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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
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.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
This course explores the dynamic work, lived contexts and social roles of craftspersons in early Greece, the eastern Mediterranean and Near East. Readings and discussion will query the identities and contributions of these people—travelers, captives, lauded masters, and even children—through topics including gender, class and ethnicity. Special focus on late third–early first millennia BCE; local field trips.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
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
This course explores the portrayal of women in ancient Greek drama through the lenses of feminist theory, gender studies, and the intersection of performance and gender. By analyzing key passages from significant texts and contextualizing them within their social, cultural, and theoretical frameworks, students will examine how ancient narratives about women continue to resonate with contemporary gender issues. The course will culminate in the creation of a theatrical piece—a compilation of women's monologues from ancient Greek drama—allowing students to design, adapt, and perform their interpretations in a final performance.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
In this course, students will analyze the role of animals in ancient medicine and the Greco-Roman world as a springboard for discussing medical philosophy, ethics, and boundaries between humans and animals in antiquity and modernity. Students will learn to use critical thinking to connect how animals have shaped human lives through medicine and philosophy in antiquity to how we view animal contributions to the development of medicine today. Additionally, students will examine and interrogate how ancient theories of animality, and intelligence have been weaponized against marginalized people in medicine. Through readings, discussions, and talks from guest bioethics Hopkins professors, students will navigate bioethical issues directly related to Johns Hopkins as a premier medical institution.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
This course proposes an in-depth exploration of Homer’s Iliad in translation. Our goal will be to learn the skill of slow reading in order to gain a fuller understanding of the poem. We will study, on average, two books per week. Core topics include: understanding the tradition of oral poetry out of which the Iliad emerged in the 8th century BCE, the past it evokes, and the historical and social context in which – and in response to which - it grew. We will examine the poem’s extraordinarily complex structure and self-positioning within the so-called ‘epic cycle’, as well as themes it treats, including: kingship and reciprocity, the role of honour and glory, family, death, memory, and – most poignantly of all - the role of song and art in the midst of war. The course will be writing intensive, and will require the submission of a short piece of critical writing each week.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with 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)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
This seminar examines epic literature’s entanglements with empire, colonialism, ethnicity, indigeneity, and slavery via critical readings of Vergil’s Aeneid. Students will gain methodological and pragmatic familiarity with movements to ‘decolonize’ and globalize the study of antiquity. As a counterbalance to Classics’ historical service to imperialism, we will read Vergil alongside other literary epics on race, identity, and belonging, representing diverse global languages, belief systems, geographies, and positionalities. We will also survey classics of postcolonial thought, from Fanon to Hartman, and apply their theories and methods to primary sources. Our hope is to incubate reparative approaches to the Aeneid and epic literature while also evaluating novel methodologies of comparison, reception, resistant interpretation, and critical fabulation. Classics graduate students will read the Aeneid in Latin. Undergraduate and non-Classics graduate students may read in translation but should plan on substantial engagement with an additional epic of their choice. All will hone professional skills as they produce a final research paper suitable for conference presentation or open-access web publication on race-time.net.
Prerequisite(s): AS.040.307
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3), Engagement with Society (FA4)
This CRL seeks to collect data systematically from texts of the early Roman Imperial age regarding instances of people represented as speaking in public. This semester, our aim will be to collect instances and generate data from an expanding range of texts. This data is currently housed in Excel spreadsheets. We will also be looking to build, debug, and launch a web-based interface/browser/search engine that will, for the first time, allow public access to the database, and turn it into a truly public digital humanities project. Knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin language is NOT required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Ethics and Foundations (FA5), Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
This course enables the student to pursue individual investigation and reading in a field of special interest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Classics faculty. By special arrangement, at the discretion of the Instructor.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Projects and Methods (FA6)
This course enables the student to pursue individual investigation and reading in a field of special interest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Classics faculty. By special arrangement, at the discretion of the Instructor.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Projects and Methods (FA6)
This course is designed for students enrolled in an internship program with a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)
Students in the program work under the direction of a faculty research supervisor on a substantive analysis.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
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 graduate seminar (welcoming advanced undergrads with instructor permission) examines epic literature’s entanglements with empire, colonialism, ethnicity, indigeneity, and slavery via critical readings of Vergil’s Aeneid. Students will gain methodological and pragmatic familiarity with movements to ‘decolonize’ and globalize the study of antiquity. As a counterbalance to Classics’ historical service to imperialism, we will read Vergil alongside other literary epics on race, identity, and belonging, representing diverse global languages, belief systems, geographies, and positionalities. We will also survey classics of postcolonial thought, from Fanon to Hartman, and apply their theories and methods to primary sources. Our hope is to incubate reparative approaches to the Aeneid and epic literature while also evaluating novel methodologies of comparison, reception, resistant interpretation, and critical fabulation. Classics graduate students will read the Aeneid in Latin. Undergraduate and non-Classics graduate students may read in translation but should plan on substantial engagement with an additional epic of their choice. All will hone professional skills as they produce a final research paper suitable for conference presentation or open-access web publication on race-time.net.
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 collaborative seminar meets jointly with students from MICA to design an exhibition concerning a cast collection of ancient Mediterranean sculpture, founded in 1881, that resided at both institutions during different moments in its history (part of the collection is still located at MICA, where art students regularly engage with it). Participants will explore the dynamic position of the collection between these two urban institutions and its existence as part of the ongoing history of the city. This course is associated with the Baltimore ReCast Classics Research Lab. Advanced undergraduates can contact the instructor about joining the course.
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 graduate seminar examines classical antiquity’s vibrant and varied approaches toward the enraptured experiences of poetry—its creation, performance, and consumption. Subtopics include conceptions of divine inspiration, metaphors for literary inheritance, modes of reading and listening, and more. Knowledge of Greek and Latin is preferred but not required.
This seminar will explore the prolific output of the Syrian Greek writer Lucian of Samosata (2nd century CE). Lucian’s work, which spans diverse themes and forms (including verse as well as prose), shows an all-embracing preoccupation with truth, lies, fiction and authority, and his satire reveals an intellectual world characterized by fraudulent philosophers, sophists, holy men and other imposters. One of his central questions is what it means, in the imperial period, to lay claim to be Greek. At the same time, he shows a genius for combining influences from the Archaic and Classical past (especially Homer, Aristophanes, Plato) to produce an elegant new genre and literary critical perspective.
Distribution Area: Humanities
This reading seminar is intended to train graduate students in direct and critical work on primary sources. Co-listed with AS.040.306.
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
This course enables the student to pursue individual investigation and reading in a field of special interest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Classics faculty. By special arrangement, at the discretion of the Instructor.
This course enables the student to pursue individual investigation and reading in a field of special interest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Classics faculty. By special arrangement, at the discretion of the Instructor.
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
This course is to develop essential teaching skills.
Graduate dissertation research with advisor.
Graduate dissertation research with advisor.
Summer independent research for doctoral students.