseen consequences of one small city-state's rise to world-empire, primarily through the analysis of ancient sources (including Livy, Polybius, Caesar, and Cicero) in translation. Emphasis on the development of Roman society and the evolution, triumph, and collapse of the republican government that it produced. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A study of the profound transformation of Rome by the multicultural empire it had conquered, ending with the triumph of Christianity. Emphasis on typical social and cultural institutions and on the legacies of Rome to us. Ancient sources in translation include documents, histories, letters, and novels. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Nature shapes how many of us think about the world. It's a balanced ecological system; the opposite of culture; a way of explaining how living things work; and a way of regulating how living things, especially people, should live. We will look at how ideas about natures, Nature, and "living naturally" take shape in texts from ancient Greece and Rome. We'll consider the Greek and Roman texts in relationship to other ways of imagining human and non-human life and the world in the Mediterranean and other cultures. We'll think, too, about how these ancient ideas bear on how we think about nature today-and how we might think differently.