Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

FRESHMAN SEMINARS  

Truth and Objectivity in Ancient and Modern Historiography
FRS 107

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.
Zoe Passati-Bouloutas                                                                            Class: 12:30-1:20 pm MTWTh

Anthropology of the Psyche
ANT 223 /HLS 223

This seminar addresses the social relations in which mental health, mental illness, and psycho-medical knowledge are entangled and produced. We will engage various cross-cultural approaches to mental conflicts and pathologies: psychoanalysis, ethnopsychology, biomedical psychiatry, transcultural psychiatry, religious and "alternative" practices of diagnosis and healing. Drawing on ethnographic and clinical studies from Greek and other contexts, we will examine the role of culture in determining lines between normal and pathological, and consider the intertwining of psyche and body in human experience and behavior.
Elizabeth A. Davis                                                                                     Seminar: 1:30 -4:20 pm T

The Greeks: History of a People
HIS 236/HLS 266

How and why does a people survive? That is the question at the heart of this course, which is organized around the history of a people, rather than a state or country. The Greeks possess one of the most continuous records on earth, yet their history after Antiquity remains surprisingly little known. We will explore that history, beginning in Late Antiquity and moving across the globe—from the Mediterranean to Russia, Turkey, and early 20th century America—we will take the story up to the present. Prominent themes include: pre-modern and modern identity, community and state, and the place of a mercantile people in global economic history.
Molly Greene                                                                                              Lecture: 10:00-10:50 am MW

            Introduction to Post-Classical Greek:
From the Late Antique to the Byzantine Era
CLG 240/HLS 240

This course offers an introduction to the world of Greek literature of early Christianity. Its aim is to improve students’ language skills and introduce them to an array of religious, literary and historical texts from the first four centuries C.E. Texts will be read in Greek with some additional readings in English. The course is open to all interested students with a working knowledge of Greek, classical or koine.
Christian Wildberg                                                                                    Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm M

Eastern Orthodox Christianity
REL 301/HLS 301

Recent interest in iconography and in the Jesus Prayer has introduced Eastern Orthodoxy to the West, ignorance of the complex history of this major tradition of Christianity is widespread. This seminar offers a detailed overview of the history, doctrine, liturgical practice, and spirituality of Eastern Orthodoxy through reading and discussion of primary and secondary texts.
Albert Raboteau                                                                                       Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm T

Hellenistic Art
ART 307/HLS 307/CLA 308 

Survey of the transformations in Greek art beginning with the decline of the Classical period (fifth century BCE) and continuing through the period of Alexander the Great's unification of the Mediterranean world, up to and including the Roman conquest of the east. Emphasis on sculpture, painting, and mosaic.
Michael Koortbojian                                                                                Lecture: 2:30-3:20 pm TTh　

Tolerance and Governance in the Mediterranean
ANT 351/HLS 351

At this polarizing moment of global war and migration, understanding tolerance is vital. This course explores the social, political, and religious facets of tolerance as it has developed in the Mediterranean world, from Ottoman pluralism to modern European multiculturalism. How is tolerance promoted in state policies, legal principles, moral virtues, cultural traditions, and economic practices? How is "culture clash" mediated in conflicts over minority rights, immigration, labor, citizenship, marriage, and education? This course traces the complex boundaries of identity, community, and polity at the historical crossroads of east and west.
Elizabeth Davis                                                                                          Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm

Seminar, War in Greek Art
ART 410/HLS 410

In this seminar we shall be looking at aspects of the relations between the Church and the Empire in Late Antiquity. Special attention will be given to early and late antique Christian views of the Empire and the role of the emperor, to the age of Constantine and the political theology of Eusebius of Caesarea, and to the subsequent manifestation of the Eusebean conception of the emperor during the reign of Justinian in the 6th century. Primary sources in translation (legal texts, patristic literature, acts of Church councils) will be studied in the light of secondary literature.
Emmanuel Papoutsakis                                                                        Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm T 

The Arts of Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages
ART 435/HLS 436/MED 435

Pilgrimage, Topography of Sacred Art: This seminar will examine the art and architecture associated with pilgrimage in the Holy Land, Near East, North Africa and Europe from early Christian times to the thirteenth century. It will examine the role played by the visual arts in the development of saints' and relic cults, as well as economic and social aspects of pilgrimage. Original textual sources, such as pilgrims' narratives, guidebooks, maps and miracle collections, will allow students to experience the phenomenon of pilgrimage through contemporary accounts that complement the art historical material.
Jelena Trkulja                                                                                          Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm M 　

The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1800
NES 437/HIS 337/HLS 337

This course surveys the history of the world's most enduring Islamic state, the Ottoman Empire. With its beginnings in the fourteenth century, it lasted into the early years of the last century. At its height it ruled over much of the Mediterranean as well as Central Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and today's Turkey.
Heath W. Lowry                                                                                      Class: 1:30-2:50 pm TTh