CLASSICAL STUDIES

Courses listed as Classics (CLAS) are entirely in English and require no knowledge of an ancient language. Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit all involve the study of the language itself.

CRN	90001	Distribution	B/D
Course No.	CLAS 214
Title	Catastrophe / Apocalypse
Professor	William Mullen
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm LC 206

Cross listed: History and Philosophy of Science, Literature, Religion

It would be hard to find a culture that has no cosmic catastrophes in its sacred narratives: deluge myths, combats in the sky, universal conflagrations. Usually these catastrophes are in the past, whether at the beginning of the world or in human memory. Sometimes they are also foretold for the future, and are then viewed apocalyptically, as ultimate revelations of a divine plan. Why do so many cultures have these stories, and why are they central to their sacred texts? We will examine a range of explanations and see how each affects our evaluation of the works read, as documents of human experience, as canonical texts, and as literature. Readings will include the Greek Theogony, the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish, selections from the Bible, the Norse Eddas, and the Mayan Popol Vuh. For more information on the course see its website: http://inside.bard.edu/specialproj/clas214

CRN	90051	Distribution	B/D
Course No.	LIT / CLAS 2402
Title	Virgil and Rome
Professor	Alan Zeitlin
Schedule	Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 308

Cross-listed: Literature

Reading in translation of all Virgil's major works -- the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid -- and of other classical texts revealing the literary and historical world in which he moved: Hesiod, Homer, Euripides, Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, Livy, and Horace. The largest part of the course will be taken up with the Aeneid and the tensions between schools of interpretation of it. Does it glorify the order which Augustus created out of a century of Roman civil war, and thus, with him, look back triumphantly on the growth of Rome from a small city to a world empire? Or does it subvert that order by implying that it was won at too great a human cost? Is some other more inclusive reading possible? Since many of the Aeneid's most telling effects come from Virgil's variations on his Homeric prototypes, students will be expected to be familiar with translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey by the time class discussion of the Aeneid begins.