Spring 2025 Course Offerings

In the decades leading up the American Civil War, the voices of the abolitionist movement grew so loud that southern intellectuals, planters, politicians, and others responded with a series of arguments intended to justify the practice and the nature of the “peculiar institution” of African slavery.  These arguments – from nature, from biblical and secular history, from law, from economics – continue to shape the ways in which we think about race, gender, and human diversity in the early twenty-first century.  In the nineteenth century, those who fought over the issue of human property used the past to justify their present practices in very self-conscious ways.  By contrast, in the early 21^st century, we seem to be far less aware of the ways in which our racial politics are shaped by our own peculiar past.  This course is an attempt to unearth the deep past of American racial discourse from the soil of history.  The ante-bellum South will provide our center of gravity – a vantage-point from which we will look back to antiquity and forward to the present.

This is an introduction to the history and cultures of the ancient empires of southwestern Asia, focusing on the period from the Assyrian and Persian Empires to the establishment of Islam (ca 900 BCE–ca 650 CE). What is an empire? Why have empires been so common in Eurasia in the last 4,000 years? How did they maintain themselves? How did they shape people’s lives and cultures and in turn were shaped by them? Did certain groups resist their incorporation into these larger entities, and if yes, why and how? Have empires brought peace and security or increased inequalities and facilitated exploitation? To engage with these large questions, students will examine case studies by learning how to use ancient primary sources critically. They will explore how theories affect the telling of ancient history and they will become acquainted with approaches in historical sociology. This training will also help students to be critical of modern appropriations of ancient history for political and other purposes.

Major topics include the formation of early states, the Assyrian and Persian empire, Alexander and the Hellenistic empires, the Parthian and Sasanian Persian empires and their rivalries with Rome, as well as the empires of Afghanistan and the kingdom of Armenia. Attention will also be paid to other forms of political and social organizations that may oppose imperial formations, such as the Nabataean and Palmyrene trade networks and the Maccabean rebels in Judea.

This seminar explores the flourishing world of medieval science and scientists in the Byzantine and Islamic empires and its roots in ancient Greek science. Scholars read and wrote books on astronomy, medicine, alchemy, and other subjects in a variety of changing social and political contexts. What was the nature of the relationship between science and empire, between knowledge and power, in Byzantium and the medieval Islamic world? How did specialized knowledge and its bearers serve, subvert, and complicate imperial agendas? What was science understood to entail, and to what end?

The course is designed for students interested in the history of science and/or Mediterranean and Middle Eastern empires. It introduces students to medieval Greek and Arabic science and its socio-political contexts, from roughly the 7th to the 12th century. Readings from primary sources (in translation) and modern scholarship will be analyzed and discussed with respect to several interrelated themes, including: narratives of the history of science, their modern and pre-modern political significance; science and translation; and knowledge in the service of empire.

This course continues the survey of Greek literature and culture from the late 5^th century to the Hellenistic period

Greek 120 is the first component of the introductory Greek sequence. In this class, students will be introduced to the basic elements of Ancient Greek grammar and syntax with a focus on the Attic dialect. Over the course of the semester, the emphasis will be on developing reading proficiency. To this end, students will gain experience translating Greek sentences and passages adapted from various Greek authors as well as composing their own sentences in Greek.

This course introduces Greek prose with a focus on Plato’s Apology and a review of Greek grammar.

This course will introduce you to the essentials of Latin grammar and vocabulary, with the ultimate goal of providing you with the ability to read, write, and translate Latin texts.  Over the course of the semester, we will explore Latin vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and pronunciation.  In addition, this course will include discussions of various aspects of Roman history and culture (such as literature, visual art, and religion). 

This course, building upon LAT 120, will continue your introduction to the essentials of Latin grammar and vocabulary, with the ultimate goal of providing you with the ability to read, write, and translate Latin texts  Over the course of the semester, we will explore Latin vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and pronunciation, with the aim of reading and translating original Latin texts in the final few weeks of the semester.  In addition, this course will include discussions of various aspects of Roman history and culture (such as literature, visual art, and religion).

Latin 222 is the third and final component of the introductory Latin sequence. Over the course of a semester, students will review grammar and strengthen skills fundamental to translating Latin. Additionally, students will swiftly advance beyond the “synthetic Latin” of the grammar-book and gain their first experiences with “Latin in the wild”. To achieve this end, we will read short pieces and excerpts from the unedited prose and poetry of various authors writing Latin during Rome’s Republican and early imperial period.