CLASS 2802 - Classical Tradition

(HB) (HA-AS)

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

This course is required of all Classical Civilization majors, and is also enthusiastically recommended for Classics majors and all minors.

C. Barrett.

Greece and Rome left behind a cultural legacy that still shapes the artistic, literary, scientific, and legal aspects of the world we live in today. This course traces those continuities of influence, while simultaneously tracking how they were transformed by later societies to fit their own cultural, intellectual, and technological circumstances. Readings that illuminate the adaptations and reconfigurations of Classical culture will be focused on a different theme each year.

This year’s theme, “Greeks and Others: ‘Barbarian’ Perspectives on Hellenes,” examines changing perceptions of Greeks by outsiders. We will analyze many non-Greek descriptions or depictions of Greeks, from antiquity to the present day, and conclude by examining our own participation in this ongoing project of representation; what do the “Hellenes” mean to us, and why?