Cornell College > Classical Studies > Curriculum & Off-campus Study > Classics Courses This Year

2009-10 Classics Courses

(No prerequisites -- fulfill BA humanities requirement -- all taught in English translation)

CLA 1-364, Masterpieces of Greek and Roman Theater

comic mask
What do Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, and Eddie Murphy have in common with the great comic playwrights of Greece and Rome?

In this course, you'll read comedies about women who go on a sex strike to stop a war; about a man who dresses as a woman to deceive a rival lover; and about a sausage-seller who becomes mayor of his town. You'll also have a chance to view 5-6 film comedies--starring greats such as Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, and Eddie Murphy--and learn how Greek and Roman comedy lives on in the modern world.

Sample syllabus

CLA 2-216, Classical Mythology

Demeter and Persephone, Apollo and Dionysos, Achilles and Agamemnon, Medea and Alcestis. Names of myth and legend, deception and intrigue, true love and not so true love.

Study of the development of the myth, legend, and folklore of the ancient world, especially its place in ancient Greek and Roman culture, and its survival in the modern world.

Sample Syllabus for Classical Mythology

CLA 3-375, Approaching the Ancient Greek and Roman Economy

The economy of the Greek and Roman world has been called an "academic battleground," a description of the debate that proves no less fitting today than it did twenty-five years ago when Keith Hopkins penned the phrase. Since 1973, much of the battle has been waged in defense of or in opposition to Moses I. Finley's groundbreaking The Ancient Economy. This course will provide not only an introduction to the economy and society of the ancient world by examining agriculture, craft production, labor, and trade based on literary texts and documentary evidence, but also will include a consideration of the formal and informal constraints on these activities, namely ideology, status concerns, law and the institutional framework. Finley's work will guide and inform the discussion as it progresses, but so will the responses of his supporters and critics to provide students with the necessary tools to evaluate the current debates and offer their own examination of the work and activities of craftsmen, merchants, and the landowning elite.

CLA 6-276, Egypt after the Pyramids: Roman and Late Antique Egypt

Egypt of the Roman and Late Antique periods (1^st -7^th centuries CE) is one of the best documented regions in the ancient world, although often not treated in detail in standard historical surveys. This course aims to probe the various approaches to the history of Roman and Late Antique Egypt and also to investigate what the study of Egypt can contribute to our understanding of the Roman and Late Antique world in general by examining primary sources in translation. An emphasis will be placed on major topics in social, economic, legal and religious history, cultural interaction between Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, and the ways in which Egyptians themselves crafted ideas about the past.

CLA 9-264, Women in Antiquity

Who were Amazons and Maenads? Was there ever a time women were in power? Who were Sappho, Aspasia, Cleopatra, Clodia, and Livia? What was the reality of women's lives in classical Greece and Rome?

In the course we will look at women's public and private lives, their participation in cult and the economy, and society, their experience of childbearing, marriage, and death. Literature, history, medical texts, inscriptions, art, and architecture will be our sources and we will hear women's own voices in poetry, epitaphs, letters, and other documents.

This course also counts towards the Women's Studies major.

Sample Syllabus for Women in Antiquity

CLA 9-275, Gods, Goddesses, and Cults of the Roman Empire

By the mid-second century CE the Roman World encompassed the entire Mediterranean and stretched farther north and south. While Romans brought their gods and religious traditions with them where they went, they also allowed local religious traditions and cults to prosper-and in some cases welcomed overtly foreign deities and cults (such as the cult of the Phrygian goddess Cybele) into their own pantheon. As such, from the public face of traditional Roman religion at Rome to individual worship of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, it was a world full of diversity. In this course, we will examine this religious diversity using literary, documentary, archaeological, and art historical evidence. We will study Roman religious traditions including public sacrifices, fertility rites, the priestly colleges (the college of augurs and the vestal virgins, for instance) as well as reactions to foreign cults such as Isis worship, Judaism, and early Christianity.

This course also counts toward a Religion major.

Greek and Latin Courses Offered in 2009-10