Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

“One must be absolutely Modern!” was French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s injunction to break with all traditions and affirm “the new.” It famously captures the spirit that has inspired modernist and avant-garde writers and artists all over the world since the beginning of the 20th century.

How can we explain, then, the fact that the moderns so often returned to topics, myths, and icons of antiquity? Why does James Joyce rewrite the Odyssey? Why does Futurist Filippo Tomasso Marinetti compare the Victory of Samothrace with a speeding car? Why does T. S. Eliot rewrite Euripides’ Alcestis? To what extent did the radical novelty of the modernists and the avant-garde depend on the deepest traditions of Western culture?

Guided by questions like these, we will examine the way Ancient Greek traditions are appropriated, recycled, and redefined in works by some of the most prominent writers, artists, and filmmakers of the 20th century. We can track these practices to bring to light several of modernism’s fundamental strategies and to help us understand how modernism produces its characteristic effects. At the same time, attention to these ancient elements makes clear something deeper about the ambiguities of “the new.” These works of art betray a continuity with tradition from which even the “absolutely modern” cannot escape.

How we interpret the objects and ideas of the moderns in light of the ancient myths, icons, and paradigms is the key to the seminar, which will be structured as a series of dialogues between the ancients and the moderns. We will, for example, read Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex side-by-side with Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine (1932). We will follow the way the ancient image of the Labyrinth and the myth of the Minotaur are transformed in the paintings of Picasso and de Chirico.

At the same time, we will investigate how the moderns transformed the significance of the ancients for us. We will study some extraordinarily influential writings that revived and redefined ancient myth in modern culture. Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, Freud’s work on psychoanalysis, and Claude Levi-Strauss’ structural anthropology will set the stage on which our dialogue of ancient and modern will be played out.

The primary materials for this seminar will be drawn from literature, visual arts, and cinema produced during roughly the first half of the 20th century. We will also consider carefully means of presenting works of art, like literary magazines and art exhibitions.
Efthymia Rentzou: Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm W

According to Plato, the people around the ancient Mediterranean were like frogs around a pond, and by its geography, the Mediterranean Sea seems still to be a uniting rather than a separating force. From Herodotus to Mark Twain, from medieval pilgrims to Henry Miller we can witness the lure of experiencing the Mediterranean as something meaningful and of translating these experiences into words. In this course we will look closely at the fascination which the physical and cultural environment of the Mediterranean has exerted on its travelers, both from within and from outside.

On the one hand we will ask what the Mediterranean is: how far do the lands surrounding a common sea stretch? Is it an area of geographical and cultural unity, and is this a useful category of analysis? On the other hand, we will use this special case to ask questions about the relationship between travel, reading and writing. Travel to the Mediterranean offers us a wealth of material. It leads us to explore the link between travel, curiosity and the imagination, and the idea that travel somehow changes the traveler who writes about it. We will try and identify the expectations and hopes travelers have brought to the Mediterranean: who travels there and why? Why did these travelers write and for whom? Is travel writing fact or fiction? Is writing about travelers itself a form of travel?

In the course of the seminar, we will look at travelers from different periods and to different areas of the Mediterranean. Writers include the ancient historian Herodotus, early pilgrims to the Holy Land, the 18th-century German poet Goethe (who saw his life transformed in Italy), artists and poets who trawled the Mediterranean for artifacts and inspiration, adventurous women travelers to Egypt and the Levant in the 18th and 19th century, Mark Twain (who raises the question: is a traveler the same as a tourist?), Henry Miller, and contemporary travel writers such as Patricia Storace on Greece and Amitav Ghosh on Egypt.

Assignments will include book reviews, close readings of passages from travel writing, and your own creative efforts to put travel into words, and a longer paper at the end of the term. We will watch some examples of Mediterranean travel in film (Mediterraneo, Never on a Sunday, The Talented Mr. Ripley), and we also will have a chance to visit the Princeton Art Museum, and to look at (and learn to work with) illustrated travel books in the Firestone Library’s rare book department.
Constanze Güthenke: Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm M

   Elementary Modern Greek
HLS 101/MOG 101

This course is the first part of the modern Greek language sequence regularly offered every year. It aims to set the foundations for acquiring a command of spoken and written modern Greek. The pace is intensive: readings and grammar from textbook, with accompanying daily exercises, and regular language laboratory attendance. Auditors welcome with instructor's permission.
Staff  Classes: 11:00 -11:50 am MTWTh

 Intermediate Modern Greek
HLS 105/MOG 105

This course is the third part of the modern Greek language sequence offered every year. It will introduce students to themes in the Hellenic tradition through readings in modern Greek literature (Cavafy, Seferis, Ritsos). We will read newspaper articles, listen to Greek songs, and study documentary films. The emphasis will be on improving students' oral and written skills. Classes will be held entirely in Greek. Auditors welcome with instructor's permission.
Staff  Classes: 12:30 -1:20 pm MTWTh

Pagans and Christians: Urbanism, Architecture and Art of Late Antiquity
ART 204/HLS 204

Urbanism, Architecture and Art of the Mediterranean world, ca. 200-600 A.D. This course will focus on the urban forms, architecture and art in the Late Roman Empire. It will explore the transformations brought about by the spread and triumph of Christianity, pagan resistance, 'barbarian' incursions and other forces. The course will culminate with the analysis of the formation of a new, Byzantine architectural and artistic tradition, associated with the fully Christianized Eastern Roman Empire.
Slobodan Ćurčić  Lecture: 9:00 - 9:50 am  MW

Introduction to Postclassical Greek from the Late Antique to the Byzantine Era
CLG 240/HLS 240

The course will concentrate on reading closely (in Greek) the work of the 10th century historian Leo the Deacon. Besides experience in analyzing a primary source, the course will offer practice in reading Greek from a printed edition and from Greek manuscripts.
Maria Mavroudi  Seminar: 1:30 - 4:20 pm T

Transformation of the Ancient World: Byzantium 500-1200
HIS 355/HLS 355

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?
John Haldon  Lecture: 11:00 - 11:50 am MW

Seminar: Medieval Art
ART 430/HLS 430

Byzantine Monasteries: art and architecture of the monastic sphere within the Byzantine Empire and the related lands, from c. 400 to c. 1500. The aim is to understand the main religious, social, and cultural factors within the Byzantine monastic sphere, and the manner in which these factors were expressed in art and architecture created directly under monastic auspices.
Slobodan Ćurčić  Seminar: 7:30 – 9:50 pm Th

Making of the Ottoman Balkans, 1353-1500
NES 442/HLS 442

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-fourteenth 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.
Heath W. Lowry  Seminar : 1:30 - 2:50 pm TTh

GRADUATE COURSES

Problems in Byzantine History: Formation of Byzantium 600-850: Sources & Problems
HIS 542/HLS 542

Between the later sixth century and the middle of the ninth century eastern Roman state, society and culture experienced a series of substantial transformations which resulted in what we call today "Byzantium." This course looks at some of the key sources for this process and analyzes both the ways in which they have been interpreted and the questions those interpretations raise. Particular attention will be paid to the issues associated with relating written textual evidence to archaeological data and interpretation.
John F. Haldon  Seminar: 1:30 - 4:20 pm M  

Courses of Interest

Spring 2006 course offerings
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