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.

The intellectual exchange between various ancient cultures was by far more significant than it is usually assumed. This is particularly true in respect to cosmography, both mythical and scientific. There were a number of quite specific ideas common to the classical world, Mesopotamia, India, and China. One can list among such ideas that of a World Mountain, that of a stream surrounding the world, that of the so called Great Year (a cycle of periodic destructions and generations of the world); many texts written in various ancient languages present the initial stage of the universe as a formless mass, etc. Such common or similar ideas will be discussed in the course, their origins will be traced or suggested. It will be shown that the intellectual exchange in antiquity was by no means one-way traffic. The Near Eastern influence upon the Greeks was quite palpable at the formative stage of Greek civilization. However, as soon as Greek science and philosophy emerged they became themselves major contributers to the world-wide intellectual development, and their influence can be traced as far east as China. The comparative approach will also illuminate individual character of various ancient cultures in which similar ideas functioned in different contexts. The problem of the intellectual revolutions of the first millennium BC (the so-called "Achsenzeit") will be also addressed. The reading will include sections of major classical works (the "Iliad", Hesiod's "Works and Days", Plato's "Timaeus", the "Epic of Gilgamesh", the "Mahabharata", the "Tao-te Ching", the "Huai-nan Tzu") as well as some technical treatises and the fragments of Presocratic philosophers, all available in English translations. Two relatively short papers are expected from the participants.

Hsün-tzu (alt. Xunzi) has long been called "the Chinese Aristotle" by Western scholars, most recently by his foremost translator, Knoblock: "Xunzi occpies a place of importance in classical Chinese philosophy comparable to that of Aristotle in Greek thought. Standing near the end of a great tradition of philosophy, he is a systematic figure whose works sum up, criticize, and extend the traditional analysis of the perennial problems of Chinese philosophy. His works encompass virtually the whole range of topics discussed by Chinese scholars." One can add that both lived on the edge of a political abyss: either shortly before or after the death of each the old system of contending states he grew up in was finally absorbed into domination by a single state and ruler. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) saw the dominance of Greece by Alexander the Great (d. 323 BCE); Hsün-tzu (c. 310-220 BCE) may have lived to see the unification of China under the first emperor in 221. The class will give equal time to both philosophers, reading them concurrently and sometimes comparatively. Works of Aristotle will be scrutinized which have the greatest overlap with Hsün-tzu's concerns: the Politics, Ethics, Poetics, and Rhetoric, along with selections from the Physics and Metaphysics. Hsün-tzu's 32 essays will be read in their entirety, along with selections from the Confucian Classics whose study they promote and from other authors, such as Mencius, with whom they are in dialogue. Open to moderated students in Asian Studies, Classics, Philosophy, or by permission of the instructor.