Ancient Studies

Program of research in ancient studies under the direction of an advisor associated with the program, resulting in a research paper. Outline and bibliography must be approved by the director of undergraduate studies before credit will be awarded for ANCS V3995.

Program of research in ancient studies under the direction of an advisor associated with the program, resulting in a research paper. Outline and bibliography must be approved by the director of undergraduate studies before credit will be awarded for ANCS V3995.

Composed of three interwoven strands, this course seeks to introduce students to the dynamic traditions of speaking—and theorizing about speaking—that developed in ancient Greek and Roman cultural milieus and whose legacies continued to influence literary prose and public discourse for centuries afterward.

On Mondays we will undertake a historical survey of ancient rhetoric, supplementing George Kennedy’s A New History of Classical Rhetoric with excerpted primary readings from the sources it covers. 

On Wednesdays we will read and analyze Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric to examine how a rhetorical treatise from Greek antiquity interacts with evidence from rhetorical practice (or competing works of rhetorical theory!) over the period under consideration.  

On select Wednesdays during the semester, we will intersperse our reading of Aristotle with six “spotlighted” speeches (by Demosthenes, Cicero, Gregory of Nazianzus, Elizabeth I, Thomas More, and Frederick Douglass) that draw on and contribute to the richness of the classical Greek and Roman rhetorical tradition and its afterlives. 

Mythologies of the ancient Mediterranean are inextricably bound to geography, from conceptual spaces to specific places. While their relationship is extensive and diverse, it can be divided into six main categories: the specific places that the narratives of myth were believed to have occurred; the metamorphic shaping and divine animation of landscapes; places that memorialize the events of myth in ritual; ties between the events and individuals of myth and real-world toponyms; places that myths are depicted in public and private spaces; and the harnessing and manipulation of myth in human activities and interactions, from poetic performance to civic propaganda to identity politics. In this course, we explore myth through the various spatial lenses that these categories afford, while learning to use the spatial systems software QGIS and some methods of spatial analysis. Depending on the semester, this course will focus on either Greek or other Mediterranean mythologies; see course note.

Since its establishment as a British colony in the 17th century, New York has been infused with various “classical” elements deriving from ancient Greece and Rome across many of its core features and institutions, including architecture, politics, and theater. This course will use New York City as a laboratory for thinking about the imprint and cultural capital of Greco-Roman antiquity in the modern world. We will examine a range of historical “case studies” from the 18th century to the present day that will enable us to analyze how the art, literature, and ideas of ancient Greece and Rome have been transported, adapted, and re-imagined in New York City. The course will give equal emphasis to how classical literature has been appropriated by activist and marginalized communities across the city from the twentieth century to the present. By the end of this course the students will be able to describe and analyze the distinctive traces of Greco-Roman antiquity in NYC architecture, art, and literature across a range of periods, while also being able to situate and contextualize these primary sources in their immediate historical and political context. Students will also demonstrate critical understanding of the history and culture of New York and the lives of its inhabitants across these selected periods.

Proseminar is designed to offer beginning MA and PhD students an overview of (i) the major sub-disciplinary areas that are gathered under the umbrella term ‘classics’, making it a fundamentally interdisciplinary field of enquiry, and (ii) the diverse methodologies that are standardly applied in many subfields of classical research and publication.

Proseminar is designed to offer beginning MA and PhD students an overview of (i) the major sub-disciplinary areas that are gathered under the umbrella term ‘classics’, making it a fundamentally interdisciplinary field of enquiry, and (ii) the diverse methodologies that are standardly applied in many subfields of classical research and publication.

This course examines various literary, artistic, and cultural traditions that respond to some of the most recognizable Greek motifs in myth, theater, and politics, with the aim of understanding both what these motifs might be offering specifically to these traditions in particular social-historical contexts and, at the same time, what these traditions in turn bring to our conventional understanding of these motifs, how they reconceptualize them and how they alter them. The overall impetus is framed by a prismatic inquiry of how conditions of modernity, postcoloniality, and globality fashion themselves in engagement with certain persistent imaginaries of antiquity.

Moving between different languages and alphabets is a constitutive aspect of the diasporic experience. To remember or forget the mother tongue, to mix up two or more languages, to transcribe one writing system onto another are all modes of negotiating geographical displacement. This course introduces students to literature about and by Greeks of the diaspora in Europe, the Balkans and America over the past two centuries exploring questions of migration, translation and gender with particular attention to the look and sound of different alphabets and foreign accents – “It’s all Greek to me!” Authors include Benjamin, Broumas, Chaplin, Chow, Conan Doyle, Kafka, Kazan, Morrison, Papadiamantis, Queen, Valtinos and Venuti. 

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Topics chosen in consultation between members of the staff and students.

Prerequisites: GREK UN1101 or the equivalent, or the instructor or the director of undergraduate studies permission. Continuation of grammar study begun in GREK UN1101; selections from Attic prose.

Covers all of Greek grammar and syntax in one term. Prepares the student to enter second-year Greek (GREK UN2101 or GREK UN2102).

Prerequisites: GREK UN1101- GREK UN1102 or the equivalent. Selections from Attic prose.

Prerequisites: GREK UN1101- GREK UN1102 or GREK UN1121 or the equivalent. Detailed grammatical and literary study of several books of the Iliad and introduction to the techniques or oral poetry, to the Homeric hexameter, and to the historical background of Homer.

Prerequisites: GREK UN2101 - GREK UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Greek literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Greek literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Greek literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Greek literature. Research paper required.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Greek literature. Research paper required.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Greek literature. Research paper required.

Prerequisites: GREK UN2101 - GREK UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes each year, it may be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: at least two terms of Greek at the 3000-level or higher. Greek literature of the 4th century B.C. and of the Hellenistic and Imperial Ages.

Prerequisites: at least four terms of Greek, or the equivalent. An intensive review of Greek syntax with translation of English sentences and paragraphs into Attic Greek.

In this seminar, we will examine the elements of a history of gender and sexuality in the
Hellenistic period. The topic of gender and history has been extensively studied for Archaic
and Classical Greece, but not for the Hellenistic: symptomatic (and influential) is the way M.
Foucault moves from Plato to Plutarch, erasing the intervening four centuries. We will
examine the consolidation and evolution of a particular “normal” form of sexuality (centred
on the structural opposition between marriage and “queer spaces”), then examine a particular
region (Ptolemaic Egypt) to try to reconceive in terms of gender familiar themes such as
monarchy, colonization, and Hellenization.

Prerequisites: GRKM UN1101 or the equivalent. Continuation of GRKM UN1101. Introduction to modern Greek language and culture. Emphasis on speaking, writing, basic grammar, syntax, and cross-cultural analysis.

Prerequisites: GRKM UN2101 or the equivalent. Continuation of GRKM UN2101. Students complete their knowledge of the fundamentals of Greek grammar and syntax while continuing to enrich their vocabulary.

Mikis Theodorakis's passing in 2021 marked a pivotal moment in how this great composer is
seen as an agent of social and political change, not only in Greece but also in Europe and on the
international stage. In this course, we will explore the life and work of the great Greek composer
Mikis Theodorakis in the context of the troubled passage from the 20th to the 21st century. This
course aims to be an exploration of the historical circumstances in the early 20th-century
Balkans, and the way literary production, notably poetry through the work of Theodorakis,
expressed and shaped the social and political struggles worldwide. The focus will be on popular
culture and popular music—and notably popular song-- as a means of political struggle through
everyday life experience. We will focus on popular song as an artistic creation, as Theodorakis
shaped it, using poetry brought to the masses through radio and popular concerts.

At the end of the course, the students will have acquired a significant amount of knowledge of
the history, politics, society, and culture of Greece in the troubled 20th and 21st centuries, of the
role of Greece in the turbulent history of the Balkans of the 20th century, and they will have
acquired also knowledge of the musical and cinematographical landscape of the same centuries.
They will get to know well the work of the great composer Mikis Theodorakis, a major figure of
the cultural and political landscape of Greece and Europe and even globally. They will be able to
think critically regarding the role of the individual in political, social, and historical
developments and the role of art, of engaged art and notably music, in history.

Designed for undergraduates who want to do directed reading in a period or on a topic not covered in the curriculum.

Designed for undergraduates who want to do directed reading in a period or on a topic not covered in the curriculum.

Designed for undergraduates who want to do directed reading in a period or on a topic not covered in the curriculum.

Designed for undergraduates who want to do directed reading in a period or on a topic not covered in the curriculum.

Designed for students writing a senior thesis or doing advanced research on Greek or Greek Diaspora topics.

What does it mean to bring the humanities into the public sphere? How can scholars,
archivists, curators, and communities work together to produce knowledge, and what challenges
does such an endeavor entail? This course invites students to explore the field of public
humanities and gain hands-on experience with its aims, methods, and outcomes. The course is
structured around three components: (1) seminars exploring how partners inside and outside the
university can work together to make knowledge accessible and meaningful; (2) workshops in
which students are introduced to the methods and tools of public-facing research, including
conducting oral histories, producing podcasts, and curating online exhibitions; and (3)
contributions to existing projects of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities
Initiative (SNFPHI).

All supervisors will be Columbia faculty who hold a PhD. Students are responsible for identifying their own supervisor and it is at the discretion of faculty whether they accept to supervise independent research. Projects must be focused on Hellenic Studies and can be approached from any disciplinary background. Students are expected to develop their own reading list in consultation with their supervisor. In addition to completing assigned readings, the student must also write a Hellenic studies paper of 20 pages. Projects other than a research paper will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Hellenic Studies is an interdisciplinary field that revolves around two main axes: space and time. Its teaching and research are focused on the study of post-classical Greece in various fields: Language, Literature, History, Politics, Anthropology, Art, Archaeology, and in various periods: Late Antique, Medieval, Byzantine, Modern Greek etc. Therefore, the range of topics that are acceptable as a Hellenic Studies seminar paper is broad. It is upon each supervisor to discuss the specific topic with the student. The work submitted for this independent study course must be different from the work a student submits in other courses, including the Hellenic Studies Senior Research Seminar.

All supervisors will be Columbia faculty who hold a PhD. Students are responsible for identifying their own supervisor and it is at the discretion of faculty whether they accept to supervise independent research. Projects must be focused on Hellenic Studies and can be approached from any disciplinary background. Students are expected to develop their own reading list in consultation with their supervisor. In addition to completing assigned readings, the student must also write a Hellenic studies paper of 20 pages. Projects other than a research paper will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Hellenic Studies is an interdisciplinary field that revolves around two main axes: space and time. Its teaching and research are focused on the study of post-classical Greece in various fields: Language, Literature, History, Politics, Anthropology, Art, Archaeology, and in various periods: Late Antique, Medieval, Byzantine, Modern Greek etc. Therefore, the range of topics that are acceptable as a Hellenic Studies seminar paper is broad. It is upon each supervisor to discuss the specific topic with the student. The work submitted for this independent study course must be different from the work a student submits in other courses, including the Hellenic Studies Senior Research Seminar.

All supervisors will be Columbia faculty who hold a PhD. Students are responsible for identifying their own supervisor and it is at the discretion of faculty whether they accept to supervise independent research. Projects must be focused on Hellenic Studies and can be approached from any disciplinary background. Students are expected to develop their own reading list in consultation with their supervisor. In addition to completing assigned readings, the student must also write a Hellenic studies paper of 20 pages. Projects other than a research paper will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Hellenic Studies is an interdisciplinary field that revolves around two main axes: space and time. Its teaching and research are focused on the study of post-classical Greece in various fields: Language, Literature, History, Politics, Anthropology, Art, Archaeology, and in various periods: Late Antique, Medieval, Byzantine, Modern Greek etc. Therefore, the range of topics that are acceptable as a Hellenic Studies seminar paper is broad. It is upon each supervisor to discuss the specific topic with the student. The work submitted for this independent study course must be different from the work a student submits in other courses, including the Hellenic Studies Senior Research Seminar.

All supervisors will be Columbia faculty who hold a PhD. Students are responsible for identifying their own supervisor and it is at the discretion of faculty whether they accept to supervise independent research. Projects must be focused on Hellenic Studies and can be approached from any disciplinary background. Students are expected to develop their own reading list in consultation with their supervisor. In addition to completing assigned readings, the student must also write a Hellenic studies paper of 20 pages. Projects other than a research paper will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Hellenic Studies is an interdisciplinary field that revolves around two main axes: space and time. Its teaching and research are focused on the study of post-classical Greece in various fields: Language, Literature, History, Politics, Anthropology, Art, Archaeology, and in various periods: Late Antique, Medieval, Byzantine, Modern Greek etc. Therefore, the range of topics that are acceptable as a Hellenic Studies seminar paper is broad. It is upon each supervisor to discuss the specific topic with the student. The work submitted for this independent study course must be different from the work a student submits in other courses, including the Hellenic Studies Senior Research Seminar.

For students who have never studied Latin. An intensive study of grammar with reading of simple prose and poetry.

Prerequisites: LATN UN1101. A continuation of LATN UN1101, including a review of grammar and syntax for students whose study of Latin has been interrupted.

Prerequisites: LATN UN1101. A continuation of LATN UN1101, including a review of grammar and syntax for students whose study of Latin has been interrupted.

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Prerequisites: LATN UN1101 & UN1102 or LATN UN1121 or equivalent. Selections from Catullus and Cicero.

Prerequisites: LATN UN2101 or the equivalent. Selections from Ovids Metamorphoses and from Sallust, Livy, Seneca, or Pliny.

Prerequisites: LATN UN2101 or the equivalent. Selections from Ovids Metamorphoses and from Sallust, Livy, Seneca, or Pliny.

Prerequisites: LATN UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Latin literature. Research paper required.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Latin literature. Research paper required.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Latin literature. Research paper required.

Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Latin literature. Research paper required.

Prerequisites: LATN UN3012 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: at least two terms of Latin at the 3000-level or higher. Latin literature from Augustus to 600 C.E.

Prerequisites: the instructors permission. This course covers various topics in Medieval Latin Literature.

This course will survey the history of Latin manuscript books and Latin scripts from late Antiquity to the early years of printing (4th -15th century). Students will study the questions that have driven the field of paleography since its inception, and the canonical history of the main scripts used in Western Europe through the end of the Middle Ages. We will consider the manuscript book as a physical artifact, in a codicological approach; and we will look at the production of books in their social and political settings. Students will develop practical skills in reading and transcription, and will begin to recognize the features that allow localization and dating of manuscripts. We will use original materials from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library whenever possible.

This graduate seminar in Latin literature will be a thorough study of the Latin
poet Phaedrus, an otherwise unknown freedman of the imperial household who wrote five
volumes of Aesopic fable in verse during the reigns of Tiberius and perhaps Claudius. We will
aim to read Phaedrus’s corpus in its entirety, with a focus on two major interpretive questions:
first, how Phaedrus’s fables relate to other fables from the Greek and Latin tradition, to the
tradition around fable (e.g. the Life of Aesop), and to the broader cultural context of fable that
includes parables in the Christian gospels; and second, how Phaedrus’s freedman status can be
productively brought to bear on the interpretation of his poetry, and how the historicity of that
status has been contested and challenged by modern scholars.