Courses
The Department of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies offers a wide variety of courses both in translation and in Greek and Latin. Ancient Mediterranean Studies (ANME) courses are focused on history, archaeology, and literature in translation, with a wide variety of potential topics. These courses do not require any knowledge of Greek and Latin. Greek (GRK) and Latin (LAT) courses are offered at the beginning, intermediate and advanced level. Beginning (100-level) and intermediate (200-level) courses are designed to get students reading in the original language as quickly as possible, while advanced (300-level) courses are focused on discussion and analysis in addition to translation.
ANME 102 - 黑料正能量张津瑜 in Greece: The Topography and Archaeology of Ancient Greece
This course will center on visits to some of the most important sites of ancient Greece, including Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Mycenae, and Delphi - along with their museums. During the tour, students will develop an understanding of Greek topography, political geography, material culture, and the work that civic spaces performed in the formation of Greek social, political, economic, and cultural structures. Our visit will encompass a variety of civic spaces, including sanctuaries, cemeteries, citadels, theaters, marketplaces, and stadia. During the second half of the fall semester and the first half of the spring semester, students will be required to attend several mandatory class meetings (with readings), conduct research on a chosen site/monument, and prepare a site guide for their fellow students to use on-site.
ANME 251 - Ancient Greek Athletics
For better or worse, the ancient Olympics (motto now "Faster, Higher, Strong-Together") has proved itself one of the most influential of Greek institutions. This course will study the values and meanings given to the ancient Olympics by studying the representation of athletic victory in the poetry and dedications that celebrated victors. What ideas of athletic victory did these memorials produce? How did they link athletic success to moral excellence, natural talent, family history, masculinity, beauty, or divine favor, and build up these very notions so that they seemed real and significant? Who could claim the political capital of athletic excellence for their own-victors? Their cities? Second-place finishers? Non-Greeks? What events counted as events-women's events, team events, running with a shield, dog racing? And what kind of work even qualified you as a victor? Throughout we will use comparisons to the meanings that other sporting movements have sought to claim, and so we will take time to study Roman sports and the modern Olympic movement, again focusing on how various artistic forms (poetry, film, mass choreographed performances) construct victory. Course conducted in English.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
ANME 254 - Trading People: Greek Literature and the Rise of Money
How are relationships - relationships between friends, spouses, lovers, children and parents, fellow citizens, soldiers and commanders, students and teachers - like or unlike commercial transactions? And what, in fact, characterizes commercial transactions? In Classical Athens these were especially pressing questions, since Athenian society had recently been transformed by monetization. This both supported a boom in local and interstate trade and provided a new conceptual framework for thinking about social relationships and obligations, and the great Athenian literary forms of this period-tragedy, comedy, the Socratic dialogue - reflect and respond to this conceptual pressure. This course will explore听both the process of monetization and how Classical Athenian literature explored and responded to the questions it raised. Likely readings will include Euripides'听Medea, Sophocles'听Antigone, Aristophanes'听Knights, Xenophon's听Memorabilia听and Plato's听Republic; students will achieve a broad understanding of these works as well as of how they address and are shaped by issues of monetization, so that the course also functions as a broad-based introduction to Classical Greek literature.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a non-English language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a non-English language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
ANME 263 - Tragedy in the Polis
This course offers an introduction to the tragic dramatic performances of fifth-century BCE Athens. Through a survey of textual evidence-the extant tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, as well as other testimonia-and material remains, we will familiarize ourselves with the literary and dramatic form of Greek tragic poetry and the circumstances of its performance. Through close reading of individual tragedies, we will identify what elements characterize and unite tragedy as a genre; analyze how tragedy makes use of myth (and, less often, history) to explore urgent questions about identity, difference and belonging, gender, power and obligation, death and loss, and survival; and consider the relationship of these texts and the questions they are concerned with to the historical, social, and political conditions under which they were performed. We will survey and evaluate approaches taken by critics, ancient and modern, to interpreting tragedy as literary texts, as civic religious ritual, and as performance. Time and interest permitting, we will consider how fifth-century BCE Athenian tragedy relates - or does not relate - to other tragic dramatic traditions, and modern uses and receptions of fifth-century BCE Athenian tragedies. All readings in English; no Greek or familiarity with Greek history required.听
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
ANME 281 - Archaeological Fantasies: Pseudoarchaeology, Pseudohistory, and Nationalism
In this course, we will examine the (ab)uses of archaeological material, sites, and data in the service of pseudohistorical/pseudoarchaeological arguments, conspiracy theories, and nationalistic agendas. Topics will include white supremacist uses of ancient DNA; ancient aliens narratives; Atlantis and other hyperdiffusionist stories; ways in which pseudoarchaeological theories erase indigenous histories; Nazi and Fascist uses of archaeology; and the use of archaeology in the construction of modern national narratives. In addition to examining these uses of archaeology and the ends they serve, throughout this course we will discuss the methods and theories of academic archaeology, examine the reception of archaeology in popular culture, and interrogate the epistemological roots of both pseudoarchaeology and conspiratorial thinking.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 324 - Introduction to Egyptian Hieroglyphs
This course introduces students to Middle Egyptian and the Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing system. We will focus on the practical aspects of how to read hieroglyphic inscriptions, with a view towards reading common genres of texts that are often encountered in museums and on Egyptian monuments. We will also deal with the fundamental grammar of Middle Egyptian, the classical phase of the Ancient Egyptian language.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a non-English language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
ANME 371 - The Greek World from 776 to 404 BCE
This course offers a chronological survey of archaic and classical Greek history and civilization from the traditional foundation of the Olympic games in 776 BCE to the fall of the Athenian Empire in 404 BCE. After beginning with a brief look at Bronze and Dark Age Greece, we will cover the following topics: the rise of the polis; Greek colonization; the "Age of Revolution"; hoplite warfare, aristocracy, and the spread of tyranny; the rise of Athens and Sparta; the Persian Wars; the development of Athens's democracy and empire; the causes and course of the Peloponnesian War; the development of ethnography and historical inquiry; and the nature of Greek social relations, with an emphasis on slavery and gender dynamics in Athens and Sparta. Emphasis is placed on the interpretation of ancient evidence, including primary literary works, inscriptions, and relevant archaeological material.听
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 373 - The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic
This course offers a chronological survey of Republican Roman history from Rome's consolidation of power on the Italian peninsula in 266 BCE to the death of the Emperor Augustus in 14 CE. We will begin with a consideration of Rome's rapid growth from 264 to 146 BCE and the various theories concerning the factors behind Roman imperial expansion. We will then explore the political, social, economic, and cultural repercussions of Rome's transformation into the leading power in the Mediterranean and the various factors that led to the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire under Augustus. During the semester we will cover the following topics: the structure and evolution of the Roman constitution; the development of the "professional" Roman army and its political ramifications; changing gender relations in Roman society; imperial governance; the growth and practice of slavery; Rome's cultural interaction with Greece and the East; the social and cultural function of gladiatorial combat; Rome's relations with its allies; the politicization of the Roman people and the rise of "popular" politicians; and the Augustan settlement. Emphasis is placed on the interpretation of ancient evidence, including primary literary works, inscriptions, and relevant archaeological material.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 377 - Women in the Ancient World
This course examines the female experience in the ancient Mediterranean from the middle of the eighth century BCE to the second century CE. We will begin by briefly considering some main themes in women's history and the applicability of gender as a category of historical analysis to the study of the ancient world. We will then turn to a close analysis of the available literary, documentary, and archaeological evidence that illuminates ancient attitudes toward women, women's daily lives, the female life cycle, and the various practical and symbolic roles that women played in Greece, Rome, and the broader Mediterranean world. Topics include the portrayal of women in ancient myth, literature, and art; the political, legal, economic, and social status of women; women's roles in state and private religious activities; women in the family and household organization; women's education and female literacy; philosophical treatments of gender; scientific knowledge and folklore concerning gender and sexuality; and the function of gender in ancient ideologies. The course follows these topics chronologically, with special emphasis given to the coincidences and conflicts between literary images of women and the realities of their everyday experience recoverable through documentary and archaeological evidence.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 382 - Material Culture and Empire: The Archaeology of the Roman World
This course considers the archaeology and material culture of the Roman Empire, including the city of Rome, Italy, and the provinces. This course is theoretically grounded in the archaeology of empire, but will also be content-based, covering major sites throughout the empire and classes of material culture. Topics to be covered may include the origin and development of the city of Rome; imperial display; daily life in the Roman Empire; the archaeology of the Roman economy; the archaeology of cult and religion; provincial archaeology and the relationship between center and periphery; the archaeology of border regions; and methodological and disciplinary issues in approaching a vast territorial empire. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on the archaeology of identity in an imperial context.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 383 - Contact and Exchange in the Mediterranean: The Archaeology of the Greek World
This course considers the archaeology and material culture of the Greek world, centering on the Aegean and the wider eastern Mediterranean and Near East, as well as other areas of Greek settlement. The focus will be both theoretical and content-based, covering important sites, objects, and classes of material culture. Topics to be covered may include the development of urban and public space; monumental architecture; sculpture and other fine arts; houses, households, and the archaeology of daily life; Greek colonization and city foundations; ceramics and the use of pottery as archaeological evidence; and funerary practices. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on the interaction between Greeks and other groups in the Mediterranean, and the material effects of that interaction.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 384 - Empires of the Nile: The Archaeology of Egypt and Nubia
This course examines the art and archaeology of ancient Egypt and Nubia from late prehistory (ca. 3000 BCE) through the Nubian Meroitic period (ends ca. 400 CE). These two regions of northeast Africa were economically, culturally, and politically intertwined throughout their history, and offer an exceptional case study for the examination of the material effects of imperialism and cross-cultural interaction over the long term. This course will survey major aspects of Egyptian and Nubian archaeology, including death, burial, and mummification; tombs and their development; ideologies and iconographies of kingship; material culture and religion; temples and other religious architecture; the emergence of the state; archaeologies of imperialism; and archaeologies of daily life. Specific attention will be paid to Nubian material culture, the reciprocal political and cultural interactions between Egypt and Nubia, and the unique material culture that resulted from these interactions, though the course is overall centered on Egyptian archaeology due to the quantity and quality of data. Emphasis will be placed on engaging with and critically analyzing archaeological and visual data, as well as some primary textual sources. We will also consider the modern reception and study of ancient Egypt in relation to Nubia and the broader archaeology of Africa.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 385 - Mummies, Urns, and Ancestors: The Archaeology of Death and Burial
This course examines archaeological approaches to human death and burial, introducing how archaeologists use the material remains of mortuary practice to analyze ritual, social, economic, and ideological institutions, structures, and identities in past societies. Using case studies drawn from ancient Egypt and the wider ancient Mediterranean, this course will present a theoretical grounding for the archaeological investigation of human burial, including bioarchaeological and osteological approaches. From the perspective of funerary practice, we will examine social structure, class, and rank; religion and belief systems; ethnicity and cultural identity; age, sex, and gender; and memory and ancestor veneration. This course will also consider aspects of archaeological ethics as it relates to the study of human remains.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 386 - Karanis: The Archaeology of a Roman Egyptian Town
The Roman Egyptian town of Karanis, first excavated by the University of Michigan in the 1920s and 1930s, remains one of the most important archaeological sites for understanding aspects of daily life in Egypt during the Roman and Byzantine periods (30 BCE to 641 CE). These excavations were remarkable for the time, but were never fully published, and the excavation techniques employed at the time have made a reconstruction of the site's chronology difficult. As a result, our understanding of the site remains incomplete, and numerous questions abound. This course focuses on specific issues in the analysis and interpretation of archaeological and textual data from Karanis, and uses the site as a means of exploring the archaeology of Roman Egypt, its culture, and the nature of daily life in Egypt under Roman rule. In the course, we will focus on, among other things, the archaeology of houses and households; the effect of abandonment on archaeological deposits; problems of chronology and dating; archaeologies of religion; and papyrological texts as archaeological artifacts. Students will also gain experience working with and interpreting legacy archaeological data.
- Evaluate data and/or sources.
- Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
- Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.
ANME 481 - Independent Reading
GLAM 470 - Thesis
GRK 111 - First-Year Greek: Part I
This course offers a study of the elements of ancient Greek grammar and syntax, introduces students to the cultures that used ancient Greek, and conducts first readings in Greek prose and poetry.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
GRK 112 - First-Year Greek: Part II
This course offers a study of the elements of ancient Greek grammar and syntax, introduces students to the cultures that used ancient Greek, and conducts first readings in Greek prose and poetry.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
GRK 201 - Intermediate Greek
This course offers an intensive review of the grammar and syntax studied in first-year Greek, while refining and extending students' facility with the Greek language. Students will develop close reading and interpretive skills as well as familiarity with a variety of literary styles and authors.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
GRK 301 - Advanced Greek I
This seminar focuses on expanding students' interpretive skills and critical vocabulary. Students analyze primary texts in the original and in translation, and employ and critique relevant scholarship and theory that aids the reading and understanding of these texts. Students typically study one landmark work of Greek literature, such as the Iliad or Odyssey or an Attic tragedy. Students also gain a broader understanding of Greek literary production.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
GRK 302 - Advanced Greek II
This seminar utilizes and expands the linguistic and interpretive skills that students have developed in first-year and intermediate Greek. Students analyze primary texts in the original and in translation, and employ and critique relevant scholarship and theory that aids the reading and understanding of these texts. A wide range of seminars is offered over a four-year period. While some seminars are organized around specific works, others focus on authors, genres, and periods or places. Recent seminars have explored fifth-century Athenian tragedy, the development of historiography and ethnography, the politics and representation of athletics, the transformation of Greek literature in the Hellenistic world, and the Hellenistic urban environment.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
LAT 111 - First-Year Latin: Part I
This course offers a study of the elements of Latin grammar and syntax, introduces students to the cultures that used Latin, and conducts first readings in Latin prose and poetry.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
LAT 112 - First-Year Latin: Part II
This course offers a study of the elements of Latin grammar and syntax, introduces students to the cultures that used Latin, and conducts first readings in Latin prose and poetry.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
LAT 201 - Intermediate Latin
This course offers an intensive review of the grammar and syntax studied in first-year Latin, while refining and extending students' facility with the Latin language. Students will develop close reading and interpretive skills as well as familiarity with a variety of literary styles and authors.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
LAT 301 - Advanced Latin I
This seminar focuses on expanding students' interpretive skills and critical vocabulary. Students analyze primary texts in the original and in translation, and employ and critique relevant scholarship and theory that aids the reading and understanding of these texts. Students typically study one landmark work of Roman literature, such as Vergil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Horace's Odes, Statius's Thebaid, or Apuleius's Metamorphoses. Students also gain a broader understanding of Roman literary production.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
LAT 302 - Advanced Latin II
This seminar utilizes and expands the linguistic and interpretive skills that students have developed in their prior Latin work. Students analyze primary texts in the original and in translation, and employ and critique relevant scholarship and theory that aids the reading and understanding of these texts. A wide range of seminars is offered over a four-year period. While some seminars are organized around specific works, others focus on authors, genres, and periods or places. Recent seminars have explored the genre of Roman love elegy and how it changed in the hands of its different practitioners, the reception of Roman love poetry in English, the politics of bodily change, epic and encyclopedism in relation to the imperial power exercised both on and by the Roman elite male, the decay of the Roman Republic, and the formation of the imperial system.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).