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 10049

Distribution

 A/C
Course No. CLAS 101
Title The Rise and Fall of Athens
Professor William Mullen / Christopher Callanan / Eric Orlin / Zara Martirosova / Beth Cohen
Schedule Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 102
Cross-listed: Integrated Arts

This course will utilize a cross-disciplinary perspective in order to examine one of the most dramatic moments in the development of the Western tradition, Athens in the fifth century BCE. During this period, Athens developed from a small and relatively unimportant city-state into a power that dominated the Aegean basin. She created political, artistic, literary and intellectual traditions which continue to reverberate throughout the world today; democracy, tragedy and comedy, the classical style of sculpture and architecture, rhetoric and philosophy all find their origins in this city at this time. Yet while she was nurturing high-minded ideals, Athens embarked on a ruthless campaign of imperialist conquest and excluded a majority of her residents from a share in these glories. The Athenian awareness of the tension between the ideal and reality is indicated in her art and literature, and examining both this tension and the Athenian self-awareness will serve as a focal point for the course. In addition to examining the sculpture and monuments erected by the Athenians on the Acropolis, we will read many of the great works of Greek literature, including Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Thucydides, and Plato. Two hours of class will be lecture-oriented, with the class splitting into smaller groups for a third hour each week in order to provide opportunity for deeper discussion. Several art lectures will be given in the new Greek Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum; free transportation will be provided.

CRN 10050

Distribution

 B
Course No. CLAS 215
Title Roman Love Poetry
Professor Zara Martirosova
Schedule Mon Wed 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 303
The course will develop a comprehensive approach to the origins, development and nature of Roman love poetry in the late Republic and early empire. Roman love poetry matured overnight and history of its fast development, flourishing and subsequent decay presents a mystery. The course will include readings from Catullus and some fragments of the neoterics, Vergil's Aeneid as well as his early works, and Roman erotic elegy, primarily the works of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. Taught in English. First-year students welcome.

CRN 10051

Distribution

 A/F
Course No. CLAS 250
Title Rhetoric and Public Speaking
Professor William Mullen
Schedule Tu Th 11:30 am - 12:50 pm LC 208
A course in the theory and practice of public speaking, with equal emphasis on both aspects and with one meeting per week devoted to each. As practice the course will ask students to give speeches in various genres, from presentation of information before small groups, to formal addresses recommending courses of action, to deliberative assemblies. Videos of the speeches given will be used in the process of critiquing them. As theory, the course will move through the texts of actual orations and of theoretical treatises on the nature of rhetoric, by Greek, Roman and American authors and orators such as Demosthenes, Aristotle, Cicero, and Martin Luther King. The emphasis will be on rhetoric as embodied not in written documents but in the spoken word itself. Some time will be spent with tapes and videos of important speeches of the 20th century. Enrollment will have to be limited in order to give enough time for each student to practice speaking each week, hence students will not be admitted without first having an interview concerned mainly with the relevance of public speaking to the rest of the student's curriculum at Bard and future plans. A sign-up sheet with times for these interviews on the two days before pre-registration will be posted on Prof. Mullen's office door, Aspinwall 307, and the final list of students admitted will be posted by the morning of registration day itself.

GREEK

CRN 10052

Distribution

 B/D
Course No. GRE 102
Title Basic Greek II
Professor Zara Martirosova
Schedule Mon Tu Th 10:20 am - 11:20 am LC 120
A continuation of Greek 101. In addition to continuing to learn grammar, we will read significant passages from Homer and the Christian New Testament in Greek. Students with High School Greek are certainly welcome and should see the instructor about placement.

LATIN

CRN 10202

Distribution

 D
Course No. LAT 102
Title Foundational Latin Experience II
Professor Chris Callanan
Schedule Mon Tu Th 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 308
This course is the spring continuation of Latin 101 in the fall.

By the end of this class, students will be able to hold their own

in conversation in Latin, write tolerably well and also, with the

aid of a dictionary, read most Latin authors. This course forms an indivisible sequence with Latin 101.

Prerequisite: Latin 101 (see the professor before registration if you think you have the equivalent of the prerequisite)

CRN 10053

Distribution

 B/D
Course No. LAT 202
Title Vergil's Aeneid - Book IV
Professor Zara Martirosova
Schedule Tu Th 11:30 am - 12:50 pm LC 120
We will be reading the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid, the story of the love affair between Dido and Aeneas and its tragic end. We will be using an edition of the Latin text that contains extensive notes and commentary in English. If time allows, we will read some of Virgil's Eclogues as an introduction to a different genre and diction of the same poet. Students with extensive High School Latin should see the instructor or Prof. Callanan about placement.

SANSKRIT

CRN 10151

Distribution

 D
Course No. REL 225
Title Intermediate Readings-Sanskrit
Professor Brad Clough
Schedule Tu Th 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 302
The course combines intermediate-level readings in Sanskrit with the study of Indian society and religion. Beginning with a review of basic grammatical structures of Sanskrit, students will quickly move on to read Sanskrit texts such as the animal fables of the Hitopadesa, the religious philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, and the classic poetic rendition of the Buddha's life, the Buddhacarita of Asvaghosa.

Prerequisite: Sanskrit 101-102 or equivalent.