Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

(previous semesters)

One-Time-Only Course

Special Topics in Hellenic Studies:
The Idea of Greece in European Cinema
HLS 363/VIS 344

This seminar will explore the influence and imagining of Greek culture in films, including a number of films and texts in which Greek directors have represented Hellenic history, but it will not be a course exclusively on "Greek cinema." The visit of the avant-garde filmmaker Robert Beavers who has made many of his films in Greece on Greek themes will be central to the course. Screenings will include films by Godard, Straub, Pasolini, Rossellini, Beavers, Angelopoulos, Markopoulos, Cacoyannis, Sfikas, Tornes, and Koundouros. Readings from Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Acts of the Apostles, Nietzche, Euripides, and Aeschylus, as well as secondary sources on Modern Greek history and culture.

P. Adams Sitney Seminar: 1:30-4:20 W; Film Screening: 7:30-10:20 p.m. T

New Course

The Muslim Mediterranean
HIS 330/HLS 330

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 17^th century C.E. This course will explore the Muslim experience of, and impact on, the Mediterranean world from the medieval period through the 20^th century.

Molly Greene Lecture: 1:30-2:20 MW; Precept: TBA

Freshman Seminar

Odysseus across the Centuries
FRS 102w

Homer’s characters have fascinated later authors from Classical times to our own day. We will concentrate on the most diverse of these characters, Odysseus, the quintessential survivor. In the twentieth century, Nikos Kazantzakis created an Odysseus who is a rogue, daredevil, and revolutionary yearning to escape family and tradition, while James Joyce created one who is an accommodating little fellow, full of decency, who longs to return each night to his wife’s bed. Other writers have made Odysseus a company man (Sophocles), a political exile pining for hearth and home (du Bellay), an aesthete gobbling up sensations (Cavafy), an explorer defying convention (Dante), a romantic striver moving ever onward like a matinée idol (Tennyson). And was Penelope the ideal wife spurning suitors during the twenty years of her husband’s absence, or (as Yannis Ritsos depicts her) did she lament all her missed opportunities after he finally reached home?

Peter Bien Seminar: 7:30-10:20 p.m.

Regular Courses

Elementary Modern Greek
HLS 102/MOG 102
 

This course is the second 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: one lesson in textbook every two weeks, with accompanying daily oral and written exercises, regular language laboratory attendance and quizzes. Auditors welcome with instructor's permission.

Andromache Karanika Classes: 12:30-1:20 MTWTh

Advanced Modern Greek
HLS 107/MOG 107

The aim of this course is to improve students' oral and written skills and to introduce students to major themes in contemporary Greek life and in modern Greek literature through the close reading of poems by Cavafy, Sikelianos, Seferis, Elytis, Ritsos, Anagnostakis, and others. Emphasis on composition and the spoken language. Auditors welcome with instructor's permission.

Dimitri Gondicas Classes: 12:30-1:20 MTWTh

Tragedy
COM 326/HLS 326

A study of tragedy and tragic norms, as they are set forth by Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and their bearing on later plays in the English and European traditions. Topics for discussion will include the relationship of tragedy to mythology, to epic poetry and to changing ethical and religious beliefs. Our main burden, however, will be the bond between tragic intensity and tragic form, human suffering and the significance which literature confers upon it.

Robert Fagles Lecture: 1:30-2:20 T Class: 2:30-4:20 T

Graduate Courses

Topics in Hellenic Studies:
Rhetorical and Theatrical Performance
in the Late Antique Greek World
HLS 500/CLA 529

T his course will approach Greek literature and culture of the Second Sophistic and Late Antiquity from the perspective of performance. We will look at the practice of rhetorical performance, its connection to contemporary theatrical traditions, and at polemics about the theater. Readings from Lucian, Libanius, St. John Chrysostom, Tertullian, and others.

Ruth Webb Seminar: TBA

Problems in Late Antique and Byzantine Art and Architecture:
Architecture as Subject in Byzantine Art
ART 535/HLS 535

Topics to be discussed include: architectural motifs as building paradigms, formal-spatial relationships and pictorial conventions, architectural models, architectural forms as reliquaries, manner of visual representation of architecture in Byzantine art, the question of ‘inverted perspective.’ All areas of the Mediterranean world and beyond in any way related to Byzantine culture will be taken into account. Time span to be considered: 300-1500.

Slobodan Ćurčić Seminar: 1:30-4:20 Th

From Prague to Constantinople: The Making of Eastern Europe
HIS 540

In this course we will explore the historical experience of the people of eastern and southeastern Europe from the early medieval period until today. Unlike Western Europe, where the national state took shape early on, the areas further east were organized as multinational empires. This course will explore that imperial history with a particular emphasis on the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires, and focusing on issues of religion and community.

Molly Greene, Olga Litvak Seminar: 9:00-11:50 M

Fall 2000 course offerings
Spring 2000 course offerings
Fall 1999 course offerings