Syllabus | Fall 2010
Required Texts
- Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Fagles (Penguin)
- Curd, ed., Presocratics Reader: Selected Fragments and Testimonia, trans. McKirahan (Hackett)
- Euripides, Euripides V: Electra, The Phoenician Women, The Bacchae, trans. Grene and Lattimore (Chicago)
- Euripides, Alcestis, Medea, The Heracleidae, Hippolytus, trans. Grene and Lattimore (Chicago)
- Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing (Hackett)
- Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Selincourt (Penguin)
- Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, and Shield, trans. Lombardo (Hackett)
- Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Fagles (Penguin)
- The Jewish Study Bible, A. Berlin (Oxford)
- Martin, Ancient Greece (Yale)
- Miller, Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation (Hackett)
- Sophocles, Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, trans. Grene and Lattimore (Chicago)
- The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, trans. Parkinson (Oxford)
- Thucydides, The Peloponnesian Wars, trans. Warner (Penguin)
- Various Readings on The Archaic Mediterranean and Western Asia available on e-reserves
E-Reserves
To access texts that are listed as being on e-reserves, find the day's reading assignments and follow the link to the text. You will need your kerberos username and password to be able to access the texts. Learn more about accessing e-reserves on Moodle.
Recommended Texts
Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Athens
Homer, The Iliad, trans. Lattimore (Chicago)
Williams and Colomb, The Craft of Argument (Concise Edition) (Chicago)
All texts may be purchased at the Reed College Bookstore; limited numbers of each are on reserve in Hauser Library. Also on reserve or in the reference section: Oxford Classical Dictionary; Oxford Companion to Classical Literature; Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I; Richard Lanham, Revising Prose.
Conference Assignments
The Registrar makes initial assignments to conferences in this course that continue through the year. Students who subsequently find it necessary to change conferences must petition the Humanities staff (forms for this purpose may be obtained from the Registrar or from Kathy Kennedy, Chem 303). Return completed forms to Elizabeth Drumm, chair of Hum 110, Vollum 304. No conference changes will be permitted after the second week of the term.
Papers, Writing Assignments, and Examinations
Four course-wide papers will be assigned, due at the times designated on the schedule of readings and lectures. If the due date for an assignment conflicts with a religious holiday or obligation that you wish to observe, please consult with your conference leader. A four-hour final examination for the fall semester will be given Thursday, December 16th – 8:00 am – noon in Vollum Lecture Hall. Rescheduling of the final exam will be allowed only for medical reasons.
Writing Center
You can get additional help with all stages of the writing process from the Writing Center located in the Dorothy Johansen House. Drop-in help from writing tutors is available Sunday – Thursday, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; additional hours will also be available during weeks that a paper is due (contact the Writing Center for more information).
Schedule of Readings and Lectures
The Archaic Mediterranean and Western Asia
Timeline for the texts covered this semester:
https://moodle.reed.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=21322
+ Expand Weeks | - Collapse Weeks
Week 1
Epic and Foundational Stories
Mon 30 Aug
Homer, The Odyssey
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Introduction to Homer and the Humanities" / Walter Englert
Wed 1 Sept
Homer, The Odyssey
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Perfect Strangers: Odysseus and the Mediterranean World" / Michael Faletra
Fri 3 Sept
Homer, The Odyssey;
Martin, Ancient Greece, chapters 2 and 3 (pp 16-50)
Lecture: "Conversations With Gods" / Paul Hovda
Week 2
Mon 6 Sept
Labor Day
Wed 8 Sept
Homer, The Odyssey
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "The Hero at Home?" / Elizabeth Drumm
Fri 10 Sept
"The Dialogue of a Man and his Soul" and "The Tale of Sinuhe," The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, pp. 21-53, 150-65;
Contest of Horus and Set, "Pyramid Texts," "Coffin Texts," The Book of the Dead, trans. Lichteim (on e- reserves);
"Coffin Text," trans. Simpson (on e-reserves);
Lloyd, "Chronology," Blackwell Companion to Ancient Egypt, pp. xxxii-xlv (on e-reserves)
Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "’Tomorrow is the Question’: The Egyptian View of Death" / Pancho Savery
FIRST PAPER DUE Saturday, Sept 11th at 5 p.m. View Paper Topics
Week 3
Mon 13 Sept
"Sinuhe" and "The Teachings of Khety," Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, pp. 21-53, 273-83
Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.
Frood, "Social structure and Daily Life: Pharaonic," Blackwell Companion to Ancient Egypt, pp. 469-89, (on e-reserves)
Lecture: "’The Barbarian Born in the Homeland’: Literature and the Symbolic Order of the Middle Kingdom" / Nigel Nicholson
Wed 15 Sept
"Karnak," Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (on e-reserves);
Morenz and Popko, "The Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom," Blackwell Companion to Ancient Egypt, pp. 101-19 (on e-reserves);
Spencer, "Priests and Temples: Pharaonic," Blackwell Companion to Ancient Egypt, pp. 255-73 (on e-reserves)
Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Monuments, Time and Power" / David Garrett
Fri 17 Sept
Genesis
Rosenberg, "Biblical Narrative" Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Text (on e-reserves);
Greenstein, "Biblical Law" Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Text (on e-reserves)
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "What Was The Bible For?" / Steve Wasserstrom
Week 4
Mon 20 Sept
Genesis
Lecture: "Sacrifice, Covenant and the Binding of Isaac" / Chris Roberts
Wed 22 Sept
Selections from Exodus (1-24, 32-35, 40.16-34)
Lecture: "Moses as a Nation Builder" / Tamara Metz
Thurs 23 Sept
Lecture: "Where Does (our) Religion Come From", Mark Griffith
5:30 p.m., Psych. 105
Didactic Literature
Fri 24 Sept
Book of Job
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "The Book of Job: Approaches, Contexts, Readings" / Marat Grinberg
Week 5
Mon 27 Sept
Hesiod, Theogony
Lecture: "Feeble, Ignorant, Ugly, and Smelly: Gods and Humans in Hesiod’s Theogony" / Sonia Sabnis
Wed 29 Sept
Hesiod, Works and Days;
Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 4 (pp. 51-69)
Lecture: "The World of Hesiod" / David Garrett
Fri 1 Oct
Presocratics Reader, pp 1-16;
Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought, 102-129 (on e-reserves)
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "The Presocratics and Religion" / Steve Arkonovich
Week 6
Mon 4 Oct
Presocratics Reader, pp 25-92
Lecture: "Parmenides and the Roots of Western Philosophy" / Paul Hovda
Material Culture
Wed 6 Oct
Hurwit, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 71-124 (on e-reserves)
Look at these slides before lecture & conference:
Mediterranean -- 2nd millennium BCE vases
Geometric vases
Black figure vases
Red/white figure vases
Additional Resource: Vase Study Guide
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "The Aesthetics of Urn Burial" / Robert Knapp
Fri 8 Oct
Hurwit, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 179-202 (on e-reserves);
Hall, "Ethnicity and Cultural Exchange," Blackwell Companion to Archaic Greece, chapter 31 (sections 1, 2, 3) (on e-reserves)
Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.
Lecture: "Fighting Over Art: Temples, Statues and Class in the 6th Century BCE" / Nigel Nicholson
SECOND PAPER DUE Saturday, October 9th, 5 p.m. View Paper Topics
Week 7
Lyric Poetry
Mon 11 Oct
Fowler, Love Lyrics of Ancient Egypt (selections) (on e-reserves);
Foster, Ancient Egyptian Literature (selections) (on e-reserves)
Lecture: "Reading the Genres of Egyptian Poetry" / Gabriele Hayden
Wed 13 Oct
Miller, Greek Lyric: Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Alcman, Solon, Stesichorus, Xenophanes (pp. 1-19, 31-38, 64-81, 107-111);
Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 5 (pp. 70-93)
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "How to Read Poetry and Why" / Marat Grinberg
Fri 15 Oct
Miller, Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation, Sappho (pp. 51-63), Theognis (pp. 82-94), Ibycus (pp. 95-98), Anacreon (pp. 99-103)
Lecture: "The Unspeakable Vice of the Greeks" / Jay Dickson
OCTOBER 16 – OCTOBER 24: FALL BREAK
Week 8
Selves and Others
Mon 25 Oct
Axworthy, "Origins: Zoroaster, the Achaemenids, and the Greeks," A History of Iran, 1-30 (on e-reserves);
Allen, "Royal Capitals," The Persian Empire, 59-85 (on e-reserves);
Royal inscriptions (selections), The Persian Empire, Kuhrt, ed., 70-74, 141-158, 492-495, 503-505 (on e-reserves)
Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.
Additional Resource: Supplemental images of Achaemenid Persia
Additional Resource: Bibliography for "Empire of All Kinds"
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Empire of All Kinds" / Margot Minardi
Wed 27 Oct
Hamblin and Seely, "Israelite Temples," Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History, 9-49 (on e-reserves);
Edelman, The Origins of the Second Temple, 332-351 (on e-reserves)
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Additional Resource: Supplemental images
Lecture: "The Second Temple in Jerusalem and Sacred Space" / Laura Leibman
Fri 29 Oct
Additional Resource: Maps
Additional Resource: Handout
The Book of Ezra & The Book of Esther;
Littman, "Athens, Persia, and the Book of Ezra" (on e-reserves)
Lecture: "Narratives and Identities: Jews in the Persian Empire" / Gail Sherman
Week 9
Mon 1 Nov
F. Lissarague, "The Athenian Image of the Foreigner", 101-24 (on e-reserves);
Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 6 (pp. 94-123)
Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.
Lecture: "Greece Meets Persia: Athens and the Invention of the Barbarian" / Ellen Millender
Wed 3 Nov
Aeschylus, The Persians (on e-reserves)
Lecture: "The Other Point of View" / Jay Dickson
Ostrow Lecture
Psych 105
4:45pm
"What do we owe to the past?"
Patricia Fortini Brown, Professor Emeritus of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University and Stephen E. Ostrow Distinguished Visitor in the Visual Arts
Required readings:
Patricia Fortini Brown, "Antique Fragments, Renaissance Eyes," Venice & Antiquity, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 75-92. (DG675.6 B7 1996) (on e-reserves);
Michael Kimmelman, "Who Draws the Border of Culture?," New York Times , May 4, 2010. (see website)
Fri 5 Nov
Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 1.1-1.170; 1.201-216
Additional Resource: Bibliography for "Oracular History and Athenian Empire"
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Oracular History and Athenian Empire" / Margot Minardi
Week 10
Mon 8 Nov
Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 2.1-64, 2.113-120, 2.164-182
Lecture: "Herodotus the Tourist: The Role of Ethnography in Herodotus’ Histories" / Ellen Millender
Wed 10 Nov
Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 3.1-38, 3.61-89, 5.55-6.140;
Reading: Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 7 (pp. 124-46)
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Herodotus: History and Narrative Form" / Maureen Harkin
Democracy and its Discontents
Fri 12 Nov
Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 7.1-153, 7.172-8.103, 9.114-122
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "On the Unity of Herodotus’ Histories" / Sonia Sabnis
THIRD PAPER DUE Saturday, November 13th, 5 p.m. View Paper Topics
Week 11
Mon 15 Nov
Aeschylus, "Agamemnon" and "The Libation Bearers," Oresteia
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Theater and Ritual" / Robert Knapp
Evening Concert: Ensemble – De Organographia – 7:00 p.m., Chapel
Wed 17 Nov
Aeschylus, "The Eumenides," Oresteia
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "Aeschylus and the Athenian Theater of Justice" / Michael Breen
Fri 19 Nov
Sophocles, Antigone
Lecture: "Antigone and Athenian Anxieties" / Tamara Metz
Week 12
Mon 22 Nov
Kousser, "Destruction and Memory on the Athenian Acropolis" (on e-reserves);
Castriota, "The Parthenon Frieze, Persia and the Athenian Empire," (on e-reserves)
Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "The Parthenon in Context" / William Diebold
Wed 24 Nov
Euripides, Medea
Additional Resource: Lecture Handout
Lecture: "The Problem with Being a Barbarian" / Ann Delehanty
NOVEMBER 25 – NOVEMBER 28: THANKSGIVING VACATION
Week 13
Mon 29 Nov
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Introduction, Bk/Ch. 1.1-146;
Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 8 (pp. 147-62)
Lecture: "Thucydides Book I: Athenian Ideology and the Construction of Sparta" / Ellen Millender
Wed 1 Dec
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Bk/Ch. 2.1-2.65
Lecture: "Law, Virtue, and the Problem of Democracy" / Michael Breen
Fri 3 Dec
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Bk/Ch. 3.1-3.85, 5.13-5.24, 5.83-5.116
Lecture: "Thucydides, the Sophists, and the Nature of Justice" / Walter Englert
FOURTH PAPER DUE Saturday, December 4th, 5 p.m. View Paper Topics
Week 14
Mon 6 Dec
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Bk/Ch. 6.1-6.41, 6.105-7.18, 7.49-7.87, 8.65-8.71, 8.96-98
Lecture: "The Limits of Democracy" / Robert Knapp
Wed 8 Dec
Euripides, The Bacchae
Lecture: "Possessed by Bacchus" / Elizabeth Drumm