CLASS 2801 - Drink, Talk, Love Like a Greek: Approaches to the Classical Symposium

(HB) (CA-AS)

Fall. 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.

V. Platt.

Joins us to explore a lost world of wine and song! The symposium (or “drinking party”) was a major social institution within Greek culture - a forum for well-born men (and select female companions) to celebrate victory in athletic and poetic contests, engage in debate, enjoy performances of music and poetry, and honor the god Dionysus. We will explore archaeological evidence for Greek practices of dining and drinking, such as the layout of domestic spaces and Greek practices of viticulture; visual portrayals of symposia, such as those we find in Attic vase-paintings; the social history of dining, including the role of religion and issues of gender and class; the significance of symposia in works of historiography; the role of poetic performance in sympotic contexts; and the relationship between elite sympotic culture and Greek philosophy, most famously in Plato’s Symposium. You will thus be introduced to a range of skills and methods employed in archaeology, art history, ancient history, philology and philosophy, which you will find very helpful in your other Classics courses. We will also cover useful information such as important events and individuals, major political and religious institutions, and the geography of the Graeco-Roman world.