Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

This freshman seminar investigates the impact of political, religious, and social change on the making of art and architecture in the city of Rome from Constantine the Great (ca. 274–337 c.e. ) until 1308, when the papal court moved to Avignon. From being a thriving metropolis and the political center of an empire in a pagan, multi-ethnic society, Rome became a small town of a few thousand inhabitants dwelling in the ancient ruins under the spiritual leadership of a powerless Christian bishop and unprotected from the invasions of the migrating peoples from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Later transformations concern the rise to political power of the popes, achieved by the military alliance with the Frankish dynasty of Charlemagne around 800, and the controversy over the superiority of power between the German emperors and the Roman popes.

How did the transformation from worldly to religious power affect the architecture of public buildings in the city? What strategies were developed to visually promote the new religious leaders of the city, the popes, and the new Christian God? How did the new status of Rome as one of the most important Christian pilgrim sites with its countless bodies of Early Christian martyrs in the catacombs outside the city influence urban development? And finally, what impact did the economical ups and downs in these periods of transition have for the arts? As we try to reconstruct the “image” and the appearance of medieval Rome, this seminar discusses ideas and concepts behind different forms of leadership, both political and religious, as they intersect with the power of the arts and the self-referential character of a city that is obsessed with its own past. A field trip to Rome is planned for the week of spring break. Students will visit the sites that are taught in the course—the trip is mandatory. All costs of the trip are covered by the University.

 

In this course we will be studying the text of Plato’s Republic (in translation), one of the cornerstones of Western philosophy, and one of the greatest pieces of writing of any age. The Republic covers a huge range of philosophical issues. Its focus is on the correct conception of justice, both the sort of justice that we find at the level of the political state, and the justice that we attribute to individuals when we think of them as being morally just agents. Plato’s analysis leads him to investigate the constitution of the ideal state and draw a parallel with the psychological constitution of human beings. Thus we find in the Republic a well-worked-out theory of human psychology and motivation.

 

 Slavery: Ancient and Modern

 

Slavery is readily admitted to have been one of the transcendent evils of our human past. And yet in that same past slaves and slave labor—not freedom or free labor—were commonly found in almost every part of the world. It is only very recently that slavery has come to be regarded as unusual or fundamentally immoral. Our focus in this seminar will be on a comparison of two of the world’s most intensely studied systems of slavery: the slave society of the Roman Empire and that of the modern Antebellum South of the United States. Wider comparisons will be drawn in both cases.

In the ancient case, we will refer to materials from Egypt, the Near East, the world of the Greek city-states, and early mediaeval Europe; and, on the modern side, materials from the Caribbean and Latin America. Some of the main questions that we shall investigate in this comparative perspective include: What is slavery? Why and how do systems of slave labor arise? How are they maintained? How does the institution of slave holding impact the moral thinking and behavior of the whole society of which slaves are part? What sorts of resistance to slavery were possible? How and why do slave systems come to an end? How did slaves themselves live within the system of servitude in which they were kept?

 

FRS 170 
 

The Ionian Shore, where East meets West, is in many ways where our civilization began, the place Eric Auerbach in Mimesis identifies as the source of the tension between the Ionic and the Doric, the curve and the line, the Baroque and the Classical, that has been at the center of Western civilization. This seminar will begin with the Troy and Persian rule over Greek city-states in Ionia and examine the ebb and flow of culture, thought, and politics in that intertwined space of land and sea up to today. Using literature, history, archaeology, and music, we will look at the Ionian shore as both the seam and dividing line of civilization. Along the way we will meet Homer and Heraclitus, early Christians and Selcuks, Ottomans and Crusader Knights, catch fleeting glimpses of the Greek gods, and smell jasmine on the morning wind. Our readings will start with Homer, swim the Hellespont with Byron, and end up with Orhan Pamuk to help us to develop our sense of point of view. In the end, we will have learned, like Odysseus, that in fact it is the journey that is the goal.

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.

 

This course explores oral traditions and oral literary genres (in English translation) of the Balkan and East European world, both past and present. Topics include traditional rituals (life-cycle and seasonal) and the music and song associated with them, contemporary forms of traditional and popular culture, and oral traditional narrative: prose (folktale and legend) and poetry (epic and ballad). Discussion and analysis will focus on the roles and meanings of Balkan and East European oral traditions as forms of expressive culture.

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 course examines the links between constructions of Europe and the place of national cultures within the modern period. We will pay special attention to the peculiar relationship of Greece (ancient and modern) to Europe, since Greece exists on the edge of Europe as we think we know it. We will look at historical case studies, scholarly debates, and literary texts to get a handle on the question of how the tension between East and West plays out when located on that border.

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 course introduces the history and culture of Byzantium, with some material on the medieval European world to the West and the Islamic states to the East. We will focus on the development of Byzantine society and economy, on how the state worked, and how Byzantium related to its neighbors to both the West and the East. Why did the eastern Roman Empire survive the barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries? How was the state ruled and by whom? How did it deal with the powerful Islamic states to the East? How and why did the Byzantines arouse the hostility and suspicion of the medieval West and the papacy?

 

 

 

This seminar will focus on several of the classic texts of Eastern and Western Christian (primarily Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) spirituality and their authors.  Topics will include the development of spirituality and their authors.  Topics will include the development of spiritual tradition and "schools" within specific historical and social contexts.

 

 

 

An interdisciplinary theater-making course focused on the development of Marina Carr's Phaedra, in preparation for its world premiere at the McCarter Theater. A truly original and lyrically explosive adaptation of the ancient Greek myth, set in a highly theatrical landscape, Carr’s play uses a large cast, a non-linear structure, poetic language and a variety of non-dialogic narrative techniques (both film and live action), to tell her version of the tale in a thoroughly and bravely twenty-first century way. In addition to exploring their own hands-on solutions to the significant visual and performance challenges the script offers, students will engage with Carr, director Emily Mann and other members of McCarter’s artistic team in an intense, two-week workshop setting. The course is open to actors, directors, designers, filmmakers, dancers and anyone else interested in making something new out of something old.