19 graduate courses in the Winter 2012 Graduate Calendar, from Waterloo’s archived copy.
A team-taught course exploring the variety of methodologies involved in studying the ancient Mediterranean. Each contributing faculty member will showcase the particular methodologies employed in his or her research.
SEM · Course ID 013021Archived pageCLAS 600 today
The greater Mediterranean Basin, joining Europe, Africa and Asia, has a long and influential history. This fall-term course introduces the major processes of cultural integration in the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the end of the Roman Empire and the appropriate research methods. This course will be team-taught with a central coordinator.
SEM · Course ID 013033Archived pageCLAS 601 today
This course will explore the theme of cultural interaction in Greco-Roman literature, from the archaic period through the era of Roman dominance in the Mediterranean. Attention will be given throughout to how literature reflects the changing realities of cultural interaction in the Greek and Roman worlds.
SEM · Course ID 013758Archived pageCLAS 632 today
This course will examine the representation of identity in ancient drama, and in ancient society. Greek and Roman plays, both tragic and comic, changed substantially in form and subject matter as they made their way from Athens in the fifth century BCE, across the immense Hellenistic kingdoms, and into the republic of Rome in the third century BCE. Broadly speaking, fifth century Greek tragedies and comedies strongly focused upon Athenian political events, and explicitly engaged the historical figures, and socio-political issues of their day. In contrast, comedies written in the Hellenistic period have been interpreted as a depiction of the domestic trials of a Greek household, a situation that makes no reference to contemporary events or characters. In short, the comedies of the Hellenistic period are bereft of political commentary. In the second half of the course, we will consider the response of Greek drama to Macedonian domination. In traditional historical narratives of the early Hellenistic period, Macedonian hegemony and the rise of large autocratic empires are linked to the decline of Athenian democracy and the rise of 'individualism'. Do the late plays of Aristophanes, and the dramas of Menander and Plautus, all devoid of socio-political content, suggest a civic body that is disengaged politically? How did the Hellenistic and Roman audience receive and read the dramatic characters? To whom, and how, were these plays speaking? Did the plays implicitly engage civic issues, or were they merely understood as light relief from the world of resettlements, economic risks, and ever-present war? How do the Hellenistic dramas of Menander and Plautus shape identity, if at all?
SEM · Course ID 013022Archived pageCLAS 633 today
This course examines the civilizations of Greece and Rome through their dining practices as depicted in art, architecture, and literature, from the eastern origins of the Greek symposium through the late Roman banquet.
SEM · Course ID 013034Archived pageCLAS 635 today
This course will examine the ways in which early Greek and Roman Judaeo-Christian literature engages with the Classical tradition. Seminars will reflect upon examples of continuity and difference, with consideration given to the relationship of Greek and Roman literature with Semitic cultures.
SEM · Course ID 013759Archived pageCLAS 636 today
This course explores the development of the idea of the Underworld and Afterlife, with special attention to the catabasis (the visit to the Underworld), in literary and epigraphic sources from Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece and Rome. Analyses will focus on the philosophical, religious, political, psychological and literary dimensions of the material.
SEM · Course ID 013035Archived pageCLAS 637 today
Literary and archaeological evidence for contact between cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Iron Age is examined from a Greek perspective. Phoenician, Assyrian, Egyptian, Phrygian, Lydian, Persian and Greek relations are explored.
SEM · Course ID 013036Archived pageCLAS 640 today
Both external and internal influences on the development of this richly decorated and culturally significant craft and art form will be studied for rare insights into facets of ancient Mediterranean life.
SEM · Course ID 013037Archived pageCLAS 641 today
When the term "Hellenistic" was first coined in the 19th century by J.G. Droysen, implicit in his terminology was an understanding that there was a fusion of various cultural threads that resulted in an Hellenic koine (shared culture) that spread throughout the Mediterranean from the death of Alexander the Great to the Battle of Actium (323-31 BCE). In the years since Droysen's analysis, scholars have emphasized the "Greekness" of the koine, yet the Hellenistic world was one where the Greek generals who split Alexander's empire were left in charge of areas with their own long cultural heritage, such as Egypt and Persia. In addition, Rome became involved in the Eastern Mediterranean by the 2nd century BCE, adding its cultural heritage and demands to the mix. This multiplicity of cultures and cultural ideas shows that, while the overriding cultural ideology may have been Greek, the many threads present should be viewed rather as koinai and not a monolithic koine. This course will examine these and other issues by looking at the various centres of Hellenistic culture (Alexandria, Antioch, Athens, Delos, Pergamon, Rome) and seeing what contributions each made to the artistic koinai of the age. What general presumptions and assumptions have scholars made in the past? Are certain regions responsible for specific styles or do they reflect the styles of the day? What role does Rome play as the eventual cultural hegemon?
SEM · Course ID 013024Archived pageCLAS 643 today
This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Greek island of Delos. Literature about the island, its important historical and religious roles, its multicultural population and the island's material remains will all be examined, encompassing a time period from ca. 2000 BCE - 300 CE. The students can approach this material from a philological, historical, archaeological or art historical perspective. Using Delos as a focus, it is hoped that students will see the need for integrated approaches to the study of the ancient Mediterranean and learn of the important, multifaceted roles this island played throughout history.
SEM · Course ID 013023Archived pageCLAS 644 today
This course examines the cultural interaction that took place within the Hellenistic kingdoms in the wake of the Macedonian conquest and the subsequent Wars of the Successors. It uses both Greek and native source material (where the latter is available) to analyze the character of this interaction and the impact it had on both sides. The history of the Hellenistic kingdoms, in the specific context of international relations with the native peoples dominated by the Hellenistic rulers, is one of both alienation and assimilation, of bigotry and acceptance, of rebellion and (often uneasy) co-operation. The course looks at both positive and negative aspects of that interaction between cultures that was so profoundly characteristic of the Hellenistic kingdoms, examining both culture clash and, ultimately, the benefits that mutual intercourse may (or may not) have brought to both sides.
SEM · Course ID 013025Archived pageCLAS 653 today
This course focuses on a specific period within Egyptian history: the Ptolemaic era, when Egypt was ruled by the Greco-Macedonian dynasty descended from Ptolemy I. For roughly three centuries, until the suicide of the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, the Egyptians lived under an alien ruling authority of Hellenic heritage. Furthermore, they lived and worked alongside numerous immigrants of the same heritage, immigrants who appear to have benefited frequently from the differential laws, practices, and institutions that favoured them and did nothing for the native people of Egypt. Yet at the same time, a study of Ptolemaic Egypt reveals also a pattern of increasing assimilation between Greeks and Egyptians. Such assimilation was not solely the result of increasing mutual tolerance and respect. Indeed, the history of Greco-Macedonian relations with the Egyptians demonstrates that whatever respect and privileges the ruling classes ultimately granted to the natives of Egypt were at least in part the result of violent Egyptian assertiveness, in the form of armed rebellion. The history of interactions between Greeks and Egyptians in Ptolemaic Egypt offers an unmatched opportunity for the examination of the relations between rulers and ruled, of the clash between ethnic groups, and of the forces that lead to reception on the one hand and resistance on the other.
SEM · Course ID 013026Archived pageCLAS 654 today
The Roman world was a vast cultural mosaic embracing the remnants of the Hellenistic, Celtic and Punic civilizations. This seminar will explore the history and development of the frontiers and provinces of the Roman Empire. Topics to be discussed include: frontier defences, methods of expansion and control, urban and rural settlement, cultural and religious development, economy and daily life.
SEM · Course ID 013027Archived pageCLAS 655 today
An exploration of key aspects of the Principate of Augustus from the time he accomplished his 'restoration' of the Roman Republic in 28/27 B.C. until his death in A.D. 14.
SEM · Course ID 013038Archived pageCLAS 656 today
A study of the means of transportation, routes for trade, and methods of communication employed in the Roman world. Shipping and road systems for the transportation of both bulk and luxury goods will be examined, as well as the methods by which both private and public communication occurred around the Mediterranean.
SEM · Course ID 013039Archived pageCLAS 657 today
An examination of the compound crises which afflicted the Roman Empire in its later centuries, with a view to identifying and analyzing the underlying social, economic, political, logistical and ecological forces at work in creating them, as well as the various "solutions" to these crises which people applied across the Mediterranean which led to what we call the "Medieval" era. Taking as its starting point Joseph Tainter's, The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988), the class will look at various explanations for Rome's "Decline & Fall" advanced by scholars from the time of Gibbon to current applications of ecological theory to the analysis of historical events. Relevant comparisons to other cultures which have suffered similar declines, as well as to present-day events, will be made as they arise in the chronological order of the course material.
SEM · Course ID 013028Archived pageCLAS 659 today
Directed Studies for individual students.
SEM · Course ID 013041Archived pageCLAS 690 today
A selection of material from one author or several authors or investigation of selected themes, topics, genres at the graduate level.
SEM · Course ID 013042Archived pageCLAS 691 today