PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Program in Hellenic Studies

   Elementary Modern Greek
HLS 102/MOG 102

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.
Zoe Passati-Bouloutas  Classes: 11:00 -11:50 am MTWTh

 Intermediate Modern Greek
HLS 105/MOG 105

Advanced composition and oral practice aimed at developing idiomatic written and spoken style. Discussions 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.
Zoe Passati-Bouloutas  Classes: 12:30 -1:20 pm MTWTh

Balkan and East European Oral Traditions
COM 236/SLA 236/HLS 236

This course explores oral traditions and oral literary genres (in English translations) 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 role and meaning of Balkan and East European oral traditions as forms of expressive culture.
Margaret Beissinger  Lecture: 1:30 2:20 pm  MWF

Introduction to Postclassical 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.
Andrew Ford   Seminar: 8:30-9:50 am  TTh

The Classical Tradition
COM 324/HLS 324

No classical myth has led a fuller life in Western culture than the story of the boy who fell in love with his own reflection and rejected the girl whose lovesickness reduced her to a mere Echo.  From Pompeii to Salvador Dali, from Ovid to Günter Grass, from early opera to modern dance, from love poetry to art theory to psychoanalysis, Narcissus, along with subjects like self-love, mirror images, and the echo, is everywhere.  We will explore the life of the myth across its many varying manifestations and also consider the methodologies of Comparative Literature as a discipline that crosses multiple boundaries.
Leonard Barkan   Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm W

Topics in Ancient History and Religion:
How the Classics became the Classics
CLA 327/HIS 327/HLS 327

The great majority of ancient literary works survive in manuscripts written more than a thousand years after the death of their authors.  In spite of the new discoveries in papyris since the late 19th century, the bulk of ancient literature that we know today is what medieval scribes and scholars chose to preserve because they saw utility (more frequently than beauty) in doing so.  The seminar will examine the motivation and mechanisms that enabled the transmission of ancient literature throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  Reference will be made to the Greek, Latin, and Arabic Middle Ages.
Maria Mavroudi  Seminar: 1:30 – 4:20 pm  M

Special Topics in Film History:
The Image of Greece in European Cinema
VIS 344/HLS 364

This seminar explores the ways in which the cinema has responded to classical Hellenic literature and culture, the Greek landscape, and ancient philosophy.  There will be extensive readings of Greek works in translation.  Because of the difficulty of obtaining some (but not all) of the films for this course, some screenings will be projected DVD or Videotape.
P. Adams Sitney, Tony Pipolo Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm Th  &  Film: 7:30-10:20 pm W

Re:Staging the Greeks
THR 365/HLS 365

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 and will serve as preparation for a production of a Greek classic in the Berlind Theater in fall 2008.  On Wednesday, 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 will be on our feet, exploring the play’s perfomative possibilities for ourselves.  During the spring break registered students will take a required study trip to Athens.  Course is by application only.  Applications are available online www.princeton.edu/~visarts/the.html or the Program Office at 185 Nassau Street.  Applications are due November 16th at 4:00 p.m.
Michael Cadden, Timothy Vassen  Seminar: 3:00-4:20 pm W   &  12:30-4:20 pm F

Byzantium in the 10th Century: The Age of Reconquest
HIS 437/HLS 437

The course introduces the social, political and military history of the tenth-century Byzantine state at the height of its power, and seeks to understand the background to the recovery of Byzantine political strength at that time, in the context  of both internal social, economic and administrative developments, and in that of the wider political world, in particular, relations with the Abbasid Caliphate and the regional emirates of Syria and Iraq, and with the various western powers of which Byzantium had dealings.  The course depends heavily upon a close reading of contemporary texts, which are available in translation.
John F. Haldon Seminar: 1:30 – 4:20 pm  T

GRADUATE COURSES

Problems in Early Christian Music
MUS 511/HLS 511

The course focuses on Gregorian chant, with some attention to the related, regional chant traditions of the early medieval East and West.  The study of early neumatic notations opens an entrée into problems of music and the “sound shape” of language, while the study of early medieval modes and melodic concepts opens up a wealth of intellectual history stretching from classical antiquity to present.  Participants will also learn the basics of liturgical research: the texts, the books, the calendar, the ceremonial practices, and other information that students of pre-Reformation Europe should know.
Peter G. Jeffrey Seminar: TBA

Problems in Greek History:  Greek Democracy
CLA 522/HLS 522

In this seminar we will study the origins, evolution and organization of democratic states in Greek Antiquity.  We will analyze the historical process which made possible the emergence of the democratic system and how it became widespread in the Greek world.  Although the focus will be on Athens in the classical age (5th and 4th century BC) we will also deal with other poleis such as Syracuse, as well as with democratic regimes of the Hellenistic period.
Marc Gygax  Seminar: 7:30-10:20 pm W

Problems in Byzantine History:
Introduction to Byzantine Studies
HIS 542/HLS 542

This seminar will offer both a general introduction to and an investigation of special topics within Byzantine studies.  The weekly seminar discussions will be organized as follows: weeks 1-7 covered the period from the 7th until the 15th centuries in chronological sequence.  Students will be expected to become familiar with the sequence of events in Byzantine history through reading G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State; at the same time, through reading additional secondary bibliography, they will be expected to think about particular problems that modern historians face in their attempt to study and interpret these events. Weeks 8-12 will be dedicated to particular aspects of Byzantine studies: the survival of Byzantine culture after the political end of the empire in 1453; Byzantium and the Slavs; Byzantine learned and vernacular literature; Byzantine epic poetry and the expression of collective identity, in the Middle Ages and now; Byzantine studies as a modern discipline.
Maria Mavroudi  Seminar: 1:30-4:20 pm T

The Origins of the Middle Ages
HIS 543/HLS 543

Reading and research on the transition of ancient into medieval society, religion, and culture are the focus of this course.
Peter Brown  Seminar:  9:00-11:50 am T

Courses of Interest