INTRODUCTION TO CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION: GREECE

Transcription

1 Syllabus INTRODUCTION TO CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION: GREECE Last update HU Credits: 2 Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor) Responsible Department: classics Academic year: 1 Semester: 1st Semester Teaching Languages: hebrew Campus: Mt. Scopus Course/Module Coordinator: donna shalev Coordinator donna@mail.huji.ac.il Coordinator Office Hours: by appointment Teaching Staff: Dr. Donna Shalev page 1 / 5

2 Course/Module description: Introductory course aiming to delineate cultural phenomena, institutions, notions, and figures in Heroic, Archaic and Classical Greece, beginning with the concept of the Greek nation, identity, and language in antiquity, and culminating in the persona and heritage of Alexander the Great Course/Module aims: The course aims: to emphasize, within this chronological framework, cultural tradition and innovation, the heterogeneous nature of Greek culture, its literary and social institutions, as well as some technological, ritual, intellectual and pedagogical developments. to lead the students to distinguish between culture and literature, history, thought, ritual, dramatic performance and other discrete dimensions through which one may examine the classical Greek world. to address some discussion of the state, education, art, and worship, mostly through the written rather than material remains. throughout the course we will read classical literary sources in hebrew translations. Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: On successful completion of this course, students should be able: to identify a pool of passages of cultural significance in an array of Greek sources, literary and non-literary, and to contextualize them by genre, author, period, and cultural setting. to recognize key personalities, terms and notions in Greek culture within its own classical context and forms of representation mainly according to textual sources. to 'read' Greek culture through the codes and conventions in the genres of the texts to develop a familiarization with the concepts and notions of classical Greek culture through Greek terms which have become part of the language of premodern and modern discourse on culture at large. to apply comparisons, contrasts, influences and interrelations of classical Greek cultural notions and terms with subsequent European cultures, and with other contemporary and subsequent cultures (e.g. Jewish, Roman, Near East). to form integrative, diachronic overviews and cross-sections of the internally varying notions and concepts presented on different occasions in a variety of generic, chronological and regional settings within the heterogeneous Greek classical world. page 2 / 5

3 Attendance requirements(%): Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Frontal lectures accompanied by handouts with excerpts from the reading assignments and other passages referred to in more detail during the lectures. The students are required to read fuller contexts of larger chunks of these texts before each lesson; these are distributed on the moodle site. Although the lectures are constructed in detail and timed, students are encouraged to ask questions and to engage in active discussion during class. Course/Module Content: Greece, the Greeks, the varieties and changes in their nomenclature, language and ethnic internal variety, writing and orality, overview. Myth of invention of writing with a close reading of relevant passage from Plato Phaedrus. Historical overview of the discovery of Linear B and the adoption of the Phoenician alphabet. Heroic age, epic, myth, and oral performance, hospitality, competition, and sympotic settings as seen through Book 8 of the Odyssey. Ritual, myth, aetiology of rites and natural phenomena, descent to the underworld, domestic vs. heroic, the motif of locus amoenus, as seen through the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Odyssey 6. The power of logos, honor, 'face', and flyting as seen in the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in Iliad 1, in the ekphrastic description of the city at peace (especially the arbitration) in the shield of Achilles in Iliad 18, and Achilles' role as master of ceremonies at Patroclus' funeral games in Iliad 23. Beliefs and rituals of death, including the phenomenon of katabasis (descent to the underworld) in its canonical presentation, e.g. in Odyssey 11, Homeric Hymn to Demeter, as well as comparison and contrast with other katabasis descriptions in later epic and the European tradition; preparation for burial and athletic contests e.g. Iliad 23; grief and mourning e.g. Iliad 23, Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Kosmos (order), organization of time, seasons, work and leisure, nomoi (norms of behavior) in didactic literature through a reading of Hesiod, Works and Days. The epic tradition and Homeric style and its application to texts with a range of purposes. The invocation to the muses, the muses and the pantheon. The notion and term 'history', the rise of the earliest prose as part of the growth of technical literature in Ionia: ethnography, genealogy, geography, historiography, with special reference to Hekataios, Herodotus, Hippocrates. Overview of chronology from the perspective of modern research (with an outline of periods from Mycenaean times through archaic courts, tyrannies, though to Athenian democracy) vis a vis its presentation by the historians themselves. The transition from Mythos to Logos, from epics of heroes to the individual sentiment in lyric poetry. Music, bards, the myth of the invention of the lyre, page 3 / 5

4 instruments, lyre vs. reed and all that it entails, lyric poetry. Themes covered in choral and lyric poetry, and the subgenres. Presentation of the canon of lyric poets and the state of survival of the texts. Classical Athenian Tragedy as it evolves from rituals for Dionysus. The scope of Tragedy and the surviving authors; the Trilogy structure and Satyr Play. The social and political aspects of the dramatic festivals, the competitions, the khoregia and the community participation. The interplay between myth and its dramatic (vs. other) presentations as seen in Aeschylus Agamemnon. The move from revenge to justice. Greek invention, science, wisdom and progress, and their expressions in literary and technical sources. The notions of invention and of wise men and the terms 'protos heuretes' (first inventor) and 'sophos' ('sage/sophist/philosopher'). Variants of the Prometheus myth, with special attention to the drama 'Prometheus Bound' and the myth in Plato 'Protagoras'. The importance of the graphic in Greek thought, learning, and teaching, as illustrated by the wording of a Euclidean proof, a poem by Callimachus, Plato's Meno. The Hippocratic Oath and Greek medicine. Archimedes his texts and the legends revolving around him. The symposium as a cultural phenomenon, from an early witness in Odyssey 8 of a precursor, through its representations in literary texts, culminating in the 'Symposium' of Plato and of Xenophon. Realia and archeological evidence of the symposium in Greek life. The ritual, intellectual, literary, artistic, and cultural elements, as well as vestiges in surrounding and subsequent Hellenizing cultures. The social and political centrality of the symposium in Greek life. A close reading of Plato's 'Symposium'. Oratory, Rhetoric and the Athenian courts. The centrality of logos in civic life, in education, in intellectual milieux. The logographos (professional speechwriter) and the conventions of universal oratorical proficiency. An analysis of two orations: Plato's Apology of Socrates and Lysias' first oration in their legal, political, cultural, and literary contexts. Parodies of Athenian civic participation in the litigation system, e.g. Aristophanes' Wasps. Legal procedure and the typology and structure of Athenian forensic literature. The concept of the hero from Achilles to Alexander the Great. The death scenes of Socrates in Plato Phaedo and of Alexander in Plutarch's Life of Alexander. Other narratives of Alexander in antiquity. Concluding remarks on Greekness and its heterogeneity as seen through the kaleidoscope of classical Greek literary sources. Required Reading: Plato, 'Phaedrus' myth of invention of writing; Homer Odyssey bks 6, 8, 11; Iliad bks 1, 18, 23; Homeric Hymn to Demeter; Hesiod Works and Days, selected passages from 'Theogony', Hymn to the Muses; Aeschylus 'Agamemnon'; Herodotus, 'Histories' proem and bk 1; selections of lyric poetry (handout); Plato, 'Protagoras' myth of Prometheus; short passages from 'Prometheus Bound' and Sophocles 'Antigone'; selection of passages from technical, medical and mathematical texts; Plato, 'Symposium', 'Apology; Lysias oration 1; Plato 'Phaedo' 114b-end; Plutarch page 4 / 5

5 Powered by TCPDF ( 'Life of Alexander'. Additional Reading Material: Course/Module evaluation: End of year written/oral examination 100 % Presentation 0 % Participation in Tutorials 0 % Project work 0 % Assignments 0 % Reports 0 % Research project 0 % Quizzes 0 % Other 0 % Additional information: page 5 / 5