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An introduction to the essentials of Sanskrit grammar. Designed to enable the student to read classical and epic Sanskrit as soon as possible.

An introduction to the essentials of Sanskrit grammar. Designed to enable the student to read classical and epic Sanskrit as soon as possible.

From ca. 2100 BC to the Roman era, hieroglyphs representing the Middle Egyptian language were inscribed on texts, objects and architecture. In this initial course students learn how the language was written and how it worked, including how words were written and how sentences were constructed with and without verbs. Along the way we will be reading short excerpts from Egyptian texts as part of the textbook's exercises, emphasizing grammar rather than textual or thematic analysis. The student who completes this and the second course that focuses on the verbal system will be well-equipped to pursue detailed study of Egyptian classics such as The Eloquent Peasant, Tale of Sinuhe, and Book of the Dead, as well as shorter inscriptions found on objects and monuments.

A continuation of HIERO 1450. For over two thousand years, from the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2100 BCE) into the Roman era, Egyptian monuments were inscribed with hieroglyphs of the Middle Egyptian writing system. Students will continue to learn the complete Middle Egyptian verbal system and continue to enrich their Egyptian vocabulary. We will also continue translating complete literary and religious texts, including the fantastic tale of a sailor's maritime misadventures and divine encounters (The Shipwrecked Sailor) and a hymn in honor of the sun god (The Litany of Re).

Ancient Egyptian civilization produced an extensive, diverse, and profound body of literature, including adventure stories, historical accounts, royal inscriptions, religious hymns, love poetry, satire, wisdom texts, biographies, and more. In this third of three courses in Middle Egyptian, students read a selection of primary texts in hieroglyphs as well as secondary literature pertaining to the original texts. These texts will be used as windows onto the ancient Egyptian world, providing important evidence on many different aspects of ancient society, history, politics, and religion. Primary texts will also be selected based on the research interests of enrolled students.

This course traces increasing restrictions on freedom of speech from the late Roman Republic to the imperial era. It thus offers a select survey of the most influential period of Latin literature with a specific political agenda. Also, since early first century statuary and architecture played a vital role in imperial propaganda, students look at how Octavian portrayed himself in the guise of specific gods, and observe the not always flattering depictions of these gods in Augustan poetry. In sum, students gain an intimate familiarity with the political climate of the late Roman republic and early imperial age in a synthesis of literature, history and iconography organized around the dueling themes of freedom of speech and censorship.

This course will focus on the stories about the gods and heroes of the Greeks as they appear in ancient literature and art. We will examine the relationship between myths and the cultural, religious, and political conditions of the society in which they took shape. Beginning with theories of myth and proceeding to the analysis of individual stories and cycles, the material will serve as a vehicle for improving your written communication skills. Assignments include preparatory writing and essays focusing on readings and discussions in class.

Ancient Rome was a village the size of Ithaca that grew into a world empire. In this course students will be introduced to some of its literature, art, and famous personalities in the classical period (2nd c. BCE - 2nd c. CE) and will read some of the greatest masterpieces of Latin literature. Special attention will be given to the late republic, Augustan, and Hadrianic periods, to Roman ethics, and to the rise of Christianity. No prior knowledge of the ancient world is necessary. All readings are in English.

A study of the Greek and Latin word elements that combine to form most of the specialized terms in medicine, law, and biology. Students learning the meanings of these elements and the rules of word formation can usually recognize the basic meaning of any unfamiliar word in these fields. This skill is especially valuable for pre-law, pre-medical, pre-dental, pre-veterinary students and for those in other health and legal fields, as well as for students who would like to broaden their general vocabulary.

Where do the words we use come from? This course examines the history and structure of the English vocabulary from its distant Indo-European roots to the latest in technical jargon and slang. Topics include formal and semantic change, taboo and euphemism, borrowing, new words from old, learned English loans from Greek and Latin, slang, and society.

This introductory course surveys the archaeology of the ancient Greek and Roman world. Each week, we will explore a different archaeological discovery that transformed scholars' understanding of the ancient world. From early excavations at sites such as Pompeii and Troy, to modern field projects across the Mediterranean, we will discover the rich cultures of ancient Greece and Rome while also exploring the history, methods, and major intellectual goals of archaeology.

What is Classics? Why do we study the Greeks and Romans today? What relevance does classical antiquity have to a world beset by modern-day challenges, especially when veneration of the so-called Classical Tradition is associated with elitism, racism, and colonialism? This course is designed for Classics majors and minors to explore the history and contemporary politics of the discipline in a safe and mutually-respectful weekly discussion format. We will read recent discussions of these issues in both scholarly publications and the popular press, making connections with your other courses and seeking to understand them within their cultural and disciplinary context, whilst exploring the many ways in which contemporary classicists are questioning, expanding, and rethinking the scope of the field.

What can comics, video games, and other contemporary media tell us about the ancient world? In this course, we'll explore comics and graphic novels including Shanower's Age of Bronze, Frank Miller's 300, and Kieron Gillen's retaliatory Three, as well as video games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Hades that immerse players in the visual culture of the ancient world. We will analyze the techniques of graphical storytelling and use them to interpret both modern visual narratives and ancient visual evidence including the Parthenon frieze and the Pergamum altar. No prior knowledge of the ancient world is required.

This colloquium presents students with diverse approaches at the art-science interface used to interest, educate and motivate people to consider, address and solve environmental and sustainability challenges. It consists of a series of lectures given by experts, people with different expertise and perspectives who are addressing a variety of environmental and sustainability problems with regard to humanistic concern.

This colloquium presents students with diverse approaches at the art-science interface used to interest, educate and motivate people to consider, address and solve environmental and sustainability challenges. It consists of a series of lectures by experts with different perspectives addressing a variety of environmental and sustainability problems with regard to humanistic concern. The small group discussion session allows in-depth engagement with the art-science interface. Building on the possibilities shared by our expert visitors, students in the discussion section will develop their own approach to addressing environmental issues. We will analyze how the ways in which information is shared is as significant as the information itself, and consider artistic and scientific perspectives as mutually beneficial tools for exploring and communicating our relationship to the environment.

Readings from simple Sanskrit poetry: the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Readings from Sanskrit dramas and literary commentary.

Introduces students to the literature and intellectual life of ancient Greece from Homer to the early centuries of Roman rule. We will read and discuss ancient writers as creative artists in their own right, to develop a clearer sense of what the Greeks themselves sought to express, rather than as sources for a synthetic modern overview of antiquity. Among our texts will be Homer's Odyssey, Greek lyric poetry, the tragedians, Aristophanes, Plato, and Lucian, set against a backdrop of Greek geography, history, and art. No knowledge of Ancient Greece (or Greek) is either assumed or required. Texts will be read in English translation. But students wishing to read parts of any assigned works in the original may apply do so independently with the instructor for additional credit.

In this course, we will read and discuss a wide range of ancient Greek literary and philosophical works as well as some modern critical and philosophical writings. We encourage active participation in small weekly seminar meetings and supplementary workshops with specially invited guests. Our focus throughout is on close analysis of the texts, and the attempts the Greeks made to grapple with the world around them through literature. The course inquires into the intellectual development of a culture infused with mythological accounts of the cosmos. It asks how poetic forms such as epic and tragedy engage with philosophical ideas while creating intense emotional effects on audiences both during antiquity and beyond. By the end of this course, students will have read a wide selection of Classical Greek literature and be able to perform close readings and comparative analysis of text and culture. In addition, students will hone their discussion and presentation skills in the seminar format, above all engaging with their peers in joint intellectual inquiry.

The stories of Greek Mythology have ignited the imaginations of writers and artists from antiquity to the present day, from the tragedy of Achilles to the adventures of Percy Jackson. This course surveys the most influential stories of Gods and Heroes in Greek myths, focusing on their place in ancient Greek and Roman literature, society and religion, but also tracing their course in intellectual and art history through the Renaissance to the present day.

This course provides a literary and historical introduction to the earliest Christian writings, especially those that eventually came to be included in the New Testament. Through the lens of the Gospel narratives and earliest Christian letters, especially those of Paul, we will explore the rich diversity of the early Christian movement from its Jewish roots in first-century Palestine through its development and spread to Asia Minor and beyond. We will give careful consideration to the political, economic, social, cultural, and religious circumstances that gave rise to the Jesus movement, as well as those that facilitated the emergence of various manifestations of Christian belief and practice. The course will address themes like identity and ethnicity, conversion and debate, race and slavery, gender and sexuality, and the connections between politics and religion.

This course examines the production and exchange of wine, beer, coffee and tea, and the social and ideological dynamics involved in their consumption. We start in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and end with tea and coffee in the Arab and Ottoman worlds. Archaeological and textual evidence will be used throughout to show the centrality of drinking in daily, ritual and political life.

An introduction to the origins and development of Western medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. We will read a variety of sources on the ancient theory and practice of medicine, including pre-Hippocratic works, the Hippocratic corpus, and the prolific and opinionated Galen. These texts will be complemented by secondary sources which will put them in scientific and social context, as well as by visual and material evidence. Questions to be considered will include the treatment of women, the relationship between medicine and magic, the evolving state of the arts of anatomy and physiology, and rival schools of thought about the right way to acquire medical knowledge.

In this course we will study the technologies - aqueducts, automata, catapults, concrete and more - that allowed the Roman Empire to prosper and expand. Technical and historical background will accompany hands-on work and discussion of philosophy of technology.

What can Aristotle, Archimedes, Hippocrates and other ancient scientists teach us about science as we know it today? In this course we will study the origins of scientific thought and experiment in mathematics, biology, medicine, astronomy and more in the ancient Mediterranean, comparing them to modern approaches as well as examples from classical China, the medieval Islamic world, Mesoamerica, and Africa. We will discuss questions about the philosophy of science and its socio-historical context and engage actively with ancient problem-solving methods.

This introductory course explores the roles of amulets, love potions, curse tablets, and many other magical practices in ancient Greek and Roman societies. In this course, you will learn how to invoke the powers of Abrasax, become successful and famous, get people to fall desperately in love with you, and cast horrible curses on your enemies! We will also examine a range of ancient and modern approaches to magic as a concept: what exactly do we mean by magic, and how does it relate to other spheres of activity, like religion, science, and philosophy? When people (in ancient times or today) label the activities of others as magic, what are the social and political consequences of that act? As we investigate the practices that Greeks and Romans considered magical, we will also explore what those practices can teach us about many other aspects of life in the past, such as social class, gender, religion, and ethnic and cultural identity.

In this course we explore the art of comedy and humor in ancient Greece and Rome, with all readings in English. We begin with the Greek stage comedies of Aristophanes and Menander, and a satyr play by Euripides. We then proceed to the musical adaptations of those comedies by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence. After that, we examine epigram and the classical art of telling jokes for social influence and political power. We will investigate philosophers' speculations on the nature of laughter alongside notable examples of humor in criminal trials and election speeches. Finally, we will read the five surviving joke books from antiquity (Cicero, Quintilian, Macrobius, Plutarch, and the Philogelos), and students will be given a chance to master the ancient art of telling a joke themselves. Special attention will be given to the censorship of humor through the ages.

This course introduces students to ancient Greek drama, with a particular focus on the genre of tragedy and its relation to the cultural, political, and performance context of Athens in the 5th century BC. Students will read plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in English translation and explore how they address key themes such as gender, racialization, slavery, war, mourning, trauma, empathy, and justice. Students will also study how contemporary artists, writers, and communities have adapted and restaged Greek drama, transforming and animating these ancient scripts across various media (theater, film, literature, etc.) to speak to complex and urgent social issues today (e.g., state/institutional violence; sexual violence; racism and xenophobia; queer bodies and desires; mental health; disability and caregiving).

An introductory survey of ancient Greek philosophy from the so-called Presocratics (6th century BCE) through the Hellenistic period (1st century BCE) with special emphasis on the thought of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

An introduction to the history of the Greek world from Minoan prehistory to the end of the Hellenistic period. This course emphasizes connections between the Greek world and the Ancient Near East. Topics include the rise and fall of the Greek city-state, the invention of democracy, women and women’s economic rights, ancient multicultural societies, and the lives of enslaved people. Course readings include ancient texts as well as modern scholarship.

This course explores the multifaceted interactions between ancient Egypt and the Classical world, from the Bronze Age to the Roman Empire. We will look at both archaeological and textual evidence (in English translation) to ask what this entangled history can tell us about life in the ancient Mediterranean. Among many other topics, we will consider Greek merchants and mercenaries in Egypt; Egyptian influences on Greek and Roman art; the famous queen Cleopatra, and her seductive but threatening reputation in Roman literature; the appearance of Egyptian underworld gods on Greek and Roman magical gems and curse tablets; and the ways that Greco-Roman representations of Egypt have shaped modern conceptions of Egyptian civilization, from 19th-century Romanticism to 21st-century pop culture.

Following the conquests of Alexander, the ancient civilization of Egypt came under Greek rule. This period is best known for its famous queen Cleopatra, the last independent ruler of ancient Egypt. But even before Cleopatra's life and death, the Egypt that she governed was a fascinating place - and a rich case study in cultural interactions under ancient imperialism. This course explores life in Egypt under Greek rule, during the three centuries known as the Ptolemaic period (named after Cleopatra's family, the Ptolemaic dynasty). We will examine the history and culture of Ptolemaic Egypt, an empire at the crossroads of Africa, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. We will explore the experiences of Egyptians, Greeks, and others living in this multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-linguistic society. Finally, we will investigate the ways that Ptolemaic Egypt can shed light on modern experiences of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization.

This course offers an introduction to the history of the Roman empire, from the prehistoric settlements on the site of Rome to the fall of the Western empire in the fifth century and its revival in the East with Byzantium. Lectures will provide a narrative and interpretations of major issues, including: empire building, cultural unity and diversity, religious transformations, changing relations between state and society. Discussion section will be the opportunity to engage with important texts, ancient and modern, about Rome.

An introduction to the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Proto-Indo-European and the chief historical developments of the daughter languages.

The art of Ancient Greece and Rome has a complex legacy within western culture that is inseparable from ideas about power, beauty, identity, and knowledge. As such, 'Classical' art has been appropriated for all kinds of ends, many of them deeply problematic. But what did ancient statues, paintings, vessels, or buildings mean for the cultures that originally created, viewed, and lived alongside them? How were they embedded within political and social structures, religious practices, and public or domestic spaces? What can they tell us about practices of representation and story-telling? How might they help us access ancient attitudes to gender, ethnicity, or social status? And why is any of this still relevant today? This course on Greek and Roman art and archaeology will address all these questions. Covering the time span from the Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE) to the late Roman Empire (4th century CE), we will focus on one object or monument each lecture, considering how it can be considered exemplary for its time. Where possible, we will engage with artefacts in our collections at Cornell, including the plaster-casts, as we develop skills in viewing, analyzing, and contextualizing material evidence.

An introduction to the story of how human history from the earliest times through to the recent period interrelates with changing climate conditions on Earth. The course explores the whole expanse of human history, but concentrates on the most recent 15,000 years through to the Little Ice Age (14th-19th centuries AD). Evidence from science, archaeology and history are brought together to assess how climate has shaped the human story.

What was it like to live in the Roman world? What did that world look, taste and smell like? How did Romans raise their families, entertain themselves, understand death, and interact with their government? What were Roman values and how did they differ from our own? This course takes as its subject the everyday lives of individuals and explores those lives using the combined tools of archaeology, architecture and art, as well as some primary source readings. In doing so, it seeks to integrate those monuments into a world of real people, and to use archaeology to narrate a story about ancient lives and life habits. Some of the topics explored will include the Roman house; the Roman family, children and slaves; bathing and hygiene; food; gardens, agriculture and animals.

These seminars offer an introduction to the humanities by exploring historical, cultural, social, and political themes. Students will explore themes in critical dialogue with a range of texts and media drawn from the arts, humanities, and/or humanistic social sciences. Guest speakers, including Cornell faculty and Society for the Humanities Fellows, will present from different disciplines and points of view. Students will make field trips to relevant local sites and visit Cornell special collections and archives. Students enrolled in these seminars will have the opportunity to participate in additional programming related to the annual focus theme of Cornell's Society for the Humanities and the Humanities Scholars Program for undergraduate humanities research.

An exploration of the archaeology and art of the Aegean region and of its neighbors during the Bronze Age, ca. 3000-1000 BCE: the origins and precursors of the Classical World. The course will investigate the emergence of the first complex societies in the Aegean region in the third millennium BCE, and then the development and story of the Minoan and Mycenaean worlds and their neighbors in the second millennium BCE. Topics will include: the Early Bronze Age and the first complex societies in the Aegean (Cyclades, Crete, Greece, Anatolia); the collapse and reorientation around 2200BCE and links with climate change; the first palace civilization of (Minoan) Crete; the Santorini (Thera) volcanic eruption and its historical impact in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean; the rise of the Mycenaean Greek palaces and the shift into proto-history; the development of an international east Mediterranean trade system; Ahhiyawa and the Hittites; the 'Trojan War'; and the collapse of the Late Bronze Age societies and links with climate change.

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 course presents a cultural and historical perspective on ideas of agency, responsibility, and punishment through foundational texts of western law. We will primarily focus on three main areas of law: (1) slavery and (2) family (both governed by the Roman law of persons), and (3) civil wrongs (the law of delict or culpable harm). Through an examination of the legal sources (in translation) and the study of the reasoning of the Roman jurists, this course will examine the evolution of jurisprudence: the development of the laws concerning power over slaves and women, and changes in the laws concerning penalties for crimes. No specific prior knowledge needed.

From democratic Athens to imperial Rome, the ancient economies of Greece and Rome ran on slave labor and slavery pervaded all areas of life: farming; industry; families; the civil service; police; and more. This course examines Athens and Rome as slave societies and how slavery was integrated into all social structures and accepted as normal. We will address the following topics: definitions of slavery (including chattel slavery, eventually the predominant form of servitude); the sources and numbers of slaves; the slave mode of production and the ancient economy; the treatment of slaves; resistance to slavery and slave revolts; emancipation and the position of freed people; the social position of slaves; the family life of slaves; slavery and the law (civil and natural); slaves in literature.

This course explores the complex interactions between wine and culture. From a source of nutrition to an enduring cultural symbol of the good life, a religious ritual to a forbidden substance, an artistic muse to a political pawn, the role of wine has varied through time and among cultures. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and activities, students will analyze how wine has impacted civilizations throughout history and how, in turn, cultures impact the production and consumption of wine.

An introduction to the history and theory of writing systems from cuneiform to the alphabet, historical and new writing media, and the complex relationship of writing technologies to human language and culture. Through hands-on activities and collaborative work, students will explore the shifting definitions of writing and the diverse ways in which cultures through time have developed and used writing systems. We will also investigate the traditional divisions of oral vs. written and consider how digital technologies have affected how we use and think about writing in encoding systems from Morse code to emoji.

To be taken only in exceptional circumstances. Must be arranged by the student with his or her advisor and the faculty member who has agreed to direct the study. To be approved by the DUS.

Selected readings in Sanskrit literary and philosophical texts.

Selected readings in Sanskrit literary and philosophical texts.

Julius Caesar is one of the most influential and enigmatic figures in world history. His ruinous overreach forever changed the course of Roman history, and his reform of the calendar is still with us. In this course, students will chart Caesar's rise, fall, and contemporary artistic and philosophical responses to it. Authors include Julius Caesar himself, Cicero, Plutarch, Sallust, Nepos, Lucan, and Shakespeare. All readings are in English.

This course engages classical antiquity and its reception through the prism of queer studies. Cruising Homer, Sappho, Euripides, Plato, Ovid and more, we will explore how queer theoretical frameworks help us account for premodern queer and trans bodies, desires, experiences, and aesthetics. We will trace how people historically have engaged with the classical past in political and affective projects of writing queer history and literature, constructing identities and communities, and imagining queer futures. We will unpack how classical scholarship might reproduce contemporary forms of homophobia and transphobia in its treatments of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in the classical past, and in turn how modern uses of the classical might reinforce or dismantle exclusionary narratives around 'queerness' today as it intersects with race, gender, sexuality, and class. Finally, we will consider how the work we are doing in this class (where the 'Queer' in 'Queer Classics' may be taken as an adjective or an imperative) relates to the ways that contemporary writers, activists, artists, and performers have animated the classical past with queer possibilities. All readings will be in translation; no knowledge of Latin and Greek is required.

An introduction to the art, history, and literature of the Byzantine Empire, its neighbors, and successors, ca. 500-1500.

An examination of the doctrines of the Greek philosophers working in the three centuries after the death of Aristotle. Emphasis on Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism.

We will study several of Aristotle's major works, including the Categories, Physics, Posterior Analytics, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics. Topics include nature and change, form and matter, the nature of happiness, the nature of the soul, and knowledge and first principles.

This seminar examines Socrates’ life, thought, and legacy, focusing on his trial and execution within the political turmoil of Athens from 431–399 BCE. Students will explore primary texts (Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Sophocles) and historical sources (Thucydides, Plutarch) alongside secondary readings. Key themes include democratic decline, philosophical responses to freedom, and comparisons of Socrates’ trial to the arrest and execution of Jesus.

We will study several of Plato's major dialogues, including the Apology, the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic. Topics include knowledge and reality, morality and happiness, and the nature of the soul.

This course will survey the rich and sophisticated tradition of Indian philosophical thought from its beginnings in the speculations of Upanishads, surveying debates between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and materialistic philosophers about the existence and nature of God and of the human soul, the nature of knowledge, and the theory of language.

Ancient political debates about democracy, empire, and justice appear in late fifth-century BCE Athenian dramatic, historical, and philosophical literatures composed against the backdrop of the 27-year Peloponnesian War over the control of Greece (which Athens lost). Reading selected tragedies of Euripides, comedies of Aristophanes, and philosophical dialogues of Plato, in combination with the history of Thucydides, this course retraces, explores, and interrogates these texts' complex, provocative, and surprisingly relevant arguments for and against the pursuit of equality (democracy), security (war and imperialism), goodness (aret?rom excellence to virtue), and fairness (justice), and their often unexpected results in practice. All the readings for this course are in English.

May be taken upon completion of one semester of work at the 3000-level. To be taken only in exceptional circumstances. Must be arranged by the student with their advisor and the faculty member who has agreed to direct the study. To be approved by the DUS.

This lecture class centers on the formative periods of ancient Greek culture, the centuries from about 800-300 BCE. Its aim is to place Greece within the cosmopolitan networks of the Mediterranean and beyond, while simultaneously looking at specific local traditions. Only within this complex glocal frame will it become clear what is unique about Greek art. In surveying major genres such as architecture, ceramics, sculpture and painting we will also investigate the question of whether and how changing resources and modes of production, various political systems (such as democracy or monarchy) and situations (war, colonization, trade), gender, or theories of representation had an impact on the art of their time. Some of the particular themes to be discussed are: the role of the Near East for the development of Greek visual culture; city planning; images in public and private life; visualizing the human body and the individuum; Greek art in contact zones from the Black Sea to Southern Italy and Sicily; foreign art in Greece; the concept of art; reception of Greek art in modern times.

This course tells the history of the Roman empire through the urban development of its capital from the early 1st millennium BCE to the advent of Christian emperors in the 4th century CE. What does the archeology reveal about how the geography and environment of this site, its society and political systems, military conquests, economy, infrastructure, resources, and technologies interacted to create the center of an empire? Special focus is on how the appropriation of other peoples and cultures shaped the metropolis itself. Did it manage to integrate individuals from Africa, the Near East, from North of the Alps and Britain, and if so, how? The history of excavations and the reception of the city's architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries will provide a critical lens for analyzing some of the master narratives associated with ancient Rome and its ruins.

What is religion, and how can we use material culture to investigate ancient beliefs and rituals? This course (1) explores major themes and problems in the archaeology of ancient Greek religion, and (2) compares and critiques selected theoretical and methodological approaches to the archaeology of cult more generally. Students will examine ritual artifacts, cult sites, and other aspects of religious material culture, as well as primary textual sources (in translation).

This course explores the visual arts of the Mediterranean region from the court of Alexander the Great to the principate of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. During the first half of the semester we will explore the civic, domestic and religious uses of sculpture, painting, architecture, and other media in major settlements of the Hellenistic world such as Alexandria, Pergamon and Rhodes, focusing on the third to first centuries BCE. In the second half of the semester, we will turn to the rise of the Roman empire and the relationship between native Italian artistic traditions and those of the Hellenized Mediterranean, as Republican Rome drew influences (and booty) from its conquered territories. Throughout the course we will examine visual images alongside relevant literary and archaeological material, emphasizing the role of the visual arts within broader aesthetic, intellectual and political trends.

Introduction and training in dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) and its applications in archaeology, art history, climate and environment through lab work and participation in ongoing research projects using ancient to modern wood samples from around the world. Supervised reading and laboratory/project work. Possibilities exists for summer fieldwork in the Mediterranean, Mexico, and New York State.

We will consider two basic questions: did the ancient Greeks and Romans have a concept of race or racial identity? If not, what were the dominant collective identities they used to classify themselves and others? We will explore the causes and conditions that gave rise to collective identities that can be described as ethnic and (in some cases) possibly as 'racial' and how these identities worked in their given cultural and political contexts. We will start with Greek identity in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, then moving to Macedonian identity and the conquests of Alexander the Great, and finally, to the Roman world, where we will explore the question of race and ethnicity within the context of inclusive citizenship. In each of these cultural contexts, we will briefly focus on slavery, examining whether slave identity was at all racialized.

This class examines the history and holdings of Cornell's teaching collection of ancient Greek and Roman objects. Designed to start a systematic inventory of the collections, it requires hands-on engagement with the objects (defining their material, age, function etc.) as much as archival work. Questions concerning the ethics of collections and calls for decolonizing museums will play a central role as we ultimately think about how to make use of and display the objects in our custody.

What is Gnosticism and why has it come to be so hotly debated among scholars and in our contemporary media? What is the Gospel of Judas and are its ideas heretical? Who wrote the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary and why were these Gospels not included in the New Testament canon? To what extent did Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code draw from ancient Christian gnostic sources? This seminar will explore answers to these questions and many others by focusing on the complex array of literary sources from late antiquity-primarily from a cache of manuscripts found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945-that have long been associated with a so-called Christian Gnosticism. Church Fathers condemned the movement on a variety of grounds, but in this course we will not simply read the condemnations written by the opponents of gnostic thought; rather, we will focus our attention on reading (in English translation) substantial portions of the gnostic texts written by the adherents themselves. We will give special attention to the ways in which conflicts about Gnosticism connected with conflicts about gender, heresy, power, and authority. To set these texts within a socio-historical context, we will discuss the possible Jewish and hellenistic roots of early Christian Gnosticism and ties to Stoic and other ancient philosophical movements.

What can contemporary cognitive science teach us about the factors that shaped art, science, and philosophy in antiquity? In this course we will study both ancient and modern theories of mind and learn how to apply modern analytical and empirical methods to deepen our understanding of the ancient world. Featured topics include cognitive linguistics, mental representations, and distributed and social cognition.

Advanced discussion of topics in ancient philosophy. Topics vary by instructors.

Topics for this course vary.

How and why do landscapes come to inspire the religious imagination? And why do religious practices, rituals, traditions, and beliefs take place in particular landscapes? This seminar treats these questions by focusing on the desert, both imagined and real, as it has shaped religious ascetic practice, especially the development of Christian monasticism in the Middle East. We will read widely from monastic literatures, mostly from late ancient Egypt, to explore both the historical development of monasticism in Christianity and examine why the monastic impulse seems so closely tied to the desert. In addition to reading saints lives and the stories of hermits, we will read early monastic rules, the desert fathers, and we will draw from archaeological sources to examine the varieties of ascetic practices in the deserts of late ancient Egypt, Gaza, Sinai, Palestine, and Syria. Throughout the course we will explore ancient and modern ideas about wilderness and we will explore parallels between ancient Near Eastern literatures and their nineteenth- and twentieth-century parallels in the American frontier and environmental literatures.

This course will explore how contemporary artists and designers borrow, replicate, challenge, play with, and subvert the arts of Greco-Roman antiquity. We will survey the influence of classical multiples - from bronze series and plaster casts to digital imaging and 3-D printing; the use of classical objects in critiques of art-world institutions, especially by female photographers such as Louise Lawler and Sara VanDerBeek; subversions of classical monumentality by Black artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Kara Walker; and the influence of classicism upon constructions of European heritage in contemporary fashion and interior design. As a form of critical reception studies, this course also examines the complex political legacy of classicism and the role it plays in contemporary discussions of race, from debates over the whiteness of classical sculpture to the relationship between state power and monumentality.

Several major and minor kingdoms situated around the Eastern Mediterranean basin flourished during the 14th-12th centuries BCE before a widespread violent collapse occurred around 1175. Thousands of cuneiform and other documents speak to two major socioeconomic processes of the age: the creation of the first international system in world history, and the collapse of that system after about two hundred years. Our course uses archaeological evidence, paleoclimate studies, and textual analysis (in translation) to address several related issues. We look at how networks of information, wealth accumulation, and political power were created and what role they played in globalization and destabilization. We consider whether the key players were aware of the coming collapse, what if any counter-measures were deployed, and how some polities were more resilient than others and created even greater networks post-collapse. We analyze a variety of related sources, with close attention paid to the Amarna Letters and other Egyptian texts from the Ramesside era. Several Bronze Age and Iron Age shipwrecks are examined for their evidence of maritime connectivity. And throughout the course students will become familiar with the history, economy, cult, laws and daily life of Ugarit (Tell Ras Shamra, Syria), a cosmopolitan coastal kingdom whose unparalleled archaeological and textual record affords a particularly close view of the transformative moments of the Late Bronze Age.

Topics Rotate. Fall 2024 topic: Funerary Culture in the Greco-Roman East. Tombs, grave goods, and funerary rituals are often thought to offer traces into the world of the living (the tomb as a house being a prominent metaphor), their concepts of the body, or their emotions. How, if at all, did such traditions change under imperial rule? Focusing on the Greek and Roman East means to zoom in to areas such as Greece, Anatolia, the Levant to the Middle East, or Egypt that feature century- if not millennia-old traditions which, if at all, transformed to different degrees under Roman rule. This seminar investigates opportunities and challenges of researching such constellations. Analysis of different traditions of scholarship that to this day shape our records will be critical, as well as discussion of scientific (and contested) methodologies of how to deal with human remains.

Topic Spring 23: Portraiture.Byzantine artists produced a wide variety of images that modern interpreters have recognized as portraits. These images illuminate individual identity and visual representation in Byzantium. On the one hand, the constituent elements of a portrait (such as physiognomy, gesture, dress, and attributes) illuminate cultural understandings of personhood. On the other hand, those elements are assembled and displayed through means (composition, medium, and context) that illuminate cultural understandings of images and their ability to extend personal energy. We will focus on the primary sources, including preserved monuments (manuscripts, mosaics, sculptures, etc.) and literary witnesses (epigrams, historians' accounts, etc.), supplemented by selections from the secondary literature on identity, individuality, and subject formation in Byzantium.Seminar topics rotate each semester. Previous topics include: Ravenna, Hagia Sophia, Byzantine Iconoclasm, Spiral Relief Columns.

This seminar provides a higher-level general introduction to, and survey of, contemporary theories, methods, and approaches in the archaeology of the Mediterranean world. Rather than focusing on a specific geographical sub-region or chronological period, this course examines and critically assesses the practice and distinctive character of Mediterranean archaeology more broadly.

Situated at the crossroads between the Mediterranean in the West and the Anatolian plateau in the East, Sardis successively belonged to the Lydian, Persian, Seleucid, Roman, and Byzantine empires. An urban center from at least the 7th century BCE onwards, the city developed a very particular fabric of peoples and traditions over the long time of its existence. The seminar follows the history of the site and the changing relationship of city and hinterland from the bronze age to the Byzantine period, focusing on its major civic, religious, military and funerary monuments. Debates in heritage and a critical analysis of the site's exploration and excavation in modern times, including the first expedition organized by Princeton University and the current Harvard-Cornell led excavations, form an integral part of the class. The seminar includes excursions to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Sardis Archive at Harvard University.

It is a fundamental part of human activity to dress or cover one's body and environment. While the symbolic significance of such clothing has long been recognized, the activity of producing fabric itself deserves more attention. By this we do not only mean the various techniques and technological devices involved in spinning, weaving, stitching, or sewing, but also the analogical activities and metaphors they entailed. What stories did they tell? How did their connection to writing, remembering, lovemaking, or ruling one's kingdom, to name but a few examples, play out metaphorically in cloth? And how did fabrics depend on or transform the transmission of techniques, fashions and motives, but also gender, concepts of the body or the built environment?This team-taught seminar explores the presence, production, function and meaning of fabric in the built and lived environment. In a comparative approach we will explore evidence from Greco-Roman and Asian Art from the distant past to the contemporary moment.

This advanced seminar focuses on the archaeological study of houses, households, families, and communities. How is the study of domestic life transforming our understanding of ancient societies? How can we most effectively use material evidence to investigate the practices, experiences, identities, and social dynamics that made up the everyday lives of real people in antiquity, non-elite as well as elite? To address these questions, we will survey and critically examine historical and current theories, methods, and approaches within the field of household archaeology.

Introduction to core readings in Greek and Roman art and archaeology.

A seminar on the archaeology of the Byzantine Empire, from the late Roman through to the early modern periods. Topics to be covered include: long-term changes in settlement patterns and urban development; the material traces of state and monastic control over productive landscapes; the idea of the border and the nature of its defense; and the fraught relationship between Byzantine and classical archaeologies.

An introduction to the field of Dendrochronology and associated topics with an emphasis on their applications in the field of archaeology and related heritage-buildings fields. Course aimed at graduate level with a focus on critique of scholarship in the field and work on a project as part of the course.

This course tells the history of the Roman empire through the urban development of its capital from the early 1st millennium BCE to the advent of Christian emperors in the 4th century CE. What does the archeology reveal about how the geography and environment of this site, its society and political systems, military conquests, economy, infrastructure, resources, and technologies interacted to create the center of an empire? Special focus is on how the appropriation of other peoples and cultures shaped the metropolis itself. Did it manage to integrate individuals from Africa, the Near East, from North of the Alps and Britain, and if so, how? The history of excavations and the reception of the city's architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries will provide a critical lens for analyzing some of the master narratives associated with ancient Rome and its ruins.

This seminar inquires into the interrelations among three meanings of equality that initially appeared in the ancient world: equality before the law, isonomia; equality of voice or participation, isegoria; and equality of power, isokratia. Tacking back and forth between ancient texts and contemporary materials in law and analytic and continental political philosophy, this course will explore how these different practices of equality circulate and interact in popular and institutional (judicial and legislative) settings marked by historical injustice, scarce resources, and asymmetries of wealth and power. This seminar will include texts by Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Ta-Nehisi Coates, John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Amartya Sen, Danielle Allen, Etienne Balibar, among others, probing the meaning of equality.

This class examines the history and holdings of Cornell's teaching collection of ancient Greek and Roman objects. Designed to start a systematic inventory of the collections, it requires hands-on engagement with the objects (defining their material, age, function etc.) as much as archival work. Questions concerning the ethics of collections and calls for decolonizing museums will play a central role as we ultimately think about how to make use of and display the objects in our custody.

Advanced discussion of topics in ancient philosophy. Topics vary by instructors.

Pedagogical instruction and course coordination. Requirement for all graduate student teachers of LATIN 1201-LATIN 1202 and first-year writing seminars.

A course to prepare Classics graduate students for exams and for professionalization.

Course will introduce graduate students to different aspects of ancient society including slavery, economics, law, and citizenship among other topics. Topics for this course vary by instructor.

What can contemporary cognitive science teach us about the factors that shaped art, science, and philosophy in antiquity? In this course we will study both ancient and modern theories of mind and learn how to apply modern analytical and empirical methods to deepen our understanding of the ancient world. Featured topics include cognitive linguistics, mental representations, and distributed and social cognition.

Topics for this course vary.

Offers both an introduction to the different disciplines studying the non-literary sources for Roman history (epigraphy, archaeology, among others) and a discussion of important topics relevant to Roman social history (travel, voluntary associations, death and burial, etc.).

An introduction to the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Proto-Indo-European and the chief historical developments of the daughter languages.

This course will explore how contemporary artists and designers borrow, replicate, challenge, play with, and subvert the arts of Greco-Roman antiquity. We will survey the influence of classical multiples - from bronze series and plaster casts to digital imaging and 3-D printing; the use of classical objects in critiques of art-world institutions, especially by female photographers such as Louise Lawler and Sara VanDerBeek; subversions of classical monumentality by Black artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Kara Walker; and the influence of classicism upon constructions of European heritage in contemporary fashion and interior design. As a form of critical reception studies, this course also examines the complex political legacy of classicism and the role it plays in contemporary discussions of race, from debates over the whiteness of classical sculpture to the relationship between state power and monumentality.

An introduction to the story of how human history from the earliest times through to the recent period interrelates with changing climate conditions on Earth. The course explores the whole expanse of human history, but concentrates on the most recent 15,000 years through to the Little Ice Age (14th-19th centuries AD). Evidence from science, archaeology and history are brought together to assess how climate has shaped the human story.

Several major and minor kingdoms situated around the Eastern Mediterranean basin flourished during the 14th -12th centuries BCE before a widespread violent collapse occurred around 1175. Thousands of cuneiform and other documents speak to two major socioeconomic processes of the age: the creation of the first international system in world history, and the collapse of that system after about two hundred years. Our seminar uses archaeological evidence, paleoclimate studies, and textual analysis (in translation) to address several related issues. We look at how networks of information, wealth accumulation, and political power were created and what role they played in globalization and destabilization. We consider whether the key players were aware of the coming collapse, what if any counter-measures were deployed, and how some polities were more resilient than others and created even greater networks post-collapse. We analyze a variety of related sources, with close attention paid to the Amarna Letters and other Egyptian texts from the Ramesside era. Several Bronze Age and Iron Age shipwrecks are examined for their evidence of maritime connectivity. And throughout the course students will become familiar with the history, economy, cult, laws and daily life of Ugarit (Tell Ras Shamra, Syria), a cosmopolitan coastal kingdom whose unparalleled archaeological and textual record affords a particularly close view of the transformative moments of the Late Bronze Age.

Topics Rotate. Fall 2024 topic: Funerary Culture in the Greco-Roman East. Tombs, grave goods, and funerary rituals are often thought to offer traces into the world of the living (the tomb as a house being a prominent metaphor), their concepts of the body, or their emotions. How, if at all, did such traditions change under imperial rule? Focusing on the Greek and Roman East means to zoom in to areas such as Greece, Anatolia, the Levant to the Middle East, or Egypt that feature century- if not millennia-old traditions which, if at all, transformed to different degrees under Roman rule. This seminar investigates opportunities and challenges of researching such constellations. Analysis of different traditions of scholarship that to this day shape our records will be critical, as well as discussion of scientific (and contested) methodologies of how to deal with human remains.

Seminar topics rotate each semester. Topic for Spring 2023: Portraiture.Byzantine artists produced a wide variety of images that modern interpreters have recognized as portraits. These images illuminate individual identity and visual representation in Byzantium. On the one hand, the constituent elements of a portrait (such as physiognomy, gesture, dress, and attributes) illuminate cultural understandings of personhood. On the other hand, those elements are assembled and displayed through means (composition, medium, and context) that illuminate cultural understandings of images and their ability to extend personal energy. We will focus on the primary sources, including preserved monuments (manuscripts, mosaics, sculptures, etc.) and literary witnesses (epigrams, historians' accounts, etc.), supplemented by selections from the secondary literature on identity, individuality, and subject formation in Byzantium.Previous topics include: Ravenna, Hagia Sophia, Byzantine Iconoclasm, Spiral Relief Columns.

This seminar provides a higher-level general introduction to, and survey of, contemporary theories, methods, and approaches in the archaeology of the Mediterranean world. Rather than focusing on a specific geographical sub-region or chronological period, this course examines and critically assesses the practice and distinctive character of Mediterranean archaeology more broadly.

Situated at the crossroads between the Mediterranean in the West and the Anatolian plateau in the East, Sardis successively belonged to the Lydian, Persian, Seleucid, Roman, and Byzantine empires. An urban center from at least the 7th century BCE onwards, the city developed a very particular fabric of peoples and traditions over the long time of its existence. The seminar follows the history of the site and the changing relationship of city and hinterland from the bronze age to the Byzantine period, focusing on its major civic, religious, military and funerary monuments. Debates in heritage and a critical analysis of the site's exploration and excavation in modern times, including the first expedition organized by Princeton University and the current Harvard-Cornell led excavations, form an integral part of the class. The seminar includes excursions to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Sardis Archive at Harvard University.

This advanced seminar focuses on the archaeological study of houses, households, families, and communities. How is the study of domestic life transforming our understanding of ancient societies? How can we most effectively use material evidence to investigate the practices, experiences, identities, and social dynamics that made up the everyday lives of real people in antiquity, non-elite as well as elite? To address these questions, we will survey and critically examine historical and current theories, methods, and approaches within the field of household archaeology. This course is intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates with some previous background in archaeology, material culture studies, or related fields.

What is religion, and how can we use material culture to investigate ancient beliefs and rituals? This course (1) explores major themes and problems in the archaeology of ancient Greek religion, and (2) compares and critiques selected theoretical and methodological approaches to the archaeology of cult more generally. Students will consider and analyze ritual artifacts, cult sites, and other aspects of religious material culture, as well as primary textual sources (in translation).

An exploration of the archaeology and art of the Aegean region and of its neighbors during the Bronze Age, ca. 3000-1000 BCE: the origins and precursors of the Classical World. The course will investigate the emergence of the first complex societies in the Aegean region in the third millennium BCE, and then the development and story of the Minoan and Mycenaean worlds and their neighbors in the second millennium BCE. Topics will include: the Early Bronze Age and the first complex societies in the Aegean (Cyclades, Crete, Greece, Anatolia); the collapse and reorientation around 2200BCE and links with climate change; the first palace civilization of (Minoan) Crete; the Santorini (Thera) volcanic eruption and its historical impact in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean; the rise of the Mycenaean Greek palaces and the shift into proto-history; the development of an international east Mediterranean trade system; Ahhiyawa and the Hittites; the 'Trojan War'; and the collapse of the Late Bronze Age societies and links with climate change.

Independent course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.