A continuation of HLS 101, aiming to develop skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing modern Greek in a cultural context. Classroom activities include videos, comprehension and grammar exercises, and discussions.

 

Advanced composition and oral practice aimed at developing idiomatic written and spoken style. Discussions are entirely in Greek. Introduces students to contemporary Greek culture and literature through the study of works by Cavafy, Sikelianos, Seferis, Elytis, Ritsos, and Anagnostakis, among others.  Readings from articles on current Greek topics.

 

Although the word "Mediterranean" evokes images of Italy and Spain, much, if not most, of the

Mediterranean has been under some form of Muslim rule - whether Arab or Turkish - since the 7th century C.E. This course will explore the Muslim experience of, and impact on, the Mediterranean world from the medieval period through the 20th century.

 

This is a course about the complex inspiration African-American writers took from texts of classical antiquity, and the challenges they faced to make them their own. We will read and put into dialogue ancient Greek and Roman works and modern responses, ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Themes include Odyssean wandering, Iliadic rage, satire, patronage, rhetoric, literacy, liberation, pedagogy, praise poetry, myth, and the canon. The aim is to gain new appreciation of both sets of texts, and to articulate what happens at their points of intersection in modern American culture.

The Ottoman Empire is traditionally viewed through a paradigm which stresses its Islamic character. In keeping with this assessment, its advances into southeastern Europe from the mid-14th century onward are usually portrayed as stemming from a desire to expand the frontiers of the Islamic East at the expense of the Christian West. This course will present an alternative explanation, one focusing on the extent to which the early Ottomans absorbed the peoples, practices, and nobilities of the pre-existing Christian peoples of the Balkans.

This seminar explores the constitution of the body politic in Greece and Cyprus, from the end of the Ottoman Empire to the ongoing formation of the European Union. With ethnographies and films, we will trace conflict and conciliation between Greek and Turkish peoples, focusing on two historical case studies: the Asia Minor Catastrophe of the 1920s, and the invasion of Cyprus in the 1970s. Topics will include statehood, nationalism, and empire; war and peace-making; violence and health; migration and patriation; gender, community and identity; social trauma and generational transmission; archival and bodily memory; the modern uses of history.

 

This seminar will (1) study the New Testament letters of the apostle Paul in their first-century context and their earliest interpretations and (2) explore recent trends in Pauline scholarship, including the New Perspective. Special attention will be paid to archaeological finds from the Pauline cities, which help us understand better the cultural, political, and religious milieu in which the letters were received and read. During the spring break (March 11-21) the class will travel to Greece and visit the archaeological sites of the cities with early Christ-communities and other important or relevant sites.

Re:Staging the Greeks, a collaboration between the Theater Program of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts and the Program in Hellenic Studies, will begin with this acting/directing workshop investigating how to stage ancient Greek plays on the contemporary stage. On Tuesdays, we will study some of the plays, the contexts in which they were first performed, and approaches taken by theater directors over the last few decades. On Fridays, we'll be on our feet, exploring the play's performative possibilities for ourselves.During the spring break registered students will take a required study trip to Athens.

                                                                                                           

 

A study of the relationship between politics and language in the late Middle Ages. Close readings and comparative analyses of selected moral and political works produced in Abbasid Persia, Byzantium, and Western Europe from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Special attention will be given to the theoretical elaboration of monarchical power in relation to virtue, divinity, law, and social welfare. Questions of political theory, literary criticism, and cultural history will be treated with view to understanding the processes of symbolic construction and rhetorical consolidation of supreme authority and charismatic leadership.

  

An introduction to the history of the nomadic cultures of the central Asian steppe, who acted as a conduit for information, goods and technologies between Europe and China. Beginning with the archaeology and social anthropology of steppe nomadic societies, the course proceeds to an overview of the history of the various steppe peoples with whom Europe and Byzantium came into contact, before examining in greater detail the rise of the Mongol empire under Chingis Khan, its background and context, and its effects on the structure of tribal and clan society.

An advanced-level course in screenwriting. Can the emotional fabric of a city be adapted into a work for the screen? Can a cultural space be used as the source material in the same way that a literary text could be used to create a screenplay “adaptation”? Students will explore the possibilities and develop their own approach of transposing their understanding of contemporary Athens as a physical and metaphorical space, into the fabric of a short film/screenplay. This class will build on the techniques introduced in Screenwriting I and II – and will examine other films that have used Cities as a source of narrative and structural inspiration in order to direct students towards their own script interpretations of Athens specific, or Athens inspired, stories. During the course of the semester students will write one silent short film under four minutes and one film with minimal dialogue under twenty minute

This seminar will explore the central subject of an exhibition to be shown at the Princeton University Art Museum this spring, "Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art," a previously unexplored topic in scholarship. Students will engage in investigation of themes intimately related to the main subject, such as: artistic conventions regarding rendering of three-dimensional forms and space; the meaning of symbols in architecture; and the meaning and function of two-dimensionality in Byzantine art. All themes will be investigated in direct relationship to the objects in the exhibition. 

 

Seminar considers Byzantine aesthetics and related problems in historiography" and coincides with the exhibition "Architecture as Icon", on view at the PUAM from March 6 to June 6, 2010. Course explores a wide range of issues, such as 'symbols in art', 'spiritual seeing', 'representation of space', 'two-dimensionality' vs. 'three-dimensionality', etc. Examination of relevant texts as well as of objects on display in the exhibition provides a unique opportunity for such an undertaking.

 

 

Reading and research on the transition of ancient into medieval society, religion, and culture are the focus of this course