Catalog of Courses for Classics
Why are many scientific and legal terms so complex, difficult to pronounce, and hard to remember? Blame it on the ancient Greeks and Romans! We will investigate how thousands of years ago ancient scholars developed their own specialized terminologies, and what role these played in the development of the life sciences and law in the early modern period. We will study ancient Greek and Latin word roots, etymology, and word formation to master modern scientific and legal terminologies more easily.
Studies Greek history, literature, and art. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Studies Roman history, literature, and art. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Introduces major themes of Greek mythological thought; surveys myths about the olympic pantheon and the legends of the heroes. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
How do people come to doubt their religious beliefs? From the sixth century BCE onwards, ancient philosophers questioned the traditional myths and rituals of their contemporaries. This course engages with the ideas of ancient Greek and Roman doubters, disbelievers, and atheists, and traces their influence from the Renaissance up to the present day. We will investigate the intellectual history of ancient criticisms of religion, and how ancient thinkers shaped modern atheism and secularity.
This class will study the representation of Rome on both the big & small screen from the early days until now. Readings from classical sources, from film theory, & from the historical novels that inspired some of the films. We'll be asking how these imagined Romes relate to historical reality, how they engage in dialogue with one another, & how they function as a mirror for the concerns & anxieties of our own society.
New course in the subject of classics. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This course focuses on women's roles and lives in Ancient Greece and Rome. Students are introduced to the primary material (textual and material) on women in antiquity and to current debates about it. Subjects addressed will include sexual stereotypes and ideals, power-relations of gender, familial roles, social and economic status, social and political history, visual art, medical theory, and religion. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Studies the times, person, accomplishments of Alexander the Great (356-323 b.c.), the literature, art, and architecture of the period, and the influence of Alexander on the development of Greek and Western culture. Readings from Plutarch, Arrian, Demosthenes, and poets and philosophers of the early Hellenistic period. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This course explores the origins and debates of Athenian democracy in the fifth century BCE through historical study and immersive role-play. Students examine primary sources from Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle and then reenact the conflicts of 403 BCE in the Reacting to the Past game "The Threshold of Democracy," debating questions of citizenship, empire, justice, and political participation in the world's first democracy.
Analyzes readings in the tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca; and the comic poets Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus, and Terence, together with ancient and modern discussions. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
What does it mean to say that Cleopatra was black, or not? Ancient history comes up often in modern debates about race. We will investigate how people understood racial and ethnic difference in the ancient Greco-Roman Mediterranean, and how interpretations of antiquity historically have shaped modern concepts of race. We will study relevant art and literature from the 8th century BCE through the 3rd century CE, and modern responses to both.
The course explores Ancient Greek religious practices and beliefs with an emphasis on Greek religious rituals understood in the broadest terms, and hence including Greek magical practices and associated beliefs. Starting off with the rituals belonging to the realm of social interaction, and the rites of passage designed for female and male members of society respectively, female dedications etc. v. rituals specific for men.
Languages as superficially different as English, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit in fact all developed from a single "proto-language," called Proto-Indo-European. This course will explore the following questions: What was this proto-language like? How do we know what it was like? By what processes did it develop into the various daughter languages? How can we trace words as diverse as wit, idea, video, and Veda back to a common source?
This introduction to the Celtic inhabitants of Gaul and Britain unites two approaches, one literary, one linguistic. First, we will compare descriptions of the Celts found in Greek and Latin authors with readings of Celtic literature in translation, notably Ireland's great prose epic, the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Second, we will explore how the Celtic languages work, focusing on the basics of Old Irish as well as touching on Middle Welsh and Gaulish.
New course in the subject of classics. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Languages as superficially different as English, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit in fact all developed from a single "proto-language," called Proto-Indo-European. This course will explore the following questions: What was this proto-language like? How do we know what it was like? By what processes did it develop into the various daughter languages? How can we trace words as diverse as wit, idea, video, and Veda back to a common source?
New course in the subject of classics. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
A course for first- or second-year graduate students in ancient disciplines which acquaints them with various facets of the study of Greek and Roman antiquity; introduces them to a range of approaches to the ancient world; and introduces them to each other and to the affiliated faculty in Classics, History, Art, Religious Studies.
A team-taught seminar that works by stages towards a complete first draft of the dissertation prospectus. Students will take the seminar during their sixth semester of study; instructors will be the dissertation directors of those students. Each student will register under the name of the director.
Attic Greek: beginning grammar, composition, and selected readings. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Attic Greek: beginning grammar, composition, and selected readings. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This course continues students' development in ancient Greek through a balance of grammar review and reading. We will read selections from the Greek New Testament and Plato's Crito, with attention to grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. Students will complete tests featuring unseen passages and short compositions designed to strengthen their command of Greek forms and sentence structure. Prerequisite: GREE 1020 or by permission from Classics department director of undergraduate studies.
Herodotus and Euripides. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: GREE 2010.
Introduces New Testament Greek; selections from the Gospels. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: GREE 2010.
Selections from the Epistles. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: GREE 2010.
Reading of a tragedy and a related prose work. Weekly exercises in writing Greek. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: GREE 2020.
Readings in Greek from Homer's Iliad. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: GREE 3010 or 3030.
Reading of a comedy and a related prose work. Weekly exercises in writing Greek. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: GREE 2020.
Readings in Greek from Homer's Odyssey. Offered in alternate years. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: GREE 3010 or 3030.
Independent Study in Greek. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Writing of Distinguished Majors thesis or comparable project. Prerequisite: GREE 4998
Studies the inscriptions of the ancient Greeks. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Translation from English into Greek. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Surveys Greek lyric forms from earliest times. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This course will explore the language of Greek epic poetry (chiefly Homer, but also Hesiod, the Hymns, and Apollonius). What is the nature of the epic Kunstsprache? How does its syntax differ from that of Classical Attic? To what extent can linguistic features be used to date the poems? How much flexibility does the poet have in the use of formulas? How do later poets manipulate the traditional linguistic patterns inherited from earlier epic?
Demosthenes has long enjoyed a reputation as the best of the Greek orators - a view found, for instance, in Cicero, who knew a thing or two about giving a speech. Through close reading of the First and Third Philippics, On the Crown, and selections from other speeches, together with the necessary secondary literature, this course will examine what it is about Demosthenes' language, style, and rhetoric that led to his preeminence in the field.
Addressing the gods in the form of a hymn was one of the central elements of Greek religious rituals and a poem was thought to be a valuable gift to the gods. This course will offer a survey of the major hymnic genres, from rhapsodic 'Homeric' hymns, through inscriptional cult hymns, lyric monody, choral lyric, Hellenistic hymns of Callimachus, magical hymns, Orphic hymns, and prose hymns.
This course examines the major prose authors of Ancient Greek by reading both ancient accounts of their style and recent linguistic scholarship covering the syntactic and pragmatic issues relevant to the understanding of prose style (e.g. word order, particle use). Rather than approaching the topic through composition, the class will read selections from the ancient authors in close conjunction with pertinent linguistic and stylistic literature.
New course in Greek. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
In this course we will read a selection from Homer's epic poem Iliad. We will pay particular attention to language and dialect, poetic technique and style, and archaic society and history.
Independent Study in Greek. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
New course in Greek. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Seminar on select topics in Greek Religion. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Readings from Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics and Longinus. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
For master's thesis, taken before a thesis director has been selected. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
For doctoral research, taken before a dissertation director has been selected. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
For doctoral dissertation, taken under the supervision of a dissertation director. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Beginning grammar, prose composition, and simple Latin readings. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This intensive course begins with instruction in elementary reading and writing, and continues with further development of these skills at the intermediate level. Part of the Summer Language Institute. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Beginning grammar, prose composition, and simple Latin readings. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This intensive course begins with instruction in elementary reading and writing, and continues with further development of these skills at the intermediate level. Part of the Summer Language Institute. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisites: Lati 1016 or equivalent.
Covers the material of 1010,1020 in one semester. Intended principally as a review for those who know some Latin. May be taken as a rapid introduction to Latin. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: Two or more years of high school Latin and appropriate CEEB score, or permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
This is the non-credit option for LATI 1016. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This is the non-credit option for LATI 1026. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
We will be reading selections from Ovid¿s poem Metamorphoses, and Nepos' biography of Hannibal the Carthaginian general in its entirety. Particular attention will be devoted to issues of grammar, syntax, meter, and style. Students will complete quizzes, exams featuring unseen passages, and short composition assignments. Prerequisite: LATI 1020, 1030, or placement via the Classics department's Latin placement exam.
This intensive course begins with instruction in intermediate level reading and writing, and continues with further development of these skills, Part of the Summer Language Institute. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisites: Lati 1016 &1026 or equivalent.
In this course we will dive into the life of the Roman woman Clodia, (in)famous from a court speech by Cicero (Pro Caelio) and Catullus' love poetry, both of which we will read. In addition to prepared readings, we will do in-class (group) exercises, short Latin compositions, and a creative translation project. Prerequisite: LATI 2010, or placement via the Classics department's Latin placement exam.
This intensive course begins with instruction in intermediate level e reading and writing, and continues with further development of these skills. Part of the Summer Language Institute. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisites: Lati 1016, 1026 and 2016 or equivalent.
This is the non-credit option for LATI 2016. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This is the non-credit option for LATI 2026. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Selections from Cicero's speeches, philosophical works, and letters. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis, and Seneca's Apocolocyntosis. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Selections from Livy's History. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Selections of Mediaeval Latin prose and verse. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Selections from Vergil's Aeneid. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Selections from either the narrative poems (Metamorphoses, Fasti) or from the amatory poems. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
In this course we read the selection of letters of the younger Pliny that are found in the edition by Sherwin-White. Pliny is one of the clearest and most stylish writers of Latin prose. We concentrate on translating the letters and putting them into their social and literary context.
This course will focus on one or more works by the Roman historian Sallust, read in the original Latin. Additional reading in English.
In this course, we'll read a variety of selections from Lucretius poem about the nature of the universe, including topics as wide-ranging as the body, sex, death, atomic theory, the origins of language and civilization, and why we need philosophy.
This course introduces the prose writings of Seneca the Younger, who was both a complex historical figure and prolific (and highly versatile) writer. We will read selections from several works of literary and historical significance, including the Apocolocyntosis, a satire on the death of the emperor Claudius, and De Clementia, a treatise addressed to the teenage Nero. Attention will be devoted: (a) to issues of grammar, syntax, style, and genre; (b) to philosophical and political content.
New course in the subject of Latin. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Translation and interpretation of the poems of Catullus.
This class will combine Latin prose composition exercises and readings from Cicero, with the goal of actively recognizing, understanding, and using key characteristics of literary prose style from the Late Republic. Readings will be supplemented by short lectures or group discussions on topics relevant to composition and comparisons with other prose authors.
In a biography that chiefly covers his father-in-law Agricola's time as governor of Britain, the bracingly caustic historian Tacitus suggests that maybe not everything the Romans did in the provinces was entirely admirable. In this course, we will not only read the primary text with care and precision, but also discuss scholarship on literary, cultural, and historical questions raised by the work.
This advanced course will study Ovid's calendar-poem, Fasti, which presents festivals and star-myths for six months of the year. This work of late Ovid (written both before and after his exile) offers the opportunity to study a literary response to Rome's religious calendar and its imperial remaking in the age of Augustus.
New course in the subject of Latin. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Independent Study in Latin. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Writing of Distinguished Majors thesis or comparable project. Prerequisites: LATI 4998
This class will combine Latin prose composition exercises with close analysis of the style of Cicero, with the goal of actively recognizing, understanding, and using key characteristics of literary prose style from the Late Republic. We will work through exercises designed to make us comfortable in writing Latin, lectures on topics in Latin syntax, word order, and style, and culminate in the composition of extended passages of Latin prose. There will also be a brief foray into verse composition.
Studies scripts and book production from antiquity to the Renaissance. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Studies selected plays of Plautus and Terence. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/. Prerequisite: advanced knowledge of Latin
This course will examine some of the major issues in Latin linguistics, including, but not limited to, the Indo-European background of Latin, the origins of the declensions and conjugations, the relationship of Latin to the other early Italic dialects, word order, and the pragmatics of Latin particles and tense usage. Particular attention will be paid to the practice of writing linguistic commentary on standard Latin texts.
Translation and analysis of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the original ancient Latin.
This course is designed to introduce students to the work of Seneca. The main focus of the course will be on Seneca's political thought. We will be reading selections from the "De Clementia" and the "Thyestes."
This course will consist of a selective survey of Latin Literature
Reading of Lucan's epic De bello civili in the light of modern scholarship, with attention to various related topics (textual transmission, scholia, later reception).
New course in the subject of Latin. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
Independent Study in Latin. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
This course will deal with the teaching of Latin at all levels. Issues of curriculum, textbooks, and methodology will be addressed along with practical matters of day-to-day classroom realities.
For master's research, taken before a thesis director has been selected. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
For doctoral research, taken before a dissertation director has been selected. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.
For doctoral dissertation, taken under the supervision of a dissertation director. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.