Classical Studies

Department Information

Classical Studies

Julie Laskaris, Chair
Professor Simpson
Associate Professors Baughan, Damer, Laskaris, Stevenson
Assistant Professor Gunkel

The Department of Classical Studies offers majors and minors in classical civilization, Greek language and literature and Latin language and literature. The Department supports the minors in Archaeology and Linguistics and the First-Year Seminar program. FYS's taught by our faculty can count towards our majors and minors (see list below). Several courses are offered that fulfill requirements in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the Healthcare Studies Program. The Department values community-based learning and offers CBL components in some of its classes.

The Department of Classical Studies also offers three combined majors with the Department of English. The combined programs in Classics and English, Greek and English, and Latin and English are intended for students who wish to pursue in-depth work in both the classical and the English literary traditions.
Major

The Classical Civilization Major

Note: The grade point average of the coursework comprising the major must be no less than 2.00 with no course grade below C- (1.7).

Nine units, including:

CLSC 306 The Classical Tradition (or approved CLSC substitute)

CLCV 498 Major Seminar

Seven units selected from courses offered by the Department of Classical Studies or approved courses in related fields
Minor

The Classical Civilization Minor

Note: No course grade below C- (1.7) will count toward the minor.

Five units selected from courses offered by the Department of Classical Studies (excluding courses in Greek and Latin) or approved courses in related fields, of which three must be in the Department of Classical Studies.

Students are expected to fulfill all prerequisites necessary for courses within the major or minor. Prerequisites do not count toward the major or minor unless otherwise noted.
Approved Courses

Approved Courses in Related Fields for the Classical Civilization Major or Minor

ANTH 101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

ARTH 121 Survey I: Prehistory through the Middle Ages

ARTH 309 Image and Icon in Medieval Art

ARTH 310 Late Antique and Early Christian Art

ARTH 312 Medieval Art in Western Europe, 8th-15th Centuries

ARTH 315 Art of the Italian Renaissance

ARTH 316 Art in the Age of Reform

ARTH 322 Museum Studies

ENGL 234 Shakespeare

ENGL 302 Literature of the English Renaissance

ENGL 304 Shakespeare

ENGL 308 Interdisciplinary Studies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

HIST 221 Classical Greece

HIST 222 Hellenistic Greece and Republican Rome

HIST 223 The Roman Empire

HIST 225 Medieval Italy

HIST 227 High Middle Ages

PHIL 271 Ancient Greek Philosophy

PHIL 281 Philosophy of Art

PLSC 311 Classical Political Thought

RELG 200 Symbol, Myth and Ritual

RELG 230 The History of Israel

RELG 241 Introduction to the New Testament

RELG 258 Religion & the Medieval Imagination

RELG 331 The Hebrew Prophets

RELG 332 Hebrew and Christian Wisdom Literature

RELG 342 Whores, Dragons, and the Anti-Christ:Revelation and the Apocalyptic Imagination

RELG 347 Women in Early Christianity

Other courses considered at the coordinator's discretion.
First-Year Seminars

First-Year Seminars

FYS 100 Death and Commemoration in Antiquity

Through literary texts, inscriptions, and monuments from the ancient Mediterranean (including Egypt and the Near East as well as Greece and Rome), we will explore ancient approaches to death and memorial and what these may tell us about ancient beliefs, social structures, and ideologies. Themes to be explored include: death and the "hero," the tomb monument as a source of memory, the language of burials, the symbolism of funerary rituals, the significance of funerary banquets, war memorials and communal graves, and beliefs concerning the "underworld" and afterlife.

FYS 100 Euclid's Elements and Birth of Geometry

Most of the plane and solid geometry students learn in high school essentially comes from the same source, Euclid's tour de force book, "The Elements." In this book, Euclid, the famous Greek mathematician, teacher, and cataloger of mathematics, complies and refines much of the mathematics known to the Greeks into one remarkable book that had an incredible journey from ancient Greece to the modern education of most geometry students. In this course, we begin with early results of the Egyptians, Thales, Pythagoras and then look forward from Euclid to Archimedes, Descartes, Euler, and Legendre all the way to modern geometry and topology. This course is designed for students who appreciate mathematics and mathematical proofs. No prior college-level mathematics is required.

FYS 100 Gender, Violence, and Rome

What role can literature from and influenced by the Roman world play in universities in the 21st Century? Ovid's Metamorphoses will guide a careful examination of gender violence in the Roman world and in contemporary U.S. universities. Gender, Violence, Rome will study the ways that Ovid's Metamorphoses has offered solace and resistance against gendered violence, and been read as supporting power hierarchies that enable violence against women and men. In this course, students will meet Roman literature, and films, drama, and novels inspired by the tradition of Roman culture in Shakespeare, the Godfather, and in Toni Morrison's novel, Love.

FYS 100 Myth and Cult in Ancient Greece

Explores ritual practice in ancient Greece and its reflection in Greek myth. Students interested in classical studies, history, archaeology, art history, anthropology, religion, and literary studies will find it useful. Some main goals will be for students to learn the meanings and functions of ritual practice in Greek culture and to see how myth may elucidate those meanings and functions.

FYS 100 Socrates and His Legacies

Concerns the reappraisal of one of ancient Greece's best known figures, Socrates, whose historical significance is obscured by his fame. The philosophical dialogues written by Plato give so many vivid images of Socrates, that we can hardly help believing that he looked and sounded and thought just as Plato says. The ancient sources, however, are not unified on the question of the historical Socrates, and they gave rise to contrary traditions of Socratic influence that have been as important as Platonic philosophy.

FYS 100 Wining and Dining in the Ancient Mediterranean

From sacrificial feasts to private dinner parties, banqueting played a critical role in ancient societies. Food and drink were shared with the gods, the dead, and the living community. Ways of eating and drinking served to construct, define, and negotiate relationships of power, status, and friendship. In this seminar, we will explore the social and cultural significance of banqueting and conviviality in the ancient Mediterranean world, from the Bronze Age through the Byzantine era, using primary ancient sources that depict and discuss eating, drinking, and partying.

Required Course for the Classical Civilization Major

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CLCV 498 Major Seminar

Units: 1
Description
Methodologies appropriate to the study of classical civilization and the writing of a research paper.
Prerequisites
Permission of department.

Courses Offered in English for Classical Civilization Major and Minor

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Undergraduate Catalog

Classical Studies

Classical Studies

The Classical Civilization Major

The Classical Civilization Minor

Approved Courses in Related Fields for the Classical Civilization Major or Minor

First-Year Seminars

Required Course for the Classical Civilization Major

Courses Offered in English for Classical Civilization Major and Minor