Courses
This introductory course examines the history, society, and culture of the Roman state in the Imperial age (ca. 31 BCE-ca. 500 CE), during which it underwent a traumatic transition from an oligarchic to a monarchic form of government, attained its greatest territorial expanse, produced its most famous art, architecture, and literature, experienced vast cultural and religious changes, and finally was transformed into an entirely different ("late antique") form of society. All readings in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)
This introductory level course examines the history, society, and culture of the Roman state in the Republican period (509-31 BCE), during which it expanded from a small city-state to a Mediterranean empire. We also consider the Republic's importance for American revolutionaries in the 18th century. All readings in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)
This course provides a comprehensive, intensive introduction to the study of ancient Greek. During the first semester, the focus will be on morphology and vocabulary. Cannot be taken Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Course provides comprehensive, intensive introduction to the study of ancient Greek. The first semester’s focus is morphology and vocabulary; the second semester’s emphasis is syntax and reading. Course may not be taken Satisfactory/ Unsatisfactory.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.105
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This course provides a comprehensive, intensive introduction to the study of Latin for new students, as well as a systematic review for those students with a background in Latin. Emphasis during the first semester will be on morphology and vocabulary. Course may not be taken Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Course provides comprehensive, intensive introduction to the study of Latin for new students as well as systematic review for students with background in Latin. The first semester's emphasis is on morphology and vocabulary; the second semester's focus is on syntax and reading. Course may not be taken Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.107
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
The course will introduce students to major aspects of the ancient Greek civilization, with special emphasis placed upon culture, society, archaeology, literature, and philosophy.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
This course focuses on major and often intricate myths and mythical patterns of thought as they are reflected in compelling ancient visual and textual narratives. Being one of the greatest treasure troves of the ancient world, these myths will further be considered in light of their rich reception in the medieval and modern world (including their reception in the modern fields of anthropology and philosophy).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Emphasis on ancient Greek ritual, music, religion, and society; and on cultural institutions such as symposia (drinking parties) and festivals.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This course aims to provide an in-depth exploration of Homer’s Odyssey (in translation). We will study the poem’s roots in a tradition of ancient oral poetry, gain a fuller understanding of how it was interpreted within different historical contexts, and examine the poem’s fascination with topics such as gender, class, tales of exploration and colonization, truth and lies and identity.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
This seminar investigates the Eastern Mediterranean as a space of intense cultural interaction in the Late Bronze Age, exploring how people, ideas, and things not only came into contact but deeply influenced one another through maritime trade, art, politics, etc. In addition to class discussion, we will work hands-on with artifacts from the JHU Archaeological Museum, focusing on material from Cyprus.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
This course investigates the Greek and Latin roots of modern medical terminology, with additional focus on the history of ancient medicine and its role in the development of that terminology.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Reading ability in classical Greek is developed through a study of various authors.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.105 AND AS.040.106 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Reading ability in classical Greek is developed through a study of various authors.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.205
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Although emphasis is still placed on development of rapid comprehension, readings and discussions introduce student to study of Latin literature, principally through texts of various authors.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.107 AND AS.040.108 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Reading ability in Latin is developed through the study of various authors, primarily Cicero (fall) and Vergil (spring).
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.207
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This course explores the creation and role of early Aegean wall painting. Found primarily in palaces, villas and ritual spaces, these paintings interacted with architecture to create micro-worlds for social activities taking place in their midst. Their subjects range—from mythological to documentary, from ornamental to instructive. They depict dance and battle, fantastical beasts and daily life. We examine their complex relationship to lived reality as well as the activities that surrounded them, from their crafting, to performance of rituals, to their role in “international” relations.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
This course takes us on an exploratory journey through the ancient astronomical imaginary. We will focus on ancient Greek and Roman ideas about the structure of the cosmos, the substance and nature of the stars, the Earth’s place and role in the universe, ancient attempts to map the stars, and ancient beliefs about the significance of cosmic phenomena for events in the human world. The course will culminate in the extraordinary ancient tradition of lunar fictions, which are our earliest imaginative accounts of life on other worlds. Come join us for a voyage to the stars!
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Writing Intensive
This course explores the origins and lives of societies in the Aegean world from the Early Bronze Age to the Persian Wars (ca. 3100-480 B.C.), focusing on major archaeological sites, sanctuaries, material culture, and artistic production.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
The course focuses on the ways in which art, different forms of performance and soundscape, and politics (including gender politics) interacted in ancient Greek societies.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)
Islands present highly distinctive contexts for social life. We examine three island worlds of the third and second millennia BCE through their archaeological remains, each with its particularities. These are places where water had a unique and powerful meaning, where boat travel was part of daily life, where palaces flourished and where contact with other societies implied voyages of great distance across the sea. Class combines close study of material culture and consideration of island-specific interpretive paradigms; students work with artifacts in the JHU Archaeological Museum.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This course aims to increase proficiency and improve comprehension of the ancient Greek language. Intensive reading of ancient Greek texts, with attention to grammar, idiom, translation, etc. Reading of prose or verse authors, depending on the needs of students. Specific offerings vary. Co-listed with AS.040.705.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.205 AND AS.040.206 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This course aims to increase proficiency and improve comprehension of the ancient Greek language. Intensive reading of ancient Greek texts, with attention to grammar, idiom, translation, etc. Reading of prose or verse authors, depending on the needs of students. Specific offerings vary. Co-listed with AS.040.702.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.205 AND AS.040.206 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This course aims to increase proficiency and improve comprehension of the Latin language. Intensive reading of Latin texts, with attention to grammar, idiom, translation, etc. Specific offerings vary. Co-listed with AS.040.707.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.207 AND AS.040.208 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
The aim of this course is to increase proficiency and improve comprehension of the Latin language. Intensive reading of Latin texts, with close attention to matters of grammar, idiom, and translation. Co-listed with AS.040.710.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.207 AND AS.040.208 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
What does it mean to translate? Is a translation merely a transposition of a text or speech from one language to another, or does it entail more? Can the act of translating happen between different genres? What does critical reading entail? In this class we will use the well-known myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to answer these and other questions by analyzing different versions of the myth that span across time, space, language, genre, and media. We will not just learn about translation broadly defined, but also about the metaphor of translation as a transition or a crossing between (or a-cross) multiple entities. Much like Orpheus, we will embark upon a journey of discovery full of forks and twists in the road, only to discover that what Orpheus was searching for might not be as far removed from contemporary questions of identity, self, and our place in the world.
This course opens up the world of science in the ancient Greek and Roman world. Areas of focus include: cosmology and Earth science, technologies of time, ancient biology, medicine and genetics, and ancient medicine. Through study of visual and material artefacts as well as Greek and Latin texts in translation, we will come to a clearer understanding of how knowledge was shared in the ancient Mediterranean, the the Greeks and Romans' indebtedness to the cultures of the ancient Near East, as well as their importance in shaping cultures of knowledge and traditions of scientific thought.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Through texts, art, and archaeological remains, this course examines the various worlds of Homer--those recalled in the Iliad and Odyssey, those within which the epics were composed, and those born of the poet's unique creative work. Class will make museum visits. Ancient texts read in translation..
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
Through detailed analysis of source materials, we will explore the ancient Greek and Romans’ answers to questions such as: how the cosmos and our home-world, Earth, were structured; how weather works; how climate affects human health; what causes awesome natural phenomena such as comets, earthquakes and volcanoes; what climate prevailed on the Moon; life in the ocean; ancient palaeontology; how the movements of the stars were thought to influence events here on Earth.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Projects and Methods (FA6)
This intensive Latin survey is designed for very advanced undergraduate students--normally those who have completed two semesters of Advanced Latin (AS.040.307/308)--and PhD students preparing for their Latin translation exam. In this course, the first half of a year-long sequence, we will read substantial texts of major Republican and some Augustan authors. The weekly pace is designed to inculcate greater speed and accuracy in Latin reading, and provide significant coverage of various kinds of texts.Recommended background: AS.040.307-308 or equivalent
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.307 AND AS.040.308 or permission of instructor.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This intensive Latin survey is designed for very advanced undergraduate students (normally those who have completed the regular undergraduate sequence through the advanced level) and PhD students preparing for their Latin translation exam. In this course, the second half of a year-long sequence, we will read substantial texts of major Imperial authors, as well as a selection of works from Late Antiquity and the Post-Classical period. The weekly pace is designed to inculcate greater speed and accuracy in Latin reading and to provide significant coverages of various kinds of texts. Prior completion of AS.040.407 preferred but not required.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.307 AND AS.040.308 or equivalent.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
In this seminar, students will sail through the world of science fiction, from the fantastic voyages recorded by ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, to classic nineteenth-century sci-fi novels by authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, and Jules Verne. As we will learn, sci-fi stories (both ancient and modern) have been pulled in two directions: forward, in the direction of innovative scientific exploration; and backward, toward a dim pre-history of monsters and magic. Along the way, sci-fi writers have wrestled with age-old social issues such as morality and mortality; gender and sexuality; and social constructions of the Other through categories like race. Ultimately, students in this seminar will learn how to peer back into the distant past and (re)examine how we approach the icy edges of our own world.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This intensive Ancient Greek survey is designed for very advanced undergraduate students--normally those who have completed two semesters of Advanced Greek (AS.040.305/306)--and PhD students preparing for their Ancient Greek translation exam. In this course, the first half of a year-long sequence, we will read substantial texts of major Archaic and Classical authors. The weekly pace is designed to inculcate greater speed and accuracy in Greek reading, and provide significant coverage of various kinds of texts. Recommended background: AS.040.305-306 or equivalentPrerequisite(s): AS.040.305 AND AS.040.306 or permission of instructor.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This intensive Ancient Greek survey is designed for very advanced undergraduate students (normally those who have completed the regular undergraduate sequence through the advanced level) and PhD students preparing for their Ancient Greek translation exam. In this course, the second half of a year-long sequence, we will read substantial texts of major Hellenistic and Imperial authors, as well as a selection of works from Late Antiquity. The weekly pace is designed to inculcate greater speed and accuracy in Greek reading and to provide significant coverages of various kinds of texts. Prior completion of AS.040.417 preferred but not required.Prerequisite(s): AS.040.305 AND AS.040.306 or equivalent.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.305 AND AS.040.306
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
This course enables students to join an ongoing project of real, collaborative research in humanities, under the auspices of the Classics Research Lab (CRL). Launched in January 2019, JASP investigates the life and work of the Victorian scholar and writer John Addington Symonds (1840–93). Symonds, trained at Oxford in Classics, was the author of one of the first major studies in English of Ancient Greek Sexuality, “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” printed in just ten copies, one of which is held by Johns Hopkins. He also introduced the word “homosexual,” first coined in German, into English print, and his influence on the emerging struggle for LGBTQ+ rights was immense. A major task of JASP has been the reconstruction of the contents of his personal library, in part on the basis of rare archival materials and the recently published full text of his secret autobiography. More information is available at symondsproject.org. In Fall 2024 JASP will partly turn its attention to Symonds’s life and network in Venice, Italy, which he frequently visited and about which he wrote several important works. Under the supervision of the Principal Investigator, Prof. Shane Butler (Classics), participants will learn advanced research methods, generate new knowledge, and disseminate their results. No prerequisites or prior training in Classics or the humanities required, but students should be ready to work both independently and collaboratively.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration, Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration, Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
This course is designed for students enrolled in an internship program with a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration, Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration, Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Projects and Methods (FA6)
This seminar proposes an in-depth exploration of Homer’s Odyssey. One of the monumental epics of ancient Greek and a foundational text of world-literature, the Odyssey examines, through one man’s quest to make his way home, profound questions concerning the nature of identity, the meaning of suffering, the importance of sharing stories, and the strange allure of poetry itself. We will study Books 1-12 of the poem in the original Greek in order to gain advanced understanding of its language and style. Emphasis will also be placed on the study of commentaries and scholarship in order to enhance our understanding of the poem’s themes, the transmission of the text, and the historical, literary and social contexts in which-and in response to which-it grew.
This graduate seminar focuses on the oral practices that constitute “literary culture” in Rome in the first and second centuries CE: declamation, recitation, disputation emerging from reading, and the relationship of these practices to both literary “publication” and to arenas of traditional oratory such as the courts and the Senate. Weekly assignments will include substantial readings in Latin.
This graduate seminar examines work and labor in Latin literature, beginning with a close reading of Vergil's Georgics in Latin. We will pay particular attention to the female, enslaved, and non-human labor that elite male authors silence or sublimate, as well as the interpretive and methodological challenges that arise. Students will co-design the reading list; lead discussions around texts, topics and theories relevant to their research; and workshop one abstract, one grant proposal, and one conference paper each. Reading ability in Latin is required.
This seminar explores intersections between science and wonder in ancient Greek and Roman literature.
With a focus on material culture from the ancient Mediterranean, this seminar explores the diversity of ways in which objects may be understood to have lives or to be active elements of humans' lived experience. The seminar meets in the Archaeological Museum, where we can pair direct examination of objects with an exploration of multiple theoretical approaches and interests, such as object biography and agency, affordance theory, object-oriented ontologies, material animacies, embodiment, ecological and enactive perception, and the ongoing post-depositional existences of archaeological material. Students will eventually select an object as the focus of an individual research project.
A study of the Roman poet Ovid’s timeless tale of change, explored in relationship to the philosophical Daoism of Zhuangzi and to recent critical and philosophical concepts such as becoming, transformation, autopoeisis.
This course will survey works in Latin and the vernacular by the fifteenth-century Florentine humanist Angelo Poliziano, with particular attention to his correspondence, and with recourse to a variety of theoretical approaches, from classical reception theory to queer theory. Good reading ability in classical Latin is required; the same in Italian is ideal but not required.
This graduate seminar will explore Plato’s contributions to the “old quarrel” between poetry and philosophy, encompassing such topics as the relationship between poetic inspiration and human reason, the role of literature in pedagogy, and the metaphysical implications of poetic fiction. We will focus on several Greek texts from the Platonic corpus related to these themes, as well as some later sources that engage with Platonic ideas.
This course provides you with the opportunity to explore, from literary, material, and anthropological perspectives, the reasons people went missing in the ancient world. We will investigate how individuals experienced their inability to contact relatives and friends while missing, and how, upon their return after years of absence, they were identified and recognized by those left behind. You will gain a sophisticated understanding of how the phenomenon of missing persons is connected to shifting socio-historical contexts and developments, including mobility, transportation technologies, and human identification technologies. Throughout the course, we will untangle related and overlapping categories such as missingness, absence, and lostness. Additionally, we will examine how the conditions of a missing person in ancient times differ from the modern concept of missingness, considering the extensive systems of record-keeping, surveillance, and more comprehensive communication technologies now available. While our exploration will span classical antiquity, our seminar will be anchored in Homer’s Odyssey—a poem that delves into the themes of travelers, the yearning for home, missingness, and recognition.
Distribution Area: Humanities
This course covers essential Greek and Latin texts (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Plutarch) and the commentary tradition (e.g. scholia to Homer and other important authors). Focus is on poetic texts, with some prose.
This seminar examines the entanglement of Roman-period literature with enslavement. It explores the involvement of enslaved workers (secretaries, performers, teachers et al.) in the production, reception, and circulation of Latin and Greek literary texts. It also asks how literary texts represent enslavement and how enslavement inflects Roman literature’s aesthetic and political projects. Participants will gain exposure to research methods in connected subfields (e.g. epigraphy, papyrology, book history) and will discuss recent interventions in archival theory. The seminar will also give special consideration to the relationship between enslavement and the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum’s collection of one hundred fifty Latin inscriptions from the Roman period.
This graduate seminar investigates a range of Roman cultural practices through the lens of "play" and "ludism." Beginning with some classic studies of play (Huizunga and others) we will look at a variety of Roman practices lexically designated as "play" (esp. schooling, gladiatorial contests, and sex) and consider such activities' relationship to a broader range of "acting as if" activities, such as religious ritual, drama, and "exercises" of various types.
This reading seminar is intended to train graduate students in direct and critical work on primary sources. Co-listed with AS.040.306.
Distribution Area: Humanities
This reading seminar is intended to train graduate students in direct and critical work on primary sources. Co-listed with AS.040.305. Recommended Course Background: AS.040.205-AS.040.206.
Distribution Area: Humanities
This reading seminar is intended to train graduate students in direct and critical work on primary sources. Co-listed with AS.040.307.
This reading seminar is intended to train graduate students in direct and critical work on primary sources. Co-listed with AS.040.308. Recommended Course Background: AS.040.207-AS.040.208.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Study in preparation for a comprehensive oral exam, required to become a PhD candidate, and consisting of three fields in classics and related areas.
Study in preparation for a comprehensive oral exam, required to become a PhD candidate, and consisting of three fields in classics and related areas
No Audits.
No Audits.
Summer independent research for doctoral students.