Download Interdisciplinary Humanities: Core Courses

Cowherd,)Carrie)E.)
To:$Bernard$Mair$Cc:[email protected]$Alexander$Tulin$$
Subject:$Submission$of$Core$Courses$for$Interdisciplinary$Humanities$to$APSAGE$
Committee$
$
Dear$Dean$Mair:$
$
On$behalf$of$the$Department$of$Classics$and$the$new$major$in$Interdisciplinary$
Humanities:$$Ancient$and$Modern,$I$wish$to$submit$two$new$courses$to$the$
Academic$Policy,$Standards,$and$General$Education$Committee$for$approval$as$
Division$A$courses:$$CLAS$050,$Interdisciplinary$Humanities$I:$$Egypt$and$the$
Ancient$Near$East,$and$CLAS$051,$Interdisciplinary$Humanities$II:$$Ancient$Greece$
and$Rome.$$These$courses$have$already$been$submitted$to$the$Humanities$Division$
and$have$been$approved.$
$
With$this$request$are$included$the$syllabi$for$the$two$courses$and$the$Executive$
Summary$from$the$original$proposal$approved$by$the$College$of$Arts$and$Sciences$
and$the$Board$of$Trustees.$$The$courses$$constitute$the$twoRsemester$survey$of$the$
Ancient$World$required$for$the$major.$$Each$course$is$structured$to$include$the$three$
areas$of$focus$for$the$major:$$Literature$and$Orality,$Ideas$and$Beliefs,$and$Language,$
Art,$and$Archaeology.$$The$first$course,$Egypt$and$the$Ancient$Near$East,$$conceived$
of$as$being$offered$by$the$Department$of$$AfroRAmerican$Studies,$will$initially$be$
offered$by$Classics;$$Dr.$Greg$Carr,$Chair$of$AfroRAmerican$Studies,$has$approved$the$
syllabus.$
$
We$are$asking$for$Division$A$approval$as$a$way$of$launching$the$new$
major.$$Students$who$take$these$courses$for$Division$A$credit$will$be$aware$of$the$
new$major$and$may$be$inspired$to$pursue$it.$$$
$
Hard$copies$of$the$request,$the$syllabi,$and$the$Executive$Summary$will$be$delivered$
to$your$office.$
$
Thank$you$for$your$consideration$of$this$request.$
$
Carrie$Cowherd$
Interim$Chair$of$Classics$
ExecutiveSummary
InterdisciplinaryHumanities:AncientandModern
Interdisciplinary Humanities: Ancient and Modern is a Programmatic Interdisciplinary Major [PIM]
offering Howard students a broad experience in the humanities, and organized around the
overarchingthemeofsignificantencountersandinterconnectionsbetweenAntiquityandModernity.
Interdisciplinary Humanities: Ancient and Modern draws primarily on the Departments of Classics,
Philosophy,andAfro-AmericanStudiesforcoursesdealingwithAntiquity,andontheDepartmentsof
English, Philosophy, and World Languages and Cultures for courses dealing with Modernity. Other
departments and programs will also be invited to participate, such as Sociology-Anthropology, Art
History,andtheSchoolofDivinity.
Inthisway,InterdisciplinaryHumanities:AncientandModernwillofferstudentsthebroadgrounding
in human history and culture that is today widely acknowledged to be a valuable preparation for
careersinlaw,journalism,politics,divinity,andanynumberofotherprofessions.
Allmajorsarerequiredtotakeasix(6)creditsurveyoftheAncientWorld,coveringancientEgypt,
theancientNearEast,aswellasancientGreeceandancientRome.Studentswillthenberequiredto
takenine(9)creditsinoneofthethreeareasoffocus:eitherLiteratureandOrality;IdeasandBeliefs;
orLanguage,Art,andArchaeology.Ofthesenine(9)credits,three(3)willbetakenintopicsrelating
totheancientworld,andsix(6)willbetakenintopicsrelatingtoModernity.Studentswillalsotake
nine(9)creditsofelectives,andthencompletethemajorwithasix(6)creditCapstoneProjectthatis
both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. Knowledge of at least one ancient language (e.g.
Greek,Latin,EgyptianHieroglyphs,Hebrew,Coptic,orDemotic)equivalenttotwosemestersisalso
required, although this may be taken as part of the COAS language requirement. Focus courses,
electives, and the Capstone Project are to be chosen in consultation with the student’s capstone
advisors and subject to the approval of the Coordinator/Director of Interdisciplinary Humanities:
AncientandModern.
Coursesrequiredofallmajors.Atwo-semestersurveyoftheAncientWorld(6creditstotal):
--AncientEgyptandtheAncientNearEast[CLAS](3credits)
--GreeceandRome[CLAS](3credits)
[orGeneralLiteratureHonors(Levine,079)andRomanLiteratureinTranslation(CLAS102,aselective)]
Coursesintheareaoffocus(9creditstotal):
--one(1)coursecoveringtopicsrelatedtoAntiquity(3credits)
--two(2)coursescoveringtopicsrelatedtoModernity(6credits)
Electives(9creditstotal):
Electivecourseswillbechoseninconsultationwiththestudent’scapstoneadvisors
andsubjecttotheapprovaloftheCoordinator/DirectorofInterdisciplinaryHumanities.
CapstoneProject(6credits)
A two-semester Capstone Project, sponsored by faculty drawn from two different
departments, one specializing in some aspect of ancient studies and one specializing in a
complementary aspect of modern studies, designed to teach the student how to blend diverse
disciplinary assumptions and methodologies into a single interdisciplinary whole focused on a
tightlystructuredtopicorProblematik.
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Respectfully submitted by DRS. STARK/SANDRIDGE
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INHU000: INTERDISCIPLINARY HUMANITIES:
ANCIENT GREECE & ROME
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course offers a cultural and intellectual history of Ancient Greece and Rome in the larger context of the
Ancient Mediterranean by critically examining the surviving literature and material culture. We will
investigate the influence of earlier Ancient Mediterranean civilizations on Ancient Greece and Rome as well
as their interactions with and participation in other cultures during the period of 12th cent. BCE-15th cent.
CE. We will also explore the influence of Ancient Greece and Rome on later periods and other cultures
through literature, philosophy, music, film, art/architecture, and modern performance. We will analyze some
of the major works of Greek and Roman literature, specifically the Greek and Roman contribution to epic
poetry, novel, tragic drama, rhetoric, philosophy, ethnography, and historiography. Homer, Herodotus,
Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Apollonius, Plutarch, Cicero, Vergil, Seneca, Tacitus, Apuleius, and Book of
Revelations constitute the basic texts. All works are read in English translation.
Most of the texts or topics selected fit into at least two of the three designated Integrated Humanities Areas:
(1) “Literature and Orality,” from oral poetry to written literature, including key folklore motifs and recurrent
themes of magic, witches, marvels, tests/labors, otherworldly journeys, founders, nation building, heroes,
exile/diaspora, etc. shared between Egypt and the Near East and Greece and Rome, (2) “Ideas and Beliefs,”
particularly those beliefs and traditions relating to Greek and Roman religion and the Bible, and the influence
of religious ideas from the larger Mediterranean, including ruler cult, Magna Mater and the cult of Isis in
Rome, etc.; and (3) “Language, Art and Archaeology,” particularly material culture in relation to specific texts
and themes and that include a visit to the National Gallery of Art.
The goals of the core curriculum at Howard University include: 1) proficiency in verbal and analytical skills,
and 2) knowledge and application of discourses which promote intellectual openness and cultural diversity,
historical awareness and empirical analysis that result in informed and compassionate understanding of social
and human relations.
COURSE GOALS:
1. To learn about Ancient Greece and Rome and their enduring legacy through the study of their
surviving literature and material culture and of their reception in other contemporary cultures and in
later cultures
2. To be able to recognize and identify major texts, authors, and themes within their literary and
historical contexts
3. To be able to recognize and identify material culture (coins, sculpture, art/archeology, etc.) according
to period, culture, context.
4. To enhance your ability to read and think critically about texts and material culture
5. To question inherent assumptions within texts and to explore what these investigations yield about
the culture that produced them
6. To be able to make connections across texts, time, and cultures
7. To improve your ability to articulate effectively in discussion and in writing important ideas that
bridge different texts, times, and cultures
Respectfully submitted by DRS. STARK/SANDRIDGE
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REQUIRED TEXTS:
Most readings will be available through an online course pack, posted weekly, OR using freely
available texts online.
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, tr. Walsh. Oxford World's Classics, 2008. ISBN: 978-0199540556
Plato, Symposium, tr. Waterfield. Oxford World's Classics, 2009. ISBN: 978-0199540198
Tacitus, Agricola-Germany, tr. Birley. Oxford World's Classics, 1999. ISBN: 978-0199539260
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Cicero, On the Good Life, tr. Grant. Penguin Classics, 1971. ISBN: 978-0140442441
Euripides, Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, tr. Svarlien. Hackett Classics, 2007. ISBN: 978-0872209237
Homer, The Iliad, tr. by Richmond Lattimore. The University of Chicago Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780226470498.
Seneca, Four Tragedies and Octavia, tr. Watling. Penguin Classics, 1966. ISBN: 978-0140441741
Virgil, Aeneid, tr. Ahl. Oxford World's Classics, 2008. ISBN: 978-0199231959
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Regular attendance and participation is essential. The grade takes into account
attendance and active participation in class discussion and group activities, weekly blackboard activities
(quizzes, response essays, discussion forum posts, et al), and three essay exams. The relative weight of each
portion of the grade is as follows:
Attendance and participation
(includes reading quizzes, weekly response paper, and discussion posts)
Exam I
Exam II
Exam III
25%
25%
25%
25%
REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND OTHER RESOURCES:
Connelly, J. (2014) The Parthenon Enigma. Knopf.
Everson, S. (ed.)(1998) Companions to ancient thought 4: Ethics. Cambridge.
Gruen, E. (2012) Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton.
Hall, E. et al (eds.)(2000) Medea in Performance 1500-2000. Oxford.
Hardie, P. (2014) The Last Trojan Hero: A Cultural History of Virgil's Aeneid. I.B. Tauris.
Harrison, S. (ed.)(2015) Characterisation in Apuleius' Metamorphoses: Nine Studies. Cambridge Scholars.
Hurwit, J. (2000) The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present.
Cambridge
Lesher, J. et al (eds.)(2007) Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception. Hellenic Studies Series.
Martindale, C. (ed.)(1997) The Cambridge Companion to Virgil. Cambridge.
Nagy, G. (2013) The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 hours. Belknap Press.
Osborne, R. (1998) Archaic and Classical Greek Art. Oxford.
Polansky, R. (ed.)(2014) The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge.
Stadter, P. (2015) Plutarch and his Roman Readers. Oxford.
Zanker, P. (1988) The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Michigan.
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Routledge History of the Ancient World Series (in chronological order):
Osborne, R. (2009) Greece in the Making. 2nd edition.
Hornblower, S. (2011) The Greek World 479-323 BC. 4th edition.
Shipley, G. (1999) The Greek World After Alexander 323-30 BC.
Cornell, T. (1995) The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c.1000-264
BC)
Goodman, M. (2012) The Roman World: 44 BC-AD 180. 2nd edition.
Potter, D. (2014) The Roman Empire at Bay (AD 180-395). 2nd edition.
Cameron, A. (2012) The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: AD 395-700. 2nd edition.
Perseus Project (online texts, reference materials, and art/archaeology database):
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collections
Weekly Schedule:
Week One: Introduction to Greece and Rome
Monday
Introduction to the themes and the rationale for the course vis-a-vis the IDS major
Wednesday
Introduction to Greek and Roman geography: boundaries, trade routes, and language
Friday
Introduction to Greek and Roman chronology: major figures, cultural movements, ancient methods of time-keeping
Week Two: Introduction to Homer’s Iliad (700 BCE)
Genre: epic, oral poetry
Monday
Homer’s Iliad 1
(c. 700 BCE)
introduction to oral poetry, epic, Greek mythology (the Olympian gods), emotion
(menis), the character of Achilles, problems of leadership (the king and the warrior)
Wednesday
Homer’s Iliad 9
(c. 700 BCE)
introduction to ancient rhetoric (ethos, pathos, logos), Aristotle’s Rhetoric, heroism
(Achilles vs. Ajax and Odysseus)
Friday
Homer’s Iliad 24 introduction to emotion (pity), death of Hector, tragedy (the katharsis of pity and fear,
(c. 700 BCE)
anagnoresis, peripeteia), the fall of Troy, supplication, fathers and sons (to be
Respectfully submitted by DRS. STARK/SANDRIDGE
picked up in Aeneid 6), cost of war
Week Three: Introduction to Ancient Archaeology (archaeological sites,
architecture, city-planning)
Monday
Troy (c. 1150
BCE)
introduction to archaeology, Heinrich Schliemann, myth vs. history, did the Trojan
War actually happen?
Wednesday
the Athenian
Acropolis (c. 450
BCE)
introduction to the ancient city-state, ancient building programs, Pericles, ancient
slavery
Friday
Parthenon (447438 BCE)
introduction ancient architecture, mathematics, golden number, Athenian
imperialism, Athena as patron goddess, Panathenaic Procession (tie-in with
Homeric epic as a Panhellenic phenomenon)
Week Four: Introduction to Alexander the Great, leader and legend
Genre: biography
Monday
Plutarch's Life of
Alexander (c. 100
CE)
introduction historiography and biography as the study of character, leadership,
ethics, education, Alexander as Achilles (the warrior) and Cyrus (the king)
Wednesday
Plutarch's Life of
Alexander (c. 100 the leader's education (Mirror of Princes), the cult of the leader (as god), attempts
CE)
at empire (intermarriage; to be compared with Romulus)
Friday
Plutarch's Life of
Alexander (c. 100
CE)
Hellenism and Hellenistic Empires, the Ptolemies (Hellenistic Egypt), Rome as a
Hellenistic Empire
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Week Five: Introduction to Roman Leadership, Julius Caesar and the Late
Republic
Genre: biography
Monday
Plutarch's Life of
Julius Caesar (c.
100 CE)
introduction to the Roman republic, Roman religion, cult of the leader, Caesar as
a second Alexander
Wednesday
Plutarch's Life of
Julius Caesar (c.
100 CE)
Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra; comparanda with other accounts: Horace,
Suetonius, Lucan, etc.
Friday
Plutarch's Life of
Julius Caesar (c.
100 CE)
sic semper tyrannis: the history of slaying/overthrowing tyrants (Harmodius and
Aristogeiton; Lucretius, Brutus, and Collatinus); connections made to modern
assassination attempts and accompanying rhetoric: e.g., Abraham Lincoln's
Assassination, the modern Tea Party movement
Week Six: Introduction to written epic, Vergil’s Aeneid
Genre: epic
Monday
Vergil's Aeneid I, II introduction to written epic, leadership (pietas), Roman mythology, Roman empire,
(19 BCE)
emotion (ira), Fall of Troy, cost of war, exile/diaspora
Wednesday
Aeneid 6 (19
BCE)
Roman concepts of the underworld and afterlife (burial, funerary inscriptions),
political propaganda, the Augustan Age, fathers and sons, Panhellenism vs. Roman
Imperialism
Friday
Aeneid 12 (19
BCE)
the death of Turnus compared to death of Hector, anti-imperial critique of Augustan
propaganda?
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Week Seven: Introduction to Roman imperial art and architecture
Monday
Ara Pacis (c. 9
BCE); The
Palatine (from c.
750 BCE)
the character of founders (Romulus and Remus), imperial propaganda in a late
Republican city-state (compare Athens' failed empire); the Augustan building
program compared to the Periclean program
Wednesday
Rome in the East
(c. 330 CE-15th
Constantinople (tracing the history of earlier city of Byzantium 7th cent. BCE
cent. CE)
through to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman empire)
Friday
Sidebar on
Fascist Rome in
the 20th century
Mussolini, the revival of imperialism and nationalism, fascism in America
Week Eight: Introduction to philosophical dialogue, Greek ideas of love and
sexuality
Genre: philosophical dialogue
Monday
Plato's Symposium
(c. 370 BCE)
love and ethics inside and outside a political context, introduction to the
aristocratic drinking party, Greek homosexuality (society and the law)
Wednesday
Plato's Symposium
(c. 370 BCE)
common and heavenly Aphrodite
Friday
Plato's Symposium Sidebar: the reception of the Symposium in the Renaissance, homosexuality in
(c. 370 BCE)
21st century America
Week Nine: Introduction to Ethical Philosophy, Friendship
Genre: philosophical prose
Respectfully submitted by DRS. STARK/SANDRIDGE
Monday
Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics
(350 BCE)
introduction to ethical philosophy, ideas of friendship
Wednesday
Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics
(350 BCE)
utility, pleasure, the pursuit of the Good
Friday
Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics
(350 BCE)
Sidebar: Aristotle’s influence on the Renaissance, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes
Week Ten: The Roman Philosophical Dialogue, political and personal
friendship
Genre: Roman philosophical literature, the Aristotelian dialogue, the epistolary tradition
Monday
Cicero's De
Amicitia (On
Friendship) (44
BCE)
introduction to Cicero, Roman oratory in the Late Republic, the trial of Catiline,
political alliances
Wednesday
the nature of political friendship, introduction to differing styles of dialogue (Plato
Cicero's De
vs. Cicero), review of past friendships (Achilles and Patroclus, Aeneas and Pallas,
Amicitia (44 BCE) Castor and Pollux)
Friday
Cicero's Letters to
Atticus (68-44
introduction to the epistolary genre with reference to Plato, Pliny, and Seneca,
BCE)
unconventional sources for ancient leadership, self-presentation
Week Eleven: Introduction to the Greek Novel
Genre: novel
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Respectfully submitted by DRS. STARK/SANDRIDGE
Monday
Apuleius’
Metamorphoses
(late 2nd cent. CE) introduction to the ancient novel (compared to epic), magic, curiosity, folklore
Wednesday
Apuleius
Metamorphoses
(late 2nd cent.
CE)
Isis and cultural exchange in the Ancient Mediterranean, especially Egypt
Friday
Apuleius
Metamorphoses
(late 2nd cent. CE) Cupid and Psyche, love
Week Twelve: Introduction to tragedy
Genre: tragedy, written epic
Euripides' Medea
(431 BCE)
introduction tragedy (the Iliad revisited, “slices from the banquet of Homer”),
gender roles, the character of Medea (outsider, barbarian, witch, abandoned
wife, proto-feminist), Jason as a leader (5th century sophist)
Apollonius'
Argonautica 3
(early 3rd century
BCE)
written epic, Medea compared, erotic poetry, psychological realism, role in
heroism (is Medea a hero?), Jason’s leadership compared
Seneca's Medea
(1st cent. CE)
introduction to Roman tragedy, aesthetics of violence, Medea on the modern
stage: Medea Project, Toni Morrison, Silas Jones, Jim Magnuson
Week Thirteen: Introduction to ancient ethnography
Genre: ethnography
Monday
Herodotus’
Histories, Book Two introduction to ancient Egypt, historiography, ethnography, natural philosophy,
(c. 440 BCE)
divine agency
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Wednesday
Herodotus’
Histories, Book
Four (c. 440 BCE)
Skythians, barbarians, lack of political cohesion, slavery
Friday
Tacitus' Germania
identity through the other
Week Fourteen: New Testament, Book of Revelations
Genre: Christian Bible
Monday
Book of Revelations
(81-96 CE)
End of days traditions in ancient thought (eschatology), Hebrew Bible origins
Wednesday
the history of the struggle between good and evil, preparing the soul for the
Book of Revelations afterlife
Friday
Book of Revelations Later End of the World Cults, Reformation to Heaven's Gate
Week Fifteen: Review of Course Characters and Themes Through Visual
Culture (Greek and Roman Painting and Sculpture)
Monday
Greek and Roman
Sculpture
Visual review of many of the course themes: Harmodius and Aristogeiton,
Alexander, Caesar, Colossus, Philosophers (Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero);
Later artistic representations: Bernini (Aeneas and Anchises)
Wednesday
Greek Vase
Painting, Coins
Achilles, Jason, Medea, Hercules; Introduction to Numismatics: case studies of
Athens, Alexander’s successors, late Roman Republic-early Empire
Friday
Greek and Roman Brief survey from Minoan Crete to Roman Pompeii; Aeneas, Anchises, Achilles,
Painting/Fresco
Hector, Medea; later artistic representations 1400-21st cent.
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