Thomas G Palaima

War and Violence: The Ancient Greek and Modern Western Experience

In the last twenty-five years, and perhaps beginning as early as the 1960’s, how we approach classical texts, history and culture and what questions we ask of them and want them to answer for us have changed radically.  It is also now a given within universities and colleges that classical scholars must bring their knowledge of the past to bear upon the contemporary interests and concerns of students and colleagues. Our interdisciplinary scholarship and our teaching across disciplines as classicists must be seriously engaged.

For the last twenty years, I have taught courses, written articles, reviews and commentary pieces, lectured widely and participated in scholarly and public seminars that have examined how human beings respond creatively and humanly to experiences of war and violence, including social violence between classes and groups. I have taught many different versions of junior seminars on ‘myths of war and violence’ and on ‘song as social criticism’ in the Plan II Honors Program and on ethics and principles of leadership for Undergraduate Studies. I have also given seminars on war and Homer at the Smithsonian Institution and participated in Aquila Theater’s Ancient Greeks / Modern Lives project directed at veterans and their families in New York, Austin and Los Angeles.

This work has ethical, moral, psychological, sociological and cultural dimensions and it also addresses major questions such as:

• “Why Do Wars Begin?”—and will they ever end?—;
• What is the nature of courage in different social and historical contexts?
• How do human societies inculcate and reinforce codes of behavior, including the fundamental requirement to convince young men (and now women) to fight and kill and risk being killed for objectives that their leaders set?
• How do soldiers and civilians respond to ‘news of war’ and what kinds of news and information do they get?
• How are ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined and how are widely accepted definitions called into question by actions taken during wars?
• How are ethical and moral systems constructed and maintained?
• How are wars and acts of violence processed by human beings, written or sung about,  and taken in, wholly, in part or not at all, by different social groups?
• Through time, ancient to modern, what are the common features and concerns of those who express ideas or feelings about wars, social injustices and violent acts?
• What is the nature of ‘justice’ in societies and how and why is injustice tolerated?
• What are the aesthetics of human expression about war and violence, i.e., what makes forms of expression effective or even tolerable in certain periods and distinctive enough to last?

The aim of this course is to make us more familiar with current areas of interest and current thinking about these important questions, while reading relevant key passages from Greek sources (epic and lyric poetry, drama and history).  We will also read significant contemporary primary and secondary literature and look at connections between the themes of classical writing on war and of literature, blues and folk songs and films in the late nineteenth to early twenty-first centuries.

In this version of the course we shall be looking at selections from and critical questions about Homer, Iliad Books 1, 2, 6, 9, 16, 18, 22 and 24; Hesiod, Works and Days and Theogony; Euripides, Medea and Trojan Women; Aeschylus, Agamemnon; the poetry of Tyrtaeus, Archilochus, and Callinus; Herodotus Book 1; and Thucydides.

Modern authors whose works may be examined include: Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, e.e. cummings, Erich Maria Remarque, Sigmund Freud, George Orwell, Rolando Hinojosa Smith, Charles Neider, Tim O’Brien, Jonathan Shay, Bill Broyles, Jr., Larry Tritle, Leon Golden, Kevin Herbert, E.B. Sledge, Studs Terkel, Paul Fussell, Horton Foote, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Herr, Seymour Hersh, Chris Hedges, James Dawes, Meir Solaveichik, Charles Patterson, Yehuda Amichai, Naomi Nye, Terence Rattigan, Viktor Frankl, William Faulkner.  We will also pay attention to blues and folk masters.

We shall in all cases discuss historical context, the purpose of accounts being presented as they were, and later interpretations and influence of the selections we are studying.

The course will emphasize close and accurate reading of the texts; the backgrounds and purposes of the authors; understanding of cultural concepts and contexts; the human meaning and values conveyed in masterworks of the human spirit; and the process of human creativity. 

We shall try to make use of and become familiar with resources in the Humanities Research Center.

In seminar meetings we shall discuss what particular works mean and how they convey their meaning and what their relationship is to other works in a long cultural tradition. There will be ample opportunity for the interests of individual students.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

This course is an introduction to reading ancient Greek - the language of some of the world’s oldest and best loved writings, including Homer, Herodotus, Plato, and the New Testament. We will cover enough basic grammar and vocabulary for you to begin reading short passages from a wide range of ancient Greek writers.

Greek 506 is the first half of a two-semester sequence that continues with Greek 507 and prepares students to advance to Intermediate Greek (GK 311 and 312), where students read selected works by authors like Plato and Homer.

Grades will be based on participation, homework, weekly quizzes, and four tests (three midterms and a final).

How many thoughts in your life have you given to war and to violence? Do you know them? Are they your friends? Your enemies?

How would you talk about, explain, remember or forget violence or killing that you had witnessedor experienced? What forms does violence take in human societies and subgroups of society? If violence is exerting some kind of force against targets, what are the targets and what are the consequences of so acting? How do societies decide to use violence? How do they absorb it when they do? Are civilization and violence partners?Practitioner and tool?Enemies?Fantasy and bad dream?

We speak of war. In the formation of early cultures and states one speaks of “the monopolization oflegitimate violence and the manipulation of ideology.”How does that strike you?

How did ancient Greek culture and 20th-into-21st century British and American and European cultures deal with the concepts and realities of violence and warfare? Was World War I ‘the war to end all wars’? Why was it thought to be so? What does war mean to you now? What violence do you know?

How do the Old and New Testaments address the human experience of violence and war?

Do we know whatevil is? Did it evenexist as a concept in the world BCE? How do we use the word now?

How do we now approach, grasp, convey and understand the realities of war in an age of rapid, even instantaneous communication?in an age when war is highly mechanized and fought with drones?

Do war and violence have truths or'realities'that we can learn andget to know? If not, what are there? Of what use are stories, descriptions, images and discussions ofwar and violence? Who needs them? Why havethem? Whyread, look at,listen toor think aboutthem? What have we done, what do we do and what will we do with them or with other ways of communicating acts of war and violence?

In this version of the course, in this time of Covid-19, and BLM and other, in some ways, terrifying forms of social unrest and discontentment, I am changing the design of the course considerablyand late in the game. I want us to explore together what ‘stories’ of war and violence are and what they meanin our lives as Americans in the year 2020. We are going to look at the start of the semester at the assassination of John F. Kennedy and specifically at a masterwork of social song-poem performance, Bob Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul”. We will follow that with a look at racist hate crimescommitted in the 1950’s and 1960’s.We will look also at pervasive violence done against the working class, especially virulent during the age of when unions organized against repressive measures of owners.

I have been exploring the fact of human violencefor almost 30years now in Plan 2 and graduate seminarsand secondarily in other courses on history or on Bob Dylan.I have also had into these coursesmany firsthand practitioners,victims and dedicated healers of war and violence (often one and the same persons) and others who take seriously what all forms of war and violence do to us and many who try to address its effects.

Thespecific explanation of the natureof the stories is going to be our focus throughout.

We shall also keep in mind throughout the following essential questions.

How is violence used, controlled, encouraged, punished, experienced, remembered and explained by different societies and by individuals within those societies? War is one form of state-sanctioned violence. What effects, short-term and long-term, does the experience of violence have on people and how do they use what we call 'myths' (a shorthand for different forms of 'story-telling' and expression) to deal with those effects? How and why does languageor image-makingfail us when we try to make sense of violence?

We shall consider these questions while reading, viewing and discussing a range of mythic forms.There will be some considerable focus on poetry and songand image (photography) and essays and short storiesand films.

For the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries:

—poetry and prose, both fiction (historical and parable-form novels) and non-fiction (including biography, memoir, oral history, journalistic essays, commentary essays and critical/analytical studies), although we will see that the boundaries here blur;

—music and film (including what is called documentary).We will be paying attention in one class to Bob Dylan, “Murder Most Foul” about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

—some psychoanalytic and psychological studies and essays.

-we will also look at images, mostly photographic, showing human beings suffering the effects of different forms of violence.

From the ancient Greek period, we shall look in a fewmeetings at Homer. We shall also be looking at the outset at one biblical passage and at later works dealing with biblical themes.

I have broad and deep training in ancient Greek language, literature, archaeology and culture and have studied, taught and written about war and violence for almost three decades. I havedeep and special personal and public intellectual interests in how and why stories about war and violence in many different forms (including folk songs from time out of mind to the presentand the music of Bob Dylan) are created and used by human beings as individuals and in larger or smaller collective groups.

Let’s try to work towards havingthoughtabout the many different aspects of one of the most important issues in our personal and collective human experience. This is our main goal and not an easy one.

I hope that all of us will explore together these myths and ideas. Let us try to understand better how they are related to basic human psychological and social needs, and improve our abilities to think critically about the nature of violence (state-sanctioned in war and otherwise enacted), how violence affects individuals directly and indirectly, and what it does to the communities, small and large, in which human beings, like ourselves, live.

I always strongly emphasize getting you as students to interact with scholars who are on the front lines in reporting on, studying and representing the problems and issues that affect human beings who have been involved in violent experiences. In this time of Covid-19, this may be difficult, but we may accomplish thisvia Zoom.

Booksthat will be available at the UT Coop(subject to change):

1. 9781578062478–William Bradford Huie,Three Lives for Mississippirequired
2. 9780525534730 –Chris Arnade, Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row Americarequired
3. 9780872203525 –Stanley Lombardo, trans., The Iliad -required
4. 9780618706419 –Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried–required
5. 9780826321930 –Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip–required
6. 9780996747332–Ovidio Garcia, My War, My Art–requiredhttp://mcmbooks.com/store-2/#!/My-War-My-Art/p/222462967/
7. 9780965185875 -Charles Patterson, The Petrified Heart : Vietnam War Poetry -optional
8. 9780803272590 -Ernest Hemingway -Complete Poems-optional
9. 9780812974881 -Paul Fussell, The Boys’ Crusade: The American Infantryin NW Europe–optional
10.9780544570320–David Morris, The Evil Hours–optional
11. 9780802126962 –Don McCullin, Unreasonable Behavior -optional
12. 9780773600836 –Don McCullin, Hearts of Darkness –optional

Course Requirements and Grading(subject to change depending on covid-period instruction strategies)

During the semester, you will be required to write two longer papers:

(1) a first paperof 6-8 pages (1500-2000 word)due October 1and

(2)a second paperof6-8pages(1500-2000words)due November 5and

(3) afilm response2-3 pages (500-750 word) ‘response’ to a film we have watched in the class.

(4) review of images and image diary
You will also over the course of the semester ‘read’images (and text) onyour owninMichael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Tripand Chris Arnade’s Dignity. Looking, looking, looking at the photographs in both books and at the photographs of Don McCullin in https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/may/17/don-mccullin-greatest-photos-in-picturesand in these six series https://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/artists/29-don-mccullin/series/and any other related materials we have encountered.And you will be keeping a weekly ‘diary’ of images observed and how they affect you.You will write up a critique of 6pages (1500words due along with your image diary on December 3) that‘reviews’ (compares and contrasts or picks out common features of) the perspectives on social violencein these images in view ofwhat we have covered in the course in weeks 1-13.You may be very personal here. We will discuss your reactions in our last class 12 03.

There are three other course requirements:

(5) ‘leading discussion’in one class.

This means thatyou will think seriously ahead of timeabout the subjectsand reading, viewing or listening materialsfor the class meeting you choose; then you will write upwhat you consider to be main points and questions for discussion preferably in a Power Point that you have submitted to me by 6 PM on the day before our class meets, at the latest9 AM on the day itself. Thisisto be posted on Canvasand used to promoteclass discussion.

(6) keeping class notesonce or twice.
This is a serious and beneficial practice. I would like to have your class notes by Monday at noon.

(7) regular participationmandatory.

Course grade:
(1)first paper 20%
(2) second paper 20%,
(3) film response paper10%
(4) ‘review’of images and image diary20%
(5)class discussion leading 10%
(6) class notes 10%
(7) class andcourse participation 10%.
NO FINAL EXAM.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

C C 383 Studies in Classical Civilization:

Studies in various aspects of Greek and Roman literature, history, and culture.

How many thoughts in your life have you given to war and to violence? Do you know them? Are they your friends? Your enemies? 

How would you talk about, explain, remember or forget violence or killing that you had witnessed or experienced? What forms does violence take in human societies and subgroups of society? If violence is exerting some kind of force against targets, what are the targets and what are the consequences of so acting?  How do societies decide to use violence? How do they absorb it when they do? Are civilization and violence partners? practitioner and tool? Enemies? fantasy and bad dream?

How did ancient Greek culture and 20^th-into-21st century British and American and European cultures deal with the concepts and realities of violence and warfare?  Was World War I ‘the war to end all wars’? Why was it thought to be so? What does war mean to you now? What violence do you know?

How do the Old and New Testaments address the human experience of violence and war?

Do we know what evil is?  Did it even exist as a concept in the world BCE? How do we use the word now?

How do we now approach, grasp, convey and understand the realities of war in an age of rapid, even instantaneous communication? in an age when war is highly mechanized and fought with drones?

Do war and violence have truths or 'realities' that we can learn and get to know? If not, what are there? Of what use are stories, descriptions, images and discussions of war and violence? Who needs them? Why have them? Why read, look at, listen to or think about them? What have we done, what do we do and what will we do with them or with other ways of communicating acts of war and violence?

In this version of the course, I want us to explore together what ‘stories’ of war and violence are and what they mean. This is an enormous topic and we will concentrate on a sample of particulars, like the excerpts from knowing individuals that are quoted above.

I have been exploring this for almost 30 years now in Plan 2 and graduate seminars and secondarily in other courses on history or on Bob Dylan. I have also had into these courses many firsthand practitioners, victims and dedicated healers of war and violence (often one and the same persons) and others who take seriously what all forms of war and violence do to us and many who try to address its effects.

The specific explanation of the natureof the stories is going to be our focus throughout.

We shall also keep in mind throughout the following essential questions.

How is violence used, controlled, encouraged, punished, experienced, remembered and explained by different societies and by individuals within those societies? War is one form of state-sanctioned violence. What effects, short-term and long-term, does the experience of violence have on people and how do they use what we call 'myths' (a shorthand for different forms of 'story-telling' and expression) to deal with those effects? How and why does language or image-making fail us when we try to make sense of violence?

We shall consider these questions while reading, viewing and discussing a range of mythic forms. There will be some considerable focus on poetry and song and image and essays and short stories.

 For the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries:

—poetry and prose, both fiction (historical and parable-form novels) and non-fiction (including biography, memoir, oral history, journalistic essays, commentary essays and critical/analytical studies), although we will see that the boundaries here blur;

—music and film (including what is called documentary). We will be paying special attention to Bob Dylan, “Murder Most Foul” about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We will also examine the assassination of Martin Luther King.

—some psychoanalytic and psychological studies and essays.

From the ancient Greek period, we shall look in some our meetings at Homer and perhaps at Euripides. We shall also be looking at biblical passages and at later works dealing with biblical themes.

Let’s try to work towards havingthoughtabout the many different aspects of one of the most important issues in our personal and collective human experience. This is our main goal and not an easy one.

Texts/Readings:

Books that will be available at the UT Coop (subject to change):

1. 9780872203525 – Stanley Lombardo, trans., The Iliad - required
2. 9780618706419 – Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried- required
3. 9780965185875 -Charles Patterson, The Petrified Heart : Vietnam War Poetry - required
4. 9780803272590 - Ernest Hemingway - Complete Poems- required
5. 9780812974881 - Paul Fussell, The Boys’ Crusade: The American Infantry in NW Europe– required
6. 978-0544570320 – David Morris, The Evil Hours– required
7. 9780826321930 – Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip– required
8. 9780802126962 – Don McCullin, Unreasonable Behavior ‑ required

Books that I will try to make available:

9.9780773600836 – Don McCullin, Hearts of Darkness – optional

Course Requirements  

During the semester, you will be required to write two longer papers: (1) a first paper of 6-8 (1500-2000 word) pages and (2)a second paper of 8-10 pages (2000-2500 word) and (3) 2-3 pages (500-750 word) ‘response’ to a film we have watched in the class. (4) You will also over the course of the semester ‘read’ on your own Paul Fussell, The Boys’ Crusade; David Morris, The Evil Hours; and several selected essays about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

You will write up a critique of 4 pages (1000 words) that ‘reviews’ (compares and contrasts or picks out common features of) the perspectives on war stories offered by these books in light of what we have covered in the course in weeks 1-12.

There are three other course requirements:

(5) ‘leading discussion’ in at least one class. This means that you will think seriously ahead of time about the subject and reading, viewing of listening materials for the class meeting you choose; then you will write up what you consider to be main points and questions for discussion in a 1-2 page handout. This is to be posted on Canvas and used to promote class discussion.

(6) keeping class notes once or twice. This is a serious and beneficial practice. (7) regular participation mandatory.

 In the anticipated last weeks (8)a collaborative look at “Murder Most Foul”. 

Course grade: (1)first paper 20%, (2) second paper 20%, (3) film response paper 10%,  (4) critical ‘review’10%, (5)class discussion leading 10%, (6) class notes 10%, (7) class and course participation 10%,(8)collaborative look at “Murder Most Foul” NO FINAL EXAM.

Human cultures and societies desire stability and generally aim to perpetuate their existing power structures and values. For this reason critical commentary is often suppressed, marginalized or co-opted. Yet social criticism can also be tolerated in frankly surprising ways within songs and poetic traditions, especially when written by geniuses within epic, lyric, folk and blues traditions. In this course, we will look at the songs written and performed by Bob Dylan and the songs of others that he has chosen to perform in concert in nearly six decades in their social and historical contexts. We will investigate how Dylan makes what is real felt. Dylan from the start omnivorously consumed and assimilated songs, poems, novels, histories, and newspapers, contemporary and past. He has tapped into the songs of traditions as diverse as British, Scottish, Irish, Appalachian, Piedmont and Ozark folk traditions and been influenced by artists as wide-ranging as the Mississippi Sheiks, Martin Carthy, the Stanley Brothers, Blind Willie McTell, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, and Woody Guthrie. Critic Sean Willentz observes, "Dylan's writing a different kind of art. He...had th[e] ability to...enter into lots of different people's brains and souls and see them in collision." Absorbing Dylan's songs and what inspired them expands our humanity and develops our capacities for sympathy, empathy and compassion for others.

Myths accompanied Greek and Roman culture as a constant from the pre-literate era before the Homeric epics through the hyper-literary myths of the Roman period. These myths helped the ancient Greeks and Romans to make sense of their world and to address issues with regard to religion, philosophy, and even early attempts at natural science. In different forms, myths still inform our understanding of the world, and Classical mythology in particular has continued to influence western art and literature up to the present day. This class begins with an examination of the Greek understanding of the creation of the world, the pantheon of gods, and the creation of humanity. Time will also be spent on the origins of Greek mythology, looking to the mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, which have influenced Greek thought. Throughout the course attention will be given to particular gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines and the myths which surround them in both the Greek and Roman traditions.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

Continuation of Greek 507. Introductory readings from classical authors such as Lysias, Plato, and Xenophon. Includes grammar review.

Description:

How would you talk about, explain, remember or forget violence or killing that you had witnessed, experienced, or done? How did ancient Greek culture and late-19th and 20th-into-21st century British and American cultures deal with the concepts and realities of violence and warfare?  How do we now approach the realities of war in an age of email, YouTube and other forms of rapid communication? 

How is violence used, controlled, encouraged, punished, experienced, remembered and explained by different societies and by individuals within those societies?  What effects, short-term and long-term, does the experience of violence have on people and how do they use what we call 'myths' (a shorthand for different forms of 'story-telling') to deal with those effects?  How does language fail us when we try to make sense of violence.

We shall consider these questions while reading, viewing and discussing a range of mythic forms: for the 19th-20th and now 21st century: poetry and prose: fiction (historical and parable-form novels) and non-fiction (including biography, memoir, oral history, journalistic essays, and critical/analytical studies), music and film (including documentary); psychoanalytic and psychological studies and essays. 

 We shall look at (1) modern accounts of war and atrocity and serious discussions of what these accounts mean; (2) the earliest literate western culture and how it dealt with these same phenomena: ancient Greek culture and Homer, Thucydides and Euripides.

 We shall then consider how myths are constructed in reaction to war and violence and how they deal with important social concepts: the human capacity for good and evil, truth, law, justice and injustice, idealism and pragmatism.

Professor Tom Palaima is an ancient historian and specialist in how and why stories in many different forms about war and violence are created and used by individuals. He hopes that all participants will explore these myths actively, understand how they are related to basic human psychological and social needs, and develop better their abilities to think critically about the nature of violence (state-sanctioned in war and otherwise enacted), how violence affects individuals directly and indirectly, and what it does to the communities, small and large, in which human beings, like ourselves, live.

Readings:

Homer, The Iliad (Lombardo translation)

Euripides, The Trojan Women

T. O’Brien, The Things They Carried

E. Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls. 

[MAIN READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

A course booklet or on-line selections from some of the following: Book of Genesis, the sacrifice of Isaac; S. Freud, “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death” (1915) and “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917); J. Shay, Achilles in Vietnam; Thucydides, On Justice Power and Human Nature; A. Lincoln “Gettysburg Address”; Robert F. Kennedy, speech on the death of Martin Luther King; S. Crane The Red Badge of Courage; S. Sassoon and W. Owen, selected poems; P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory; The Boys' Crusade; K. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five; Martin Wangh, “A Psychogenic Factor in the Recurrence of War” (1968) and “National Socialism and the Genocide of the Jews” (1964); Bessel van der Kolk, “Posttraumatic Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience” (2002); S. Hersh, My Lai 4, A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath; M. Herr, Dispatches; B. Edelman, ed., Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Wallace Terry, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans; Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip and The Forbidden Zone; S. Terkel, The Good War; Ricardo Ainslie, Long Dark Road; L. Dahmer, A Father’s Story; James Dawes, Evil Men (forthcoming); S. Peebles, Welcome to the Suck; selected journalism and photojournalism; additional selected war poetry and essays by Whitman, Amichai, Hinojosa Smith, Patterson, Jarrell, Hemingway; etc.

S. Hersh’s original My Lai stories: http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm  [SELECTED READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

Film viewing from among: Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Little Dieter Needs to Fly; Tattooed Under Fire; Restrepo; Regeneration, Jarhead, Apocalypse Now. [FILMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

Music: Selections of War Music: 1. Steve Earle "Rich Man's War" (Iraq, Afghanistan); 2. Richie Havens, "Handsome Johnny" (historical sweep from Revolutionary War to civil rights movement); 3. Richie Havens, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Civil War); 4. Bob Dylan, "John Brown" (unspecified); 5. Blind Willie Johnson, "When the War Was On" (WW I); 6. Woody Guthrie, "Sinking of the Reuben James" (WW II); 7. Perry Como, "Dig You Later (A Hubba-Hubba-Hubba) (WW II); 8. Townes van Zandt, "Ballad of Ira Hayes" (WW II); 9. Sunnyland Slim, "Back to Korea Bluees" (Korean War); 10. Bob Dylan & Mark Knopfler, "Clean Cut Kid" studio session (Vietnam War); 11. Bob Dylan, "Masters of War" Gerdes Feb. 1963 (Cold War period, unspecified); 12. Bob Dylan, "Masters of War" Berlin 2002 (unspecified); 13. J.B. Lenoir, "Veitnam (sic) Blues) (Vietnam War); 14. Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Fortunate Son" (Vietnam War period); 15. Todd Snider, "Fortunate Son"; 16. Johnny Cash, "Drive On" (Vietnam War veterans); 17. Willie Nelson, "Jimmy's Road" (Vietnam War); 18. Bruce Springsteen, "Devils and Dust" (Iraq and Afghanistan); 19. Emily Kaitz, "It's Not Enough to Give Our Love" (general); 20. Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA" (Vietnam veterans).

Requirements:  

One six-page paper  (20%) 

One twelve page paper (30%)                      

three 2-page film responses (20%)

one or two sets of notes of class meetings  (10%)       

discussion leading with a polished handout and a written retrospective (20%)

Students will volunteer to lead discussion during class meetings. One student will write up a summary of discussion for circulation later in the class. We expect ready volunteers.

Films are viewed outside of normal class meetings.  Students are required to read texts carefully, view films critically, and hear and feel what music conveys. All these forms of myth raise questions about the human response to the act of killing another human being and the mythic recovery, presentation and preservation of particular or universal memories of violence.  Students are encouraged in both papers, but especially the second, to bring their outside interests, readings, and film viewings to bear upon the topics and material in this course. We shall also learn about forms of social violence and power.  But we aim to learn most about the human heart and mind. Attempts are made to bring distinguished visitors in for discussion.

About the Instructor:

Professor Palaima, a Macarthur fellow,  has lectured, written and taught extensively on the subjects of ancient writing systems, the reconstruction of ancient culture, decipherment theory, Greek language, war and violence studies, music as social commentary and Bob Dylan. He is a regular contributor of editorials to the Austin American-Statesman and a regular reviewer and occasional feature writer for the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Texas Observer. He teaches this course so that all involved, including himself, can see human life more clearly.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

War and Violence: The Ancient Greek and Modern Western Experience

In the last twenty-five years, and perhaps beginning as early as the 1960’s, how we approach classical texts, history and culture and what questions we ask of them and want them to answer for us have changed radically.  It is also now a given within universities and colleges that classical scholars must bring their knowledge of the past to bear upon the contemporary interests and concerns of students and colleagues. Our interdisciplinary scholarship and our teaching across disciplines as classicists must be seriously engaged.

For the last twenty years, I have taught courses, written articles, reviews and commentary pieces, lectured widely and participated in scholarly and public seminars that have examined how human beings respond creatively and humanly to experiences of war and violence, including social violence between classes and groups. I have taught many different versions of junior seminars on ‘myths of war and violence’ and on ‘song as social criticism’ in the Plan II Honors Program and on ethics and principles of leadership for Undergraduate Studies. I have also given seminars on war and Homer at the Smithsonian Institution and participated in Aquila Theater’s Ancient Greeks / Modern Lives project directed at veterans and their families in New York, Austin and Los Angeles.

This work has ethical, moral, psychological, sociological and cultural dimensions and it also addresses major questions such as:

• “Why Do Wars Begin?”—and will they ever end?—;
• What is the nature of courage in different social and historical contexts?
• How do human societies inculcate and reinforce codes of behavior, including the fundamental requirement to convince young men (and now women) to fight and kill and risk being killed for objectives that their leaders set?
• How do soldiers and civilians respond to ‘news of war’ and what kinds of news and information do they get?
• How are ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined and how are widely accepted definitions called into question by actions taken during wars?
• How are ethical and moral systems constructed and maintained?
• How are wars and acts of violence processed by human beings, written or sung about,  and taken in, wholly, in part or not at all, by different social groups?
• Through time, ancient to modern, what are the common features and concerns of those who express ideas or feelings about wars, social injustices and violent acts?
• What is the nature of ‘justice’ in societies and how and why is injustice tolerated?
• What are the aesthetics of human expression about war and violence, i.e., what makes forms of expression effective or even tolerable in certain periods and distinctive enough to last?

The aim of this course is to make us more familiar with current areas of interest and current thinking about these important questions, while reading relevant key passages from Greek sources (epic and lyric poetry, drama and history).  We will also read significant contemporary primary and secondary literature and look at connections between the themes of classical writing on war and of literature, blues and folk songs and films in the late nineteenth to early twenty-first centuries.

In this version of the course we shall be looking at selections from and critical questions about Homer, Iliad Books 1, 2, 6, 9, 16, 18, 22 and 24; Hesiod, Works and Days and Theogony; Euripides, Medea and Trojan Women; Aeschylus, Agamemnon; the poetry of Tyrtaeus, Archilochus, and Callinus; Herodotus Book 1; and Thucydides.

Modern authors whose works may be examined include: Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, e.e. cummings, Erich Maria Remarque, Sigmund Freud, George Orwell, Rolando Hinojosa Smith, Charles Neider, Tim O’Brien, Jonathan Shay, Bill Broyles, Jr., Larry Tritle, Leon Golden, Kevin Herbert, E.B. Sledge, Studs Terkel, Paul Fussell, Horton Foote, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Herr, Seymour Hersh, Chris Hedges, James Dawes, Meir Solaveichik, Charles Patterson, Yehuda Amichai, Naomi Nye, Terence Rattigan, Viktor Frankl, William Faulkner.  We will also pay attention to blues and folk masters.

We shall in all cases discuss historical context, the purpose of accounts being presented as they were, and later interpretations and influence of the selections we are studying.

The course will emphasize close and accurate reading of the texts; the backgrounds and purposes of the authors; understanding of cultural concepts and contexts; the human meaning and values conveyed in masterworks of the human spirit; and the process of human creativity. 

We shall try to make use of and become familiar with resources in the Humanities Research Center.

In seminar meetings we shall discuss what particular works mean and how they convey their meaning and what their relationship is to other works in a long cultural tradition. There will be ample opportunity for the interests of individual students.

Greek mythology is mainly a public performance literature embedded in a still primarily oral culture. Ancient Greek mythmakers (the word muthosmeans simply “something uttered,” i.e., what we call a “story”) used their stories in public settings to make sense of their world and to entertain, instruct, ask questions and provoke discussion among people who lived mainly in “continual fear and danger of violent death, [in historical periods when] the life of man [was] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Thomas Hobbes).

Among these myths are top-ten all-time stories about the ironies and savagery, honor and costs of war (Iliad, Trojan Women); about exotic adventure, the dangers of travels on the seas, and difficult homecomings (the Odyssey); about the creation of the world and the generations of the gods who hold the most power within it (Theogony); about hard work, hardships, injustice, political outrage,  divine cruelty and why bad things happen in the world (Works and Days); about war, murder, justice and vengeance (Agamemnon); about incest, voyeurism, attempted and actual child murder and fate (Oedipus Tyrannus and Bacchae); about politics, religion, family obligations and morality (Antigone); about passion, betrayal, fame, middle-aged anxiety, cross-cultural isolation, vengeance and infanticide (Medea); about detective fiction, fate and hubris (Oedipus Tyrannus). As always, “sex, violence, action and mystery sell.”

The Greeks also used music and dance in mythic presentation. Compare modern opera, music videos, folk and blues music, YouTube. We'll compare the Book of Genesis with Greek creation myths and give some look at modern war literature and modern music.

THIS COURSE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR YOU ONLY TO LEARN THE BASIC STORIES OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY. IT IS DESIGNED TO GET YOU TO THINK ABOUT HOW THE REALITIES OF HUMAN LIVES ARE REFLECTED IN LONG-LASTING MYTHS AND WHY THEY ARE.

In this course we shall read and discuss the great Greek myths in four ways:

(1) to become familiar with them and how they worked within their culture;

(2) to appreciate and enjoy them as great, but accessible works of the human mind, in many cases the first such inventions in the history of human beings;

(3) to understand how they worked as tools to explain the world and what most concerned and confused human beings about their lives.

(4) to discuss what they mean for us and our problems—this is, after all, why they still survive.

I will use modern, but not necessarily contemporary, parallels suggested by my activities as a commentary writer, general book reviewer, and student of the human experience of war and violence and how human beings come to terms with the meaning of life and death. You are invited to think about and propose your own. I will try to remember to ask at the beginning of every class if there are any questions. If I do not, raise your hand anyway if you have a question or observation.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Studying ancient Greek history gives us the chance to view in microcosm all the variablesthat affect the course of history at other times in other places. We can see human beings and human societies at their best and worst, understand how power works in human societies, weigh decisions and outcomes and how they are made, observe different kinds of political and economic systems, and consider how cultural values are shaped and what influence they have on what human beings do. We shall study the origins of democracy and de-mystify what ancient democracy was. The history of Greece is also a history of warfare and competition. This course surveys Greek history from the palatial period of the late Bronze Age through the ‘Dark Ages’ and the 'polis' period to the rise of Macedonia.

We shall first look at the geography of Greece and how that affects cultural developments. We always want to ask, “What was it like to be alive in these times and places? How did these historical actors (named and anonymous) live within their world?”

We shall also puzzle over how to interpret the often very uneven and very peculiar evidence for the social, political and economic systems that develop in different districts of Greece in 'prehistoric' and historical times.

Throughout we shall be making use of Herodotus, the father of history, and Thucydides, the father of scientific history, as (1)  cultural texts and documents; (2) as insights into the behaviors of human beings and societies in times of crisis and stress; and (3) as inventors of the discipline of history and experimenters with how it is best practiced. We shall also read excerpts from authors like Homer and Hesiod (epic poetry of two different kinds), Solon, Tyrtaeus, Callinus and Archilochus (social song poets), Plutarch (ancient biography), and Greek tragedians.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

In this course we shall spend some time at the start learning the basics of the Linear B script and then quickly turn to topics in Mycenaean culture and society that are important for understanding the Mycenaean palatial period, its connections with other contemporary cultures, and the cultural ideas and ideologies that influence and/or continue into later historical Greek culture. We shall rely on both textual and archaeological (and iconographical) evidence.  Topics, depending on the interests of those enrolled, may include: (1) feasting and other communal ritual practices, like sacrifice, libations and offerings; (2) war and violence; (3) power and power figures; (4) economy and the mobilization of labor; (5) Mycenaean religion (deities and other metaphysical notions: where they come from and where they go); (6) palatial kingdoms and polis territories; (7) trade; (8) scripts and the effects of writing in society; (9) ethnicity; (10) music and the social functions of oral poetry. We shall stress where such topics go, if anywhere, in later historical Greek cultures.

During the last six weeks of the semester, we shall have as a distinguished visiting scholar Vassilis Petrakis, the foremost Mycenologist in Greece.  Among the topics that Dr. Petrakis imagines taking up are the following. Again, these can change to meet the interests of participants.

Seminar 1: The origins of Mycenaean civilization, including the basic notion that 'Mycenaean' describes a culture and that 'Mycenaeans' are not a single people, the MH background (incl. the rich Kolonna burial) and the necessary Minoan boost, developments in arts/ crafts; lack of Mainland literacy and/or administrations at this point; emphasis on mortuary investment (Shaft Graves; rich Messenian tholoi etc)

Seminar 2: The genesis of the palace system: emphasis on LH IIB-IIIA1, incl. much discussion about what is going on at Knossos and Khania at the moment (warrior graves, the preservation of the Knossos palace in its basic plan; tholoi on Crete; the LM II-IIIA1 arts and crafts). Possibility of RCT being LM II-IIIA1 in date, perhaps first traces of administration on Mainland too by IIIA1 (Iklaina; Ayios Vasileios???). Reference to the Minoan component in political ideology (AND kingship), and to the fact that Minoan input is a sine qua non for the Mycenaean palace system in general.

Seminars 3-4: The palatial era: how the system worked, regional differences (important), eclectic control of regional economies (and knowledge about the all-important non-palatial sector), what the tablets tell us about the political economies; basic topics on warfare, economy, trade and foreign contacts (brief mention of warfare and foreign contacts will have been made in previous seminars 1-2 as well). Palatial crafts (very briefly on wall-paintings, minor arts). Emphasis on the overall uniformity of palace culture as opposed to strong Early Mycenaean regionalism (esp. LH I-IIA)

Seminar 5: Palatial collapse and postpalatial developments (evidence for active manipulation of palatial recollections, e.g. Building T in Tiryns; the rise of pictorial pottery as a medium to replace wall-paintings). Return to regionalism and break of trade routes; the positive/ negative sides of the palace system (the 'Cui bono?' question). Finally, the historicity of Homeric material.

Participants will then go away with a strong framework and a detailed understanding of what the Mycenaean palatial period was and what it meant in and to later Greek culture and tradition, including the poems of Homer and Hesiod.  This course can be taken without knowing or even caring to know Linear B.

Instructors: Thomas Palaima, Professor, Department of Classics, College of Liberal Arts & Stephen Sonnenberg, MD, Adjunct Professor, Plan II & Humanities Institute, College of Liberal Arts

Description:

How would you talk about, explain, remember or forget violence or killing that you had witnessed, experienced, or done? How did ancient Greek culture and late-19th and 20th-into-21st century British and American cultures deal with the concepts and realities of violence and warfare?  How do we now approach the realities of war in an age of email, YouTube and other forms of rapid communication? 

How is violence used, controlled, encouraged, punished, experienced, remembered and explained by different societies and by individuals within those societies?  What effects, short-term and long-term, does the experience of violence have on people and how do they use what we call 'myths' (a shorthand for different forms of 'story-telling') to deal with those effects?  How does language fail us when we try to make sense of violence.

We shall consider these questions while reading, viewing and discussing a range of mythic forms: for the 19th-20th and now 21st century: poetry and prose: fiction (historical and parable-form novels) and non-fiction (including biography, memoir, oral history, journalistic essays, and critical/analytical studies), music and film (including documentary); psychoanalytic and psychological studies and essays. 

 We shall look at (1) modern accounts of war and atrocity and serious discussions of what these accounts mean; (2) the earliest literate western culture and how it dealt with these same phenomena: ancient Greek culture and Homer, Thucydides and Euripides.

We shall then consider how myths are constructed in reaction to war and violence and how they deal with important social concepts: the human capacity for good and evil, truth, law, justice and injustice, idealism and pragmatism.

In this version of the course, students will benefit from two scholarly perspectives.  We are: Dr. Stephen Sonnenberg, a clinical psychoanalyst and humanities scholar who looks at how the experience of violence and war is mythologized and what effects such stories have; and Professor Tom Palaima, an ancient historian and specialist in how and why stories in many different forms about war and violence are created and used by individuals. Together Sonnenberg and Palaima have well over fifty years of deep concern for the human consequences of violent acts. We have collaborated on a wide variety of projects in the last few years and are very much looking forward to exploring the important issues in this course collectively.

We hope that all participants will explore these myths actively, understand how they are related to basic human psychological and social needs, and develop better their abilities to think critically about the nature of violence (state-sanctioned in war and otherwise enacted), how violence affects individuals directly and indirectly, and what it does to the communities, small and large, in which human beings, like ourselves, live.

Readings:

Homer, The Iliad (Lombardo translation)

Euripides, The Trojan Women

T. O’Brien, The Things They Carried

E. Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls. 

[MAIN READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

A course booklet or on-line selections from some of the following: Book of Genesis, the sacrifice of Isaac; S. Freud, “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death” (1915) and “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917); J. Shay, Achilles in Vietnam; Thucydides, On Justice Power and Human Nature; A. Lincoln “Gettysburg Address”; Robert F. Kennedy, speech on the death of Martin Luther King; S. Crane The Red Badge of Courage; S. Sassoon and W. Owen, selected poems; P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory; The Boys' Crusade; K. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five; Martin Wangh, “A Psychogenic Factor in the Recurrence of War” (1968) and “National Socialism and the Genocide of the Jews” (1964); Bessel van der Kolk, “Posttraumatic Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience” (2002); S. Hersh, My Lai 4, A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath; M. Herr, Dispatches; B. Edelman, ed., Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Wallace Terry, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans; Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip and The Forbidden Zone; S. Terkel, The Good War; Ricardo Ainslie, Long Dark Road; L. Dahmer, A Father’s Story; James Dawes, Evil Men (forthcoming); S. Peebles, Welcome to the Suck; selected journalism and photojournalism; additional selected war poetry and essays by Whitman, Amichai, Hinojosa Smith, Patterson, Jarrell, Hemingway; etc.

S. Hersh’s original My Lai stories: http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm  [SELECTED READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

Film viewing from among: Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Little Dieter Needs to Fly; Tattooed Under Fire; Restrepo; Regeneration, Jarhead, Apocalypse Now. [FILMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

Music: Selections of War Music: 1. Steve Earle "Rich Man's War" (Iraq, Afghanistan); 2. Richie Havens, "Handsome Johnny" (historical sweep from Revolutionary War to civil rights movement); 3. Richie Havens, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Civil War); 4. Bob Dylan, "John Brown" (unspecified); 5. Blind Willie Johnson, "When the War Was On" (WW I); 6. Woody Guthrie, "Sinking of the Reuben James" (WW II); 7. Perry Como, "Dig You Later (A Hubba-Hubba-Hubba) (WW II); 8. Townes van Zandt, "Ballad of Ira Hayes" (WW II); 9. Sunnyland Slim, "Back to Korea Bluees" (Korean War); 10. Bob Dylan & Mark Knopfler, "Clean Cut Kid" studio session (Vietnam War); 11. Bob Dylan, "Masters of War" Gerdes Feb. 1963 (Cold War period, unspecified); 12. Bob Dylan, "Masters of War" Berlin 2002 (unspecified); 13. J.B. Lenoir, "Veitnam (sic) Blues) (Vietnam War); 14. Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Fortunate Son" (Vietnam War period); 15. Todd Snider, "Fortunate Son"; 16. Johnny Cash, "Drive On" (Vietnam War veterans); 17. Willie Nelson, "Jimmy's Road" (Vietnam War); 18. Bruce Springsteen, "Devils and Dust" (Iraq and Afghanistan); 19. Emily Kaitz, "It's Not Enough to Give Our Love" (general); 20. Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA" (Vietnam veterans).

Requirements:  

One six-page paper  (20%) 

One twelve page paper (30%)                      

three 2-page film responses (20%)

one or two sets of notes of class meetings  (10%)       

discussion leading with a polished handout and a written retrospective (20%)

Students will volunteer to lead discussion during class meetings. One student will write up a summary of discussion for circulation later in the class. We expect ready volunteers.

Films are viewed outside of normal class meetings.  Students are required to read texts carefully, view films critically, and hear and feel what music conveys. All these forms of myth raise questions about the human response to the act of killing another human being and the mythic recovery, presentation and preservation of particular or universal memories of violence.  Students are encouraged in both papers, but especially the second, to bring their outside interests, readings, and film viewings to bear upon the topics and material in this course. We shall also learn about forms of social violence and power.  But we aim to learn most about the human heart and mind. Attempts are made to bring distinguished visitors in for discussion.

About the teachers:

Professor Palaima, a Macarthur fellow,  has lectured, written and taught extensively on the subjects of ancient writing systems, the reconstruction of ancient culture, decipherment theory, Greek language, war and violence studies, music as social commentary and Bob Dylan. He is a regular contributor of editorials to the Austin American-Statesman and a regular reviewer and occasional feature writer for the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Texas Observer. He teaches this course so that all involved, including himself, can see human life more clearly.

Dr. Sonneberg was educated at Princeton University, The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The University of Wisconsin, the National Institute of Mental Health, and The Baltimore-DC Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, Adjunct Professor at the School of Architecture and Fellow-in-Residence at the Humanities Institute, The University of Texas at Austin.  His research focuses on the points of intersection between psychoanalysis and other areas of scholarly inquiry. Subjects of study include war, violence, decision-making, architecture and design, psychic trauma and post traumatic psychological disorders, addiction and the treatment of addiction, and education and effective teaching methods. 

Studying Greek history gives us the chance to view in microcosm all the variables that affect the course of history at other times in other places. We can see human beings and human societies at their best and worst, understand how power works in human societies, observe different kinds of political and economic systems, and consider how cultural values are shaped and what influence they have on what human beings do. We shall study the origins of democracy and de-mystify what ancient democracy was. The history of Greece is also a history of warfare and competition.

This course surveys Greek history from the palatial period of the late Bronze Age (1600-1200 B.C.E.) through the 'Dark Ages' and into the 'polis' period down through the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.E.).

We shall puzzle over how to interpret the often very uneven and very peculiar evidence for the social, political and economic systems that develop in different districts of Greece in 'prehistoric' and historical times.

There will be very little use of visuals. We shall concentrate on sources and how to use them.

The course will consist of two hours of lecture per week plus a one-hour discussion section. Each member of a discussion section will have to lead discussion (with a well-prepared handout) at least once during the semester. Afterwards s/he will write up a retrospective on the discussion to be handed in at the beginning of the final week.

We shall be reading in translation from masterworks of history and literature: Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, we shall also take into account documentary sources, including translated Linear B texts from the Greek Bronze Age and inscriptions of the historical period.

We shall discuss carefully critical methods for interpreting primary sources.Technically AHC 325 CC 354C HIS 354C is an upper-division course. However, it assumes no background knowledge of the subject and will combine survey of periods with in-depth discussion of particulars. There are no prerequisites. This course counts towards the major in Ancient History and Classical Civilization.

Grading policy:  There will be a fifth-week examination (20% short answer and essay at the start of the 6th week), a tenth-week examination (30% short answer and essay at the start of the 11th week), and a fifteenth-week examination (30% short answer and essay on Wednesday of the 15th week). The final component of the grade will be performance in discussion (20%). You should sign up to be a group leader for one of the available discussion sessions. Discussion grade will be based 1/2 on group leading and handout (10% overall) and 1/2 on general participation (10% overall). There will be no final examination in the examination period. Grading is on the regular "A"-"D," 100-60 system (no curve). Regular class participation will be noted under miscellaneous. Breakdown of elements of the grade: 5th-week exam (20%), 10th-week exam (30%), 15th-week exam (30%), discussion (leading 10% and general participation 10%).

This course carries the Global Cultures flag.

This course fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

All of the great Greek myths were ‘written’ (we’ll see that Greece even into the late 5th century was a predominantly oral society) for large groups of people to hear and see. Myths would entertain, explore, titillate, excite, criticize,  explain, frighten and express awe, wonder, horror and bafflement. The Greeks also used music and dance  in mythic presentation: cf. modern opera, music videos, folk and blues music, YouTube.

THIS COURSE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR YOU ONLY TO LEARN THE BASIC STORIES OF ANCIENT GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

IT IS DESIGNED TO GET YOU TO THINK ABOUT HOW LIFE’S REALITIES ARE REFLECTED IN LONG-LASTING MYTHS.

In this course we shall read and discuss the great Greek myths in four ways.

(1) to become familiar with them and how they worked within their culture;

(2) to appreciate and enjoy them as great works of the human mind, in manycases the first such inventions in the history of human beings;

(3) to understand how they worked as tools to explain the world and the confusinghuman beings are doing with their lives.

(4) to discuss what the myths still mean for us and our problems—this is, after all, why they survive.

This course carries a Global Cultures flag and fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Course Description: Greek mythology is mainly a public performance literature embedded in a still primarily oral culture. Ancient Greek mythmakers (the word muthos means simply “something uttered,” i.e., what we call a “story”) used their stories in public settings to make sense of their world and to entertain, instruct, ask questions and provoke discussion among people who lived mainly in “continual fear and danger of violent death, [in historical periods when] the life of man [was] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Thomas Hobbes).

Among these myths are top-ten all-time stories about the ironies and savagery, honor and costs of war (Iliad, Trojan Women); about exotic adventure, the dangers of travels on the seas, and difficult homecomings (the Odyssey); about the creation of the world and the generations of the gods who hold the most power within it (Theogony); about hard work, hardships, injustice, political outrage,  divine cruelty and why bad things happen in the world (Works and Days); about war, murder, justice and vengeance (Agamemnon); about incest, voyeurism, attempted and actual child murder and fate (Oedipus Tyrannus and Bacchae); about politics, religion, family obligations and morality (Antigone); about passion, betrayal, fame, middle-aged anxiety, cross-cultural isolation, vengeance and infanticide (Medea); about detective fiction, fate and hubris (Oedipus Tyrannus). As always, “sex, violence, action and mystery sell.”

The Greeks also used music and dance in mythic presentation. Compare modern opera, music videos, folk and blues music, YouTube. We'll compare the Book of Genesis with Greek creation myths and give some look at modern war literature and modern music.

THIS COURSE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR YOU ONLY TO LEARN THE BASIC STORIES OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY. IT IS DESIGNED TO GET YOU TO THINK ABOUT HOW THE REALITIES OF HUMAN LIVES ARE REFLECTED IN LONG-LASTING MYTHS AND WHY THEY ARE.

In this course we shall read and discuss the great Greek myths in four ways:

(1) to become familiar with them and how they worked within their culture;

(2) to appreciate and enjoy them as great, but accessible works of the human mind, in many cases the first such inventions in the history of human beings;

(3) to understand how they worked as tools to explain the world and what most concerned and confused human beings about their lives.

(4) to discuss what they mean for us and our problems—this is, after all, why they still survive.

I will use modern, but not necessarily contemporary, parallels suggested by my activities as a commentary writer, general book reviewer, and student of the human experience of war and violence and how human beings come to terms with the meaning of life and death. You are invited to think about and propose your own. I will try to remember to ask at the beginning of every class if there are any questions. If I do not, raise your hand anyway if you have a question or observation.

BOOKS ORDERED IN COOP:

Stanley Lombardo, Hesiod, Works and Days and Theogony (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-180-5 pbk)

Horton Foote adaptation of William Faulkner’s Tomorrow. 9780822215196 Dramatist Play Service, Inc.1996

Stanley Lombardo, Homer, The Iliad (Hackett ISBN 0-87-220352-2 pbk)

Stanley Lombardo, Homer, The Odyssey (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-484-7 pbk)

Peter Meineck, trans. Aeschylus, Oresteia includes Agamemnon Hackett 0872203905

Paul Woodruff and P. Meineck, Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-492-8 pbk)

Paul Woodruff, trans. Sophocles Antigone Hackett 978-087220-571-0 2001

Paul Woodruff, Euripides, Bacchae (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-392-1 pbk)

Syllabus, notes, background information, will all be available on Blackboard. Additional primary readings will be available on Blackboard also.

GRADES:

IN-CLASS DISCUSSION-LEADING WITH HANDOUT OR POWER POINT: 20%

FIRST TAKE-HOME ESSAY ASSIGNMENT DUE SEPTEMBER 30: 20%

MEETING WITH PROFESSOR PALAIMA IN WEEKS 11-12 (NOV 3-14) 20%

SECOND TAKE HOME ESSAY ASSIGNMENT DUE OCTOBER 28: 20%

FINAL TAKE HOME ESSAY ASSIGNMENT DUE DECEMBER 2: 20%.

THIS COURSE REQUIRES Attentive reading and thinking, and paying attention during lectures. Use office hours, too.

WE WILL HAVE IN-CLASS DISCUSSION AND YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO LEAD THE CLASS DURING AT LEAST ONE MEETING DURING THE COURSE OF THE SEMESTER.

This course is an introduction to reading ancient Greek - the language of some of the world’s oldest and best loved writings, including Homer, Herodotus, Plato, and the New Testament. We will cover enough basic grammar and vocabulary for you to begin reading short passages from a wide range of ancient Greek writers.

Greek 506 is the first half of a two-semester sequence that continues with Greek 507 and prepares students to advance to Intermediate Greek (GK 311 and 312), where students read selected works by authors like Plato and Homer.

Grades will be based on participation, homework, weekly quizzes, and four tests (three midterms and a final).

Myths accompanied Greek and Roman culture as a constant from the pre-literate era before the Homeric epics through the hyper-literary myths of the Roman period. These myths helped the ancient Greeks and Romans to make sense of their world and to address issues with regard to religion, philosophy, and even early attempts at natural science. In different forms, myths still inform our understanding of the world, and Classical mythology in particular has continued to influence western art and literature up to the present day. This class begins with an examination of the Greek understanding of the creation of the world, the pantheon of gods, and the creation of humanity. Time will also be spent on the origins of Greek mythology, looking to the mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, which have influenced Greek thought. Throughout the course attention will be given to particular gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines and the myths which surround them in both the Greek and Roman traditions.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

Instructors: Thomas Palaima, Professor, Department of Classics, College of Liberal Arts & Stephen Sonnenberg, MD, Adjunct Professor, Plan II & Humanities Institute, College of Liberal Arts

Description:

How would you talk about, explain, remember or forget violence or killing that you had witnessed, experienced, or done? How did ancient Greek culture and late-19th and 20th-into-21st century British and American cultures deal with the concepts and realities of violence and warfare?  How do we now approach the realities of war in an age of email, YouTube and other forms of rapid communication? 

How is violence used, controlled, encouraged, punished, experienced, remembered and explained by different societies and by individuals within those societies?  What effects, short-term and long-term, does the experience of violence have on people and how do they use what we call 'myths' (a shorthand for different forms of 'story-telling') to deal with those effects?  How does language fail us when we try to make sense of violence.

We shall consider these questions while reading, viewing and discussing a range of mythic forms: for the 19th-20th and now 21st century: poetry and prose: fiction (historical and parable-form novels) and non-fiction (including biography, memoir, oral history, journalistic essays, and critical/analytical studies), music and film (including documentary); psychoanalytic and psychological studies and essays. 

 We shall look at (1) modern accounts of war and atrocity and serious discussions of what these accounts mean; (2) the earliest literate western culture and how it dealt with these same phenomena: ancient Greek culture and Homer, Thucydides and Euripides.

We shall then consider how myths are constructed in reaction to war and violence and how they deal with important social concepts: the human capacity for good and evil, truth, law, justice and injustice, idealism and pragmatism.

In this version of the course, students will benefit from two scholarly perspectives.  We are: Dr. Stephen Sonnenberg, a clinical psychoanalyst and humanities scholar who looks at how the experience of violence and war is mythologized and what effects such stories have; and Professor Tom Palaima, an ancient historian and specialist in how and why stories in many different forms about war and violence are created and used by individuals. Together Sonnenberg and Palaima have well over fifty years of deep concern for the human consequences of violent acts. We have collaborated on a wide variety of projects in the last few years and are very much looking forward to exploring the important issues in this course collectively.

We hope that all participants will explore these myths actively, understand how they are related to basic human psychological and social needs, and develop better their abilities to think critically about the nature of violence (state-sanctioned in war and otherwise enacted), how violence affects individuals directly and indirectly, and what it does to the communities, small and large, in which human beings, like ourselves, live.

Readings:

Homer, The Iliad (Lombardo translation)

Euripides, The Trojan Women

T. O’Brien, The Things They Carried

E. Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls. 

[MAIN READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

A course booklet or on-line selections from some of the following: Book of Genesis, the sacrifice of Isaac; S. Freud, “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death” (1915) and “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917); J. Shay, Achilles in Vietnam; Thucydides, On Justice Power and Human Nature; A. Lincoln “Gettysburg Address”; Robert F. Kennedy, speech on the death of Martin Luther King; S. Crane The Red Badge of Courage; S. Sassoon and W. Owen, selected poems; P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory; The Boys' Crusade; K. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five; Martin Wangh, “A Psychogenic Factor in the Recurrence of War” (1968) and “National Socialism and the Genocide of the Jews” (1964); Bessel van der Kolk, “Posttraumatic Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience” (2002); S. Hersh, My Lai 4, A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath; M. Herr, Dispatches; B. Edelman, ed., Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Wallace Terry, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans; Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip and The Forbidden Zone; S. Terkel, The Good War; Ricardo Ainslie, Long Dark Road; L. Dahmer, A Father’s Story; James Dawes, Evil Men (forthcoming); S. Peebles, Welcome to the Suck; selected journalism and photojournalism; additional selected war poetry and essays by Whitman, Amichai, Hinojosa Smith, Patterson, Jarrell, Hemingway; etc.

S. Hersh’s original My Lai stories: http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm  [SELECTED READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

Film viewing from among: Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Little Dieter Needs to Fly; Tattooed Under Fire; Restrepo; Regeneration, Jarhead, Apocalypse Now. [FILMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

Music: Selections of War Music: 1. Steve Earle "Rich Man's War" (Iraq, Afghanistan); 2. Richie Havens, "Handsome Johnny" (historical sweep from Revolutionary War to civil rights movement); 3. Richie Havens, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Civil War); 4. Bob Dylan, "John Brown" (unspecified); 5. Blind Willie Johnson, "When the War Was On" (WW I); 6. Woody Guthrie, "Sinking of the Reuben James" (WW II); 7. Perry Como, "Dig You Later (A Hubba-Hubba-Hubba) (WW II); 8. Townes van Zandt, "Ballad of Ira Hayes" (WW II); 9. Sunnyland Slim, "Back to Korea Bluees" (Korean War); 10. Bob Dylan & Mark Knopfler, "Clean Cut Kid" studio session (Vietnam War);

Myths accompanied Greek and Roman culture as a constant from the pre-literate era before the Homeric epics through the hyper-literary myths of the Roman period. These myths helped the ancient Greeks and Romans to make sense of their world and to address issues with regard to religion, philosophy, and even early attempts at natural science. In different forms, myths still inform our understanding of the world, and Classical mythology in particular has continued to influence western art and literature up to the present day. This class begins with an examination of the Greek understanding of the creation of the world, the pantheon of gods, and the creation of humanity. Time will also be spent on the origins of Greek mythology, looking to the mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, which have influenced Greek thought. Throughout the course attention will be given to particular gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines and the myths which surround them in both the Greek and Roman traditions.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Continuation of Greek 507. Introductory readings from classical authors such as Lysias, Plato, and Xenophon. Includes grammar review.

NEW COURSE INFO:

GK 390 War and Violence: The Ancient Greek and Modern Western Experience  Palaima

In the last twenty-five years, and perhaps beginning as early as the 1960’s, how we approach classical texts, history and culture and what questions we ask of them and want them to answer for us have changed radically.  It is also now a given within universities and colleges that classical scholars must bring their knowledge of the past to bear upon the contemporary interests and concerns of students and colleagues. Our interdisciplinary scholarship and our teaching across disciplines as classicists must be seriously engaged.

For the last twenty years, I have taught courses, written articles, reviews and commentary pieces, lectured widely and participated in scholarly and public seminars that have examined how human beings respond creatively and humanly to experiences of war and violence, including social violence between classes and groups. I have taught many different versions of junior seminars on ‘myths of war and violence’ and on ‘song as social criticism’ in the Plan II Honors Program and on ethics and principles of leadership for Undergraduate Studies. I have also given seminars on war and Homer at the Smithsonian Institution and participated in Aquila Theater’s Ancient Greeks / Modern Lives project directed at veterans and their families in New York, Austin and Los Angeles.

This work has ethical, moral, psychological, sociological and cultural dimensions and it also addresses major questions such as:

—   “Why Do Wars Begin?”—and will they ever end?—;

—   What is the nature of courage in different social and historical contexts?

—   How do human societies inculcate and reinforce codes of behavior, including the fundamental requirement to convince young men (and now women) to fight and kill and risk being killed for objectives that their leaders set?

—   How do soldiers and civilians respond to ‘news of war’ and what kinds of news and information do they get?

—   How are ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined and how are widely accepted definitions called into question by actions taken during wars?

—   How are ethical and moral systems constructed and maintained?

—   How are wars and acts of violence processed by human beings, written or sung about,  and taken in, wholly, in part or not at all, by different social groups?

—   Through time, ancient to modern, what are the common features and concerns of those who express ideas or feelings about wars, social injustices and violent acts?

—   What is the nature of ‘justice’ in societies and how and why is injustice tolerated?

—   What are the aesthetics of human expression about war and violence, i.e., what makes forms of expression effective or even tolerable in certain periods and distinctive enough to last?

The aim of this course is to make us more familiar with current areas of interest and current thinking about these important questions, while reading relevant key passages from Greek sources (epic and lyric poetry, drama and history).  We will also read significant contemporary primary and secondary literature and look at connections between the themes of classical writing on war and of literature, blues and folk songs and films in the late nineteenth to early twenty-first centuries.

In this version of the course we shall be looking at selections from and critical questions about Homer, Iliad Books 1, 2, 6, 9, 16, 18, 22 and 24; Hesiod, Works and Days and Theogony; Euripides, Medea and Trojan Women; Aeschylus, Agamemnon; the poetry of Tyrtaeus, Archilochus, and Callinus; Herodotus Book 1; and Thucydides.

Modern authors whose works may be examined include: Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, e.e. cummings, Erich Maria Remarque, Sigmund Freud, George Orwell, Rolando Hinojosa Smith, Charles Neider, Tim O’Brien, Jonathan Shay, Bill Broyles, Jr., Larry Tritle, Leon Golden, Kevin Herbert, E.B. Sledge, Studs Terkel, Paul Fussell, Horton Foote, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Herr, Seymour Hersh, Chris Hedges, James Dawes, Meir Solaveichik, Charles Patterson, Yehuda Amichai, Naomi Nye, Terence Rattigan, Viktor Frankl, William Faulkner.  We will also pay attention to blues and folk masters.

We shall in all cases discuss historical context, the purpose of accounts being presented as they were, and later interpretations and influence of the selections we are studying.

The course will emphasize close and accurate reading of the texts; the backgrounds and purposes of the authors; understanding of cultural concepts and contexts; the human meaning and values conveyed in masterworks of the human spirit; and the process of human creativity. 

We shall try to make use of and become familiar with resources in the Humanities Research Center.

In seminar meetings we shall discuss what particular works mean and how they convey their meaning and what their relationship is to other works in a long cultural tradition. There will be ample opportunity for the interests of individual students.

GRADING:

Grade will be based on: 

2 class reports on specific topics (20% each) with written handouts when class meeting is being presented and post-presentation reflections;

Class participation and reading (20%);

Draft of a fifteen-to-twenty-page paper (due at the end of week thirteen) (20%);

Final version of said paper (due on Monday after last week of classes) (20%).

The Greeks used their myths as popular attempts to make sense of themselves and their world and to enjoy themselves.

 All of the great Greek myths were ‘written’ for large-scale consumption, to entertain, explore, titillate, excite, criticize, explain, and horrify. Among these myths are top-ten all-time stories of sex and the ironies and savagery and honor of war (The Iliad, The Trojan Women); of sex, exotic adventure and bloody homecoming (The Odyssey), of sex and the creation of the world (Theogony), of sex and political outrage (The Works and Days), of sex, murder and vengeance (The Agamemnon), of sex, incest, voyeurism and cross-dressing (The Oedipus Tyrannus and The Bacchae), of sex, politics and morality (The Antigone), and of sex and detective fiction (The Oedipus Tyrannus). Then as now, "sex, violence, action and mystery sell." The Greeks also used music and dance in mythic presentation: cf. modern opera, music videos, folk and blues music. We'll compare the Book of Genesis with Greek creation myths and give some look at modern war literature and modern music.

THIS COURSE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR YOU ONLY TO LEARN THE BASIC STORIES OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY.  IT IS DESIGNED TO GET YOU TO THINK ABOUT HOW LIFE’S REALITIES ARE REFLECTED IN LONG-LASTING MYTHS.

In this course we shall read and discuss the great Greek myths in four ways. First, to become familiar with them and how they worked within their culture. Second, to appreciate and enjoy them as great, but accessible works of the human mind. Third, to understand how they worked as tools to explain the world and what confused human beings—perhaps a redundancy—are doing in it. Fourth, to discuss what they mean for us and our problems—this is, after all, why they still survive.

I will use modern, but not necessarily contemporary, parallels suggested by my activities as a commentary writer, general book reviewer, and  student/scholar of the human experience of war and violence and how human beings come to terms with the meaning of life and death.

BOOKS IN COOP:

Stanley Lombardo, Hesiod, Works and Days and Theogony (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-180-5 pbk)

Stanley Lombardo, Homer, The Iliad (Hackett ISBN 0-87-220352-2 pbk)

Stanley Lombardo, Homer, The Odyssey (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-484-7 pbk)

Paul Woodruff, Euripides, Bacchae    (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-392-1 pbk)

Paul Woodruff and P. Meineck, Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (Hackett ISBN 0-87220-492-8 pbk)

Syllabus, notes, background information will all be available on Blackboard. Additional primary readings will be available on Blackboard also.

GRADES: 

 —FOUR IN-CLASS QUIZZES:  end of week 3 (10%), end of week 8 (10%), end of week 10 (15%), and during week 13 (15%)  (50% total)

 —TWO IN-CLASS  EXAMINATIONS short essay + identifications examination, end of week 6 (25%) and during week 15 (25%).   50% TOTAL

 —NO FINAL EXAM IN EXAM PERIOD.

 WARNING:  ALL TESTS AND QUIZZES COUNT. 

NO EXTRA CREDIT. REPEAT: NO EXTRA CREDIT.

No make ups without serious documentation.

"Scholastic dishonesty on any graded assignment will result in a failing grade. Scholastic dishonesty includes any kind of cheating; if you are unsure about the exact definition you should consult the General information catalogue, Appendix , Section 11-802 (http://www.utexas.edu/student/registrar/catalogs/gi01-02/app/appc11.html )"

 You can make up work missed for a religious holiday if you bring documentation of the holiday fourteen days ahead of time.

 "The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY."

 THIS COURSE REQUIRES Attentive reading and thinking, and paying attention during lectures.

 OFFICE HOURS:

 tpalaima@mail.utexas.edu  Office: WAG 14AA 471-8837

 EMERGENCY:  Tom Palaima 

How would you talk about, explain, remember or forget violence or killing that you had witnessed, experienced, or done? How did ancient Greek culture and late-19th and 20th-into-21st century British and American cultures deal with the concepts and realities of violence and warfare?  How do we now approach the realities of war in an age of email, YouTube and other forms of rapid communication? 

How is violence used, controlled, encouraged, punished, experienced, remembered and explained by different societies and by individuals within those societies?  What effects, short-term and long-term, does the experience of violence have on people and how do they use what we call 'myths' (a shorthand for different forms of 'story-telling') to deal with those effects?  How does language fail us when we try to make sense of violence.

 We shall consider these questions while reading, viewing and discussing a range of mythic forms: for the 19th-20th and now 21st century: poetry and prose: fiction (historical and parable-form novels) and non-fiction (including biography, memoir, oral history, journalistic essays, and critical/analytical studies), music and film (including documentary); psychoanalytic and psychological studies and essays. 

 We shall look at (1) modern accounts of war and atrocity and serious discussions of what these accounts mean; (2) the earliest literate western culture and how it dealt with these same phenomena: ancient Greek culture and Homer, Thucydides and Euripides.

 We shall then consider how myths are constructed in reaction to war and violence and how they deal with important social concepts: the human capacity for good and evil, truth, law, justice and injustice, idealism and pragmatism.

 In this version of the course, students will benefit from two scholarly perspectives.  We are: Dr. Stephen Sonnenberg, a clinical psychoanalyst and humanities scholar who looks at how the experience of violence and war is mythologized and what effects such stories have; and Professor Tom Palaima, an ancient historian and specialist in how and why stories in many different forms about war and violence are created and used by individuals. Together Sonnenberg and Palaima have well over fifty years of deep concern for the human consequences of violent acts. We have collaborated on a wide variety of projects in the last few years and are very much looking forward to exploring the important issues in this course collectively.

 We hope that all participants will explore these myths actively, understand how they are related to basic human psychological and social needs, and develop better their abilities to think critically about the nature of violence (state-sanctioned in war and otherwise enacted), how violence affects individuals directly and indirectly, and what it does to the communities, small and large, in which human beings, like ourselves, live.

Readings: Homer, The Iliad (Lombardo translation); Euripides, The Trojan  Women; T. O’Brien, The Things They Carried; E. Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls.  [MAIN READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

 A course booklet or on-line selections from some of the following: Book of Genesis, the sacrifice of Isaac; S. Freud, “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death” (1915) and “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917); J. Shay, Achilles in Vietnam; Thucydides, On Justice Power and Human Nature; A. Lincoln “Gettysburg Address”; Robert F. Kennedy, speech on the death of Martin Luther King; S. Crane The Red Badge of Courage; S. Sassoon and W. Owen, selected poems; P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory; The Boys' Crusade; K. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five; Martin Wangh, “A Psychogenic Factor in the Recurrence of War” (1968) and “National Socialism and the Genocide of the Jews” (1964); Bessel van der Kolk, “Posttraumatic Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience” (2002); S. Hersh, My Lai 4, A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath; M. Herr, Dispatches; B. Edelman, ed., Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Wallace Terry, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans; Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip and The Forbidden Zone; S. Terkel, The Good War; Ricardo Ainslie, Long Dark Road; L. Dahmer, A Father’s Story; James Dawes, Evil Men (forthcoming); S. Peebles, Welcome to the Suck; selected journalism and photojournalism; additional selected war poetry and essays by Whitman, Amichai, Hinojosa Smith, Patterson, Jarrell, Hemingway; etc.

S. Hersh’s original My Lai stories: http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm  [SELECTED READINGS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

 Film viewing from among: Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam; Little Dieter Needs to Fly; Tattooed Under Fire; Restrepo; Regeneration, Jarhead, Apocalypse Now. [FILMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

 Music: Selections of War Music: 1. Steve Earle "Rich Man's War" (Iraq, Afghanistan); 2. Richie Havens, "Handsome Johnny" (historical sweep from Revolutionary War to civil rights movement); 3. Richie Havens, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Civil War); 4. Bob Dylan, "John Brown" (unspecified); 5. Blind Willie Johnson, "When the War Was On" (WW I); 6. Woody Guthrie, "Sinking of the Reuben James" (WW II); 7. Perry Como, "Dig You Later (A Hubba-Hubba-Hubba) (WW II); 8. Townes van Zandt, "Ballad of Ira Hayes" (WW II); 9. Sunnyland Slim, "Back to Korea Bluees" (Korean War); 10. Bob Dylan & Mark Knopfler, "Clean Cut Kid" studio session (Vietnam War); 11. Bob Dylan, "Masters of War" Gerdes Feb. 1963 (Cold War period, unspecified); 12. Bob Dylan, "Masters of War" Berlin 2002 (unspecified); 13. J.B. Lenoir, "Veitnam (sic) Blues) (Vietnam War); 14. Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Fortunate Son" (Vietnam War period); 15. Todd Snider, "Fortunate Son"; 16. Johnny Cash, "Drive On" (Vietnam War veterans); 17. Willie Nelson, "Jimmy's Road" (Vietnam War); 18. Bruce Springsteen, "Devils and Dust" (Iraq and Afghanistan); 19. Emily Kaitz, "It's Not Enough to Give Our Love" (general); 20. Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA" (Vietnam veterans).

Requirements:   One six-page paper  (20%) 

One twelve page paper (30%)                      

three 2-page film responses (20%)

one or two sets of notes of class meetings  (10%)       

discussion leading with a polished handout and a written retrospective (20%)

Students will volunteer to lead discussion during class meetings. One student will write up a summary of discussion for circulation later in the class. We expect ready volunteers.

Films are viewed outside of normal class meetings.  Students are required to read texts carefully, view films critically, and hear and feel what music conveys. All these forms of myth raise questions about the human response to the act of killing another human being and the mythic recovery, presentation and preservation of particular or universal memories of violence.  Students are encouraged in both papers, but especially the second, to bring their outside interests, readings, and film viewings to bear upon the topics and material in this course. We shall also learn about forms of social violence and power.  But we aim to learn most about the human heart and mind. Attempts are made to bring distinguished visitors in for discussion.

Visitors: We are planning on having in 3-4 distinguishes visitors who work firsthand  with the topics covered in this course.

About the teachers:

 Professor Palaima, a Macarthur fellow,  has lectured, written and taught extensively on the subjects of ancient writing systems, the reconstruction of ancient culture, decipherment theory, Greek language, war and violence studies, music as social commentary and Bob Dylan. He is a regular contributor of editorials to the Austin American-Statesman and a regular reviewer and occasional feature writer for the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Texas Observer. He teaches this course so that all involved, including himself, can see human life more clearly.

 Dr. Sonneberg was educated at Princeton University, The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The University of Wisconsin, the National Institute of Mental Health, and The Baltimore-DC Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, Adjunct Professor at the School of Architecture and Fellow-in-Residence at the Humanities Institute, The University of Texas at Austin.  His research focuses on the points of intersection between psychoanalysis and other areas of scholarly inquiry. Subjects of study include war, violence, decision-making, architecture and design, psychic trauma and post traumatic psychological disorders, addiction and the treatment of addiction, and education and effective teaching methods. 

What do we know historically about the palaces where legendary kings like Minos, Agamemnon, Nestor and Priam ruled? When did the Greeks arrive in what has since been their homeland and how and why did their peculiarly innovative and influential culture develop? What do the so-called Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, on the island of Crete and the Greek mainland, owe to surrounding cultures, and how and why did these cultures come into contact?  What kinds of evidence do we have from the so-called palatial period of Aegean prehistory (the 2nd millennium BCE) and how can we use it to ask historical questions? Formal study of Aegean prehistory is now over 140 years old. One of the challenges for our understanding of the palatial palatial period (reflected in later Greek historical texts like the Iliad, Odyssey, Works and Days, and Thucydides) is to make sense of the material evidence recovered through excavation in conjunction with the data provided by peculiar documents (mostly inscribed economically focused records on clay in writing systems known as Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B) that have been found at most major sites. These documents have turned what used to be called a prehistoric period into what is now known as a proto-historic period. They present us with interesting problems concerning methods and principles of interpretation and historical reconstruction.

In this course we will concentrate on how to make history or pre- and proto-history. We shall try to trace political, social, economic and general cultural developments (including such topics as religious beliefs, ethnicity, orality and literacy, law, regional and central power hierarchies, languages and dialects, trade, warfare, and cross-cultural borrowings and adaptations) on Crete and the Greek mainland between roughly 2200 and 1100 BCE, with some look at Cyprus and Hittite Anatolia. We shall try to define what history means in periods where we lack what we consider historical or annalistic works produced within the cultures we, as moderns, are studying. We shall ask questions most historians ask about human actions and the general quality of life in specific areas and time periods. We shall try to figure out where the ‘high’ Aegean cultures came from, what led to their eventual decline and collapse and what came after them? And we shall consider the historiography of research in this field.

Resources will include: (1) translated and transliterated documents in Linear A and Linear B, and excerpted passages from later Greek historical texts; (2) studies bearing upon the evidence derived from languages per se; (3) specialized articles on topics mentioned in general course description.

Grading:

Grades will be based on: (1) three five-page papers with drafts due in the fourth, ninth and fourteenth weeks of the semester and re-writes in the sixth and eleventh weeks and at the time of the final examination; (2) one student presentation of the material assigned for a course meeting (graded on handout material and clarity and coverage of presentation per se); (3) final examination (an oral one-on-one with the instructor on the topic of the final paper and the main topics in the course). Breakdown of grade: papers (final drafts alone are given grades) first 20%, second 25%, third 30%; presentation 15%; final examination 10%.

This course will mainly use articles from specialized monographs and excerpted chapters from synthetic and collaborative handbooks on Greek prehistory. Basic texts are: The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age by Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (Editor), Cambridge University Press 2008, pb. The Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge World Archaeology) by Oliver Dickinson, Cambridge University Press 1994, pb. The Mycenaean World by John Chadwick, Cambridge University Press 1976, pb. Life and Society in the Hittite World by Trevor Bryce, Oxford University Press 2004, pb. Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization, Second Edition by William A.; Carol G. Thomas McDonald, Indiana University Press 1990, pb.)

This course is an introduction to reading ancient Greek - the language of some of the world’s oldest and best loved writings, including Homer, Herodotus, Plato, and the New Testament. We will cover enough basic grammar and vocabulary for you to begin reading short passages from a wide range of ancient Greek writers. Greek 506 is the first half of a two-semester sequence that continues with Greek 507 and prepares students to advance to Intermediate Greek (GK 311 and 312), where students read selected works by authors like Plato and Homer. Greek 506 can be counted as partially fulfilling the foreign language requirement, or the General Culture requirement, or as an elective. Grades will be based on participation, homework, weekly quizzes, and three cumulative in-class near the end of the 5th, 10th and 15th weeks.                   An Introduction to Greek [Illustrated] [Paperback] H. Lamar Crosby (Author)  John Nevin Schaeffer (Author) # Paperback: 349 pages

# Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers; Bilingual edition (July 1, 2003) # Language: English # ISBN-10: 0865165548 # ISBN-13: 978-0865165540

One of the constants in classical cultures was warfare. In this course we will read in three genres of Greek literature with a focus on understanding the human experience of war: Euripides’ Trojan Women, archaic poetry (from Tyrtaeus, Archilochus, and Callinus), and selections from Thucydides (Books 2 and 3 on the plague, Plataea, and Mytilene). We shall in all cases discuss historical context, the purpose of accounts being presented as they were, and later interpretations and influence of the passages we are reading. The course will emphasize close and accurate reading of the texts; the backgrounds and purposes of the authors; understanding of cultural concepts and contexts; the place of these works in later tradition and time periods. There will be regularly assigned readings from secondary scholarly literature. Grades: participation 20%, homework 20%, 3 exams 20% each (including final). Prerequisite: Greek 322 or consent of the undergraduate advisor and the instructor.

This course opens up for you direct contact with the first and greatest poet in the western tradition and the first historian in the western sense of the word as he used it and we understand it. In this course, we gain confidence reading in non-Attic prose and poetic dialects. We also encounter the beauties of the first great historian and epic poet.We will start with some brief selections from Herodotus (a truly 'Homeric' historian) Book 1, which will introduce Ionic forms.We will then move to Homer's Odyssey, where I hope we may read representative portions of books 3, 4 and 6  covering Telemachus' visits to Pylos and Sparta and Odysseus' arrival in Phaeacia. We shall always move at a pace that is suitable for the class.We shall read for a grasp of these works as literature and as evidence for cultural notions and ideas.  We shall read and master meter. Some attention will be paid to theories of orality and literacy and the methods of composition that produced both works.TEXTS: Herodotus: Book I. J. Sleeman. 978-1-85399-628-3 $26.96 (paper) (Duckworth). Homer: Odyssey, Books 1-12 W. Stanford, editor. volume 1 978-1-85399-502-6 $29.70. (paper) (Duckworth).Course Requirements: regular and conscientious attendance.  nightly assignments. 4 quizzes (5% 10% 10% 10%);  and 3 in-class examinations (15% 15%  20%); class and homework (15%).

The Linear B texts, deciphered in 1952, have now been studied intensively by two generations of scholars with specialties in epigraphy, palaeography, linguistics, archaeology, art history, social and economic history, Homeric studies, ancient religion and cult, warfare, geography, onomastics, ethnicity theory, orality-literacy, and cross-cultural contacts. they are also the starting point for addressing questions about cultural continuity.In this course, we shall learn in the first four weeks how to read Linear B and how then to read and interpret key sample texts that will increase our facility and understanding of the stage of Greek and of Greek culture represented by these documents.We than shall study key areas of society, economy, archaeology and culture for which these earliest of western written texts provide crucial evidence. These topics will be guided by three factors:(1) interests expressed by student participants in specific areas, e.g., onomastics, religion, political organization, orality-literacy, Homeric poetry, material culture and what it reflects (warfare, trade, rituals).(2) the interests of our two visitors:  Anastasia Dakouri-Hild and Vassilis Petrakis.(3) my own work on a source book of thematically grouped Mycenaean texts.TEXTS:  A chrestomathy (primer) of Mycenaean that teaches the scripts, basic dialect picture, grammar and has sample texts and topics.-Y. Duhoux and A. Morpurgo Davies eds., A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Texts and Their World vol. 1 and chapters in proof from volume 2. (Peeters: Louvain-la-Neuve 2008 and 2011).Grading:  Grades will be based on exercises done in the first weeks (25%) and then on 30-minute class reports (25%) and one final paper that is the result of pursuing, with my and out visitors' help, a topic on interest (50%).  I the past, even at this level of familiarity, students have identified a topics that have led to publishable results.Interested students are encouraged to contact me at tpalaima@mail.utexas.edu even during fall semester.

Studying Greek history gives us the chance to view in microcosm all the variables that affect the course of history at other times in other places. We can see human beings and human societies at their best and worst, understand how power works in human societies, observe different kinds of political and economic systems, and consider how cultural values are shaped and what influence they have on what human beings do. We shall study the origins of democracy and de-mystify what ancient democracy was. The history of Greece is also a history of warfare and competition.

This course surveys Greek history from the palatial period of the late Bronze Age (1600-1200 B.C.E.) through the 'Dark Ages' and into the 'polis' period down through the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.E.).

We shall puzzle over how to interpret the often very uneven and very peculiar evidence for the social, political and economic systems that develop in different districts of Greece in 'prehistoric' and historical times.

There will be very little use of visuals. We shall concentrate on sources and how to use them.

The course will consist of two hours of lecture per week plus a one-hour discussion section. Each member of a discussion section will have to lead discussion (with a well-prepared handout) at least once during the semester. Afterwards s/he will write up a retrospective on the discussion to be handed in at the beginning of the final week.

We shall be reading in translation from masterworks of history and literature: Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, we shall also take into account documentary sources, including translated Linear B texts from the Greek Bronze Age and inscriptions of the historical period.

We shall discuss carefully critical methods for interpreting primary sources.Technically AHC 325 CC 354C HIS 354C is an upper-division course. However, it assumes no background knowledge of the subject and will combine survey of periods with in-depth discussion of particulars. There are no prerequisites. This course counts towards the major in Ancient History and Classical Civilization.

Grading policy:  There will be a fifth-week examination (20% short answer and essay at the start of the 6th week), a tenth-week examination (30% short answer and essay at the start of the 11th week), and a fifteenth-week examination (30% short answer and essay on Wednesday of the 15th week). The final component of the grade will be performance in discussion (20%). You should sign up to be a group leader for one of the available discussion sessions. Discussion grade will be based 1/2 on group leading and handout (10% overall) and 1/2 on general participation (10% overall). There will be no final examination in the examination period. Grading is on the regular "A"-"D," 100-60 system (no curve). Regular class participation will be noted under miscellaneous. Breakdown of elements of the grade: 5th-week exam (20%), 10th-week exam (30%), 15th-week exam (30%), discussion (leading 10% and general participation 10%).

Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Greek 312K or 312L with a grade of at least C; or Greek 412 with a grade of A, and consent of the undergraduate adviser.

In this course, we shall concentrate on close and continuous reading of major Greek authors. Attention will be paid both to grammar and to building vocabulary and critical sensibilities with in particular genres of Greek literature.  In this semester, we shall focus on the epic poetry of Homer's Iliad Book1; the major Greek historian Thucydides, also Book 1; and, time and inclination permitting, excerpts from lyric poets in the Homeric tradition and the Greek biographer Plutarch for early historical figures.

Thucydides uses Homer in his reconstruction of the distant Greek past and his survey of the development of military power from Greek prehistory into the historical period. We shall discuss how he works as an historian and how he relates to his predecessors in the historical tradition. Homer book 1 is now considered a key text in the history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in western warfare.  We shall pay attention to this in our reading.

GK 324 Advanced Greek:

Reading and analysis of classical authors such as Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, and Plato.

Prerequisites: Greek 312K or 312L (or 322) with a grade of at least C; or Greek 412 with a grade of at least A-, and consent of the undergraduate adviser.

What do we know historically about the palaces where legendary kings like Minos, Agamemnon, Nestor and Priam ruled? When did the Greeks arrive in what has since been their homeland and how and why did their peculiarly innovative and influential culture develop? What do the so-called Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, on the island of Crete and the Greek mainland, owe to surrounding cultures, and how and why did these cultures come into contact?  What kinds of evidence do we have from the so-called palatial period of Aegean prehistory (the 2nd millennium BCE) and how can we use it to ask historical questions?Formal study of Aegean prehistory is now over 140 years old. One of the challenges for our understanding of the palatial palatial period (reflected in later Greek historical texts like the Iliad, Odyssey, Works and Days, and Thucydides) is to make sense of the material evidence recovered through excavation in conjunction with the data provided by peculiar documents (mostly inscribed economically focused records on clay in writing systems known as Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B) that have been found at most major sites. These documents have turned what used to be called a prehistoric period into what is now known as a proto-historic period. They present us with interesting problems concerning methods and principles of interpretation and historical reconstruction. In this course we will concentrate on how to make history or pre- and proto-history. We shall try to trace political, social, economic and general cultural developments (including such topics as religious beliefs, ethnicity, orality and literacy, law, regional and central power hierarchies, languages and dialects, trade, warfare, and cross-cultural borrowings and adaptations) on Crete and the Greek mainland between roughly 2200 and 1100 BCE, with some look at Cyprus and Hittite Anatolia.We shall try to define what history means in periods where we lack what we consider historical or annalistic works produced within the cultures we, as moderns, are studying. We shall ask questions most historians ask about human actions and the general quality of life in specific areas and time periods. We shall try to figure out where the ‘high’ Aegean cultures came from, what led to their eventual decline and collapse and what came after them? And we shall consider the historiography of research in this field.Resources will include: (1) translated and transliterated documents in Linear A and Linear B, and excerpted passages from later Greek historical texts; (2) studies bearing upon the evidence derived from languages per se; (3) specialized articles on topics mentioned in general course description. Grading:  Grades will be based on: (1) three five-page papers with drafts due in the fourth, ninth and fourteenth weeks of the semester and re-writes in the sixth and eleventh weeks and at the time of the final examination; (2) one student presentation of the material assigned for a course meeting (graded on handout material and clarity and coverage of presentation per se);(3) final examination (an oral one-on-one with the instructor on the topic of the final paper and the main topics in the course).Breakdown of grade: papers (final drafts alone are given grades) first 20%, second 25%, third 30%; presentation 15%; final examination 10%.    This course will mainly use articles from specialized monographs and excerpted chapters from synthetic and collaborative handbooks on Greek prehistory. Basic texts are: The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age by Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (Editor), Cambridge University Press 2008, pb.The Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge World Archaeology) by Oliver Dickinson, Cambridge University Press 1994, pb.The Mycenaean World by John Chadwick, Cambridge University Press 1976, pb.Life and Society in the Hittite World by Trevor Bryce, Oxford University Press 2004, pb.Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization, Second Edition by William A.; Carol G. Thomas McDonald, Indiana University Press 1990, pb.)

This course is an introduction to reading ancient Greek - the language of some of the world’s oldest and best loved writings, including Homer, Herodotus, Plato, and the New Testament. We will cover enough basic grammar and vocabulary for you to begin reading short passages from a wide range of ancient Greek writers.

Greek 506 is the first half of a two-semester sequence that continues with Greek 507 and prepares students to advance to Intermediate Greek (GK 311 and 312), where students read selected works by authors like Plato and Homer.

Grades will be based on participation, homework, weekly quizzes, and four tests (three midterms and a final).

For over thirty years, Intensive Summer Greek at UT Austin has been giving students of diverse backgrounds and interests a rapid and deep understanding of the structure of the Greek language and a love of Greek prose and poetry.  You need have no previous knowledge of Greek. If you have had a semester or two or more, the special approach in this  course will strengthen your grasp of how Greek works and why it is so subtle a vehicle for conveying ideas.

You will use *Lexis*, a unique textbook and reader designed by the late Gareth Morgan.  All of its exercises are based on full passages of real, unaltered and unabbreviated Classical Greek.  First readings of Ionic Greek will make you aware of word formation, and that knowledge will enable you to acquire vocabulary quickly.  Ionic Greek also is a main component of the Homeric dialect.  Once you learn it, you can move easily forward to standard Attic authors and Biblical Greek and backward to Greek epic verse.

You will not read one dreary practice sentence made up in clever desperation or desperate ingenuity.  By the sixth day, you will be reading continuous pure Herodotus.  All students who successfully complete the course will be well prepared for sophomore level classes and dedicated students from past intensive courses have been able to go into classes at higher levels.  Students of other subjects have used Greek right away to enrich and inform their studies.

Students must register for both GK W804 and W412.  The course runs through both summer sessions.  It meets for five hours each day for about fifty class days, and, if satisfactorily completed, counts for 12 semester hours. Classes working under these language-saturation conditions have achieved an enthusiasm and spirit conducive to an unusually rich learning experience.   Usually, in the second half, besides ample grammar review, we read Homer's Odyssey IX, Euripides' Medea, Plato's Apology, and some supplementary readings handed out in class.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Topics in the history of the Greek and Roman empires and the surrounding area.

GK 390 Seminar in Classical Studies:

Selected topics in Greek studies. Topics given in recent years include Mycenaean documents, Aristotle's ethics, Archaic poetry, and Plato's Symposium.

For over thirty years, Intensive Summer Greek at UT Austin has been giving students of diverse backgrounds and interests a rapid and deep understanding of the structure of the Greek language and a love of Greek prose and poetry.  You need have no previous knowledge of Greek. If you have had a semester or two or more, the special approach in this  course will strengthen your grasp of how Greek works and why it is so subtle a vehicle for conveying ideas.

You will use *Lexis*, a unique textbook and reader designed by the late Gareth Morgan.  All of its exercises are based on full passages of real, unaltered and unabbreviated Classical Greek.  First readings of Ionic Greek will make you aware of word formation, and that knowledge will enable you to acquire vocabulary quickly.  Ionic Greek also is a main component of the Homeric dialect.  Once you learn it, you can move easily forward to standard Attic authors and Biblical Greek and backward to Greek epic verse.

You will not read one dreary practice sentence made up in clever desperation or desperate ingenuity.  By the sixth day, you will be reading continuous pure Herodotus.  All students who successfully complete the course will be well prepared for sophomore level classes and dedicated students from past intensive courses have been able to go into classes at higher levels.  Students of other subjects have used Greek right away to enrich and inform their studies.

Students must register for both GK W804 and W412.  The course runs through both summer sessions.  It meets for five hours each day for about fifty class days, and, if satisfactorily completed, counts for 12 semester hours. Classes working under these language-saturation conditions have achieved an enthusiasm and spirit conducive to an unusually rich learning experience.   Usually, in the second half, besides ample grammar review, we read Homer's Odyssey IX, Euripides' Medea, Plato's Apology, and some supplementary readings handed out in class.

For over thirty years, Intensive Summer Greek at UT Austin has been giving students of diverse backgrounds and interests a rapid and deep understanding of the structure of the Greek language and a love of Greek prose and poetry.  You need have no previous knowledge of Greek. If you have had a semester or two or more, the special approach in this  course will strengthen your grasp of how Greek works and why it is so subtle a vehicle for conveying ideas.

You will use *Lexis*, a unique textbook and reader designed by the late Gareth Morgan.  All of its exercises are based on full passages of real, unaltered and unabbreviated Classical Greek.  First readings of Ionic Greek will make you aware of word formation, and that knowledge will enable you to acquire vocabulary quickly.  Ionic Greek also is a main component of the Homeric dialect.  Once you learn it, you can move easily forward to standard Attic authors and Biblical Greek and backward to Greek epic verse.

You will not read one dreary practice sentence made up in clever desperation or desperate ingenuity.  By the sixth day, you will be reading continuous pure Herodotus.  All students who successfully complete the course will be well prepared for sophomore level classes and dedicated students from past intensive courses have been able to go into classes at higher levels.  Students of other subjects have used Greek right away to enrich and inform their studies.

Students must register for both GK W804 and W412.  The course runs through both summer sessions.  It meets for five hours each day for about fifty class days, and, if satisfactorily completed, counts for 12 semester hours. Classes working under these language-saturation conditions have achieved an enthusiasm and spirit conducive to an unusually rich learning experience.   Usually, in the second half, besides ample grammar review, we read Homer's Odyssey IX, Euripides' Medea, Plato's Apology, and some supplementary readings handed out in class.

Myths accompanied Greek and Roman culture as a constant from the pre-literate era before the Homeric epics through the hyper-literary myths of the Roman period. These myths helped the ancient Greeks and Romans to make sense of their world and to address issues with regard to religion, philosophy, and even early attempts at natural science. In different forms, myths still inform our understanding of the world, and Classical mythology in particular has continued to influence western art and literature up to the present day. This class begins with an examination of the Greek understanding of the creation of the world, the pantheon of gods, and the creation of humanity. Time will also be spent on the origins of Greek mythology, looking to the mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, which have influenced Greek thought. Throughout the course attention will be given to particular gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines and the myths which surround them in both the Greek and Roman traditions.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

Topics in the history of the Greek and Roman empires and the surrounding area.

This course is an introduction to reading ancient Greek - the language of some of the world’s oldest and best loved writings, including Homer, Herodotus, Plato, and the New Testament. We will cover enough basic grammar and vocabulary for you to begin reading short passages from a wide range of ancient Greek writers.

Greek 506 is the first half of a two-semester sequence that continues with Greek 507 and prepares students to advance to Intermediate Greek (GK 311 and 312), where students read selected works by authors like Plato and Homer.

Grades will be based on participation, homework, weekly quizzes, and four tests (three midterms and a final).

Topics in the history of the Greek and Roman empires and the surrounding area.

For over thirty years, Intensive Summer Greek at UT Austin has been giving students of diverse backgrounds and interests a rapid and deep understanding of the structure of the Greek language and a love of Greek prose and poetry.  You need have no previous knowledge of Greek. If you have had a semester or two or more, the special approach in this  course will strengthen your grasp of how Greek works and why it is so subtle a vehicle for conveying ideas.

You will use *Lexis*, a unique textbook and reader designed by the late Gareth Morgan.  All of its exercises are based on full passages of real, unaltered and unabbreviated Classical Greek.  First readings of Ionic Greek will make you aware of word formation, and that knowledge will enable you to acquire vocabulary quickly.  Ionic Greek also is a main component of the Homeric dialect.  Once you learn it, you can move easily forward to standard Attic authors and Biblical Greek and backward to Greek epic verse.

You will not read one dreary practice sentence made up in clever desperation or desperate ingenuity.  By the sixth day, you will be reading continuous pure Herodotus.  All students who successfully complete the course will be well prepared for sophomore level classes and dedicated students from past intensive courses have been able to go into classes at higher levels.  Students of other subjects have used Greek right away to enrich and inform their studies.

Students must register for both GK W804 and W412.  The course runs through both summer sessions.  It meets for five hours each day for about fifty class days, and, if satisfactorily completed, counts for 12 semester hours. Classes working under these language-saturation conditions have achieved an enthusiasm and spirit conducive to an unusually rich learning experience.   Usually, in the second half, besides ample grammar review, we read Homer's Odyssey IX, Euripides' Medea, Plato's Apology, and some supplementary readings handed out in class.

C C 348 Topics in Ancient Civilization:

The development and progress of ancient civilization, including history, philosophy, literature, and culture. No knowledge of Greek or Latin is required.

Topics in the history of the Greek and Roman empires and the surrounding area.

C C 383 Studies in Classical Civilization:

Studies in various aspects of Greek and Roman literature, history, and culture.

Myths accompanied Greek and Roman culture as a constant from the pre-literate era before the Homeric epics through the hyper-literary myths of the Roman period. These myths helped the ancient Greeks and Romans to make sense of their world and to address issues with regard to religion, philosophy, and even early attempts at natural science. In different forms, myths still inform our understanding of the world, and Classical mythology in particular has continued to influence western art and literature up to the present day. This class begins with an examination of the Greek understanding of the creation of the world, the pantheon of gods, and the creation of humanity. Time will also be spent on the origins of Greek mythology, looking to the mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, which have influenced Greek thought. Throughout the course attention will be given to particular gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines and the myths which surround them in both the Greek and Roman traditions.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

For over thirty years, Intensive Summer Greek at UT Austin has been giving students of diverse backgrounds and interests a rapid and deep understanding of the structure of the Greek language and a love of Greek prose and poetry.  You need have no previous knowledge of Greek. If you have had a semester or two or more, the special approach in this  course will strengthen your grasp of how Greek works and why it is so subtle a vehicle for conveying ideas.

You will use *Lexis*, a unique textbook and reader designed by the late Gareth Morgan.  All of its exercises are based on full passages of real, unaltered and unabbreviated Classical Greek.  First readings of Ionic Greek will make you aware of word formation, and that knowledge will enable you to acquire vocabulary quickly.  Ionic Greek also is a main component of the Homeric dialect.  Once you learn it, you can move easily forward to standard Attic authors and Biblical Greek and backward to Greek epic verse.

You will not read one dreary practice sentence made up in clever desperation or desperate ingenuity.  By the sixth day, you will be reading continuous pure Herodotus.  All students who successfully complete the course will be well prepared for sophomore level classes and dedicated students from past intensive courses have been able to go into classes at higher levels.  Students of other subjects have used Greek right away to enrich and inform their studies.

Students must register for both GK W804 and W412.  The course runs through both summer sessions.  It meets for five hours each day for about fifty class days, and, if satisfactorily completed, counts for 12 semester hours. Classes working under these language-saturation conditions have achieved an enthusiasm and spirit conducive to an unusually rich learning experience.   Usually, in the second half, besides ample grammar review, we read Homer's Odyssey IX, Euripides' Medea, Plato's Apology, and some supplementary readings handed out in class.

For over thirty years, Intensive Summer Greek at UT Austin has been giving students of diverse backgrounds and interests a rapid and deep understanding of the structure of the Greek language and a love of Greek prose and poetry.  You need have no previous knowledge of Greek. If you have had a semester or two or more, the special approach in this  course will strengthen your grasp of how Greek works and why it is so subtle a vehicle for conveying ideas.

You will use *Lexis*, a unique textbook and reader designed by the late Gareth Morgan.  All of its exercises are based on full passages of real, unaltered and unabbreviated Classical Greek.  First readings of Ionic Greek will make you aware of word formation, and that knowledge will enable you to acquire vocabulary quickly.  Ionic Greek also is a main component of the Homeric dialect.  Once you learn it, you can move easily forward to standard Attic authors and Biblical Greek and backward to Greek epic verse.

You will not read one dreary practice sentence made up in clever desperation or desperate ingenuity.  By the sixth day, you will be reading continuous pure Herodotus.  All students who successfully complete the course will be well prepared for sophomore level classes and dedicated students from past intensive courses have been able to go into classes at higher levels.  Students of other subjects have used Greek right away to enrich and inform their studies.

Students must register for both GK W804 and W412.  The course runs through both summer sessions.  It meets for five hours each day for about fifty class days, and, if satisfactorily completed, counts for 12 semester hours. Classes working under these language-saturation conditions have achieved an enthusiasm and spirit conducive to an unusually rich learning experience.   Usually, in the second half, besides ample grammar review, we read Homer's Odyssey IX, Euripides' Medea, Plato's Apology, and some supplementary readings handed out in class.

Myths accompanied Greek and Roman culture as a constant from the pre-literate era before the Homeric epics through the hyper-literary myths of the Roman period. These myths helped the ancient Greeks and Romans to make sense of their world and to address issues with regard to religion, philosophy, and even early attempts at natural science. In different forms, myths still inform our understanding of the world, and Classical mythology in particular has continued to influence western art and literature up to the present day. This class begins with an examination of the Greek understanding of the creation of the world, the pantheon of gods, and the creation of humanity. Time will also be spent on the origins of Greek mythology, looking to the mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, which have influenced Greek thought. Throughout the course attention will be given to particular gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines and the myths which surround them in both the Greek and Roman traditions.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

C C 348 Topics in Ancient Civilization:

The development and progress of ancient civilization, including history, philosophy, literature, and culture. No knowledge of Greek or Latin is required.

Studying Greek history gives us the chance to view in microcosm all the variables that affect the course of history at other times in other places. We can see human beings and human societies at their best and worst, understand how power works in human societies, observe different kinds of political and economic systems, and consider how cultural values are shaped and what influence they have on what human beings do. We shall study the origins of democracy and de-mystify what ancient democracy was. The history of Greece is also a history of warfare and competition.       This course surveys Greek history from the palatial period of the late Bronze Age (1600-1200 B.C.E.) through the 'Dark Ages' and into the 'polis' period down through the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.E.).        We shall puzzle over how to interpret the often very uneven and very peculiar evidence for the social, political and economic systems that develop in different districts of Greece in 'prehistoric' and historical times.        There will be very little use of visuals. We shall concentrate on sources and how to use them.        The course will consist of two hours of lecture per week plus a one-hour discussion section. Each member of a discussion section will have to lead discussion (with a well-prepared handout) at least once during the semester. Afterwards s/he will write up a retrospective on the discussion to be handed in at the beginning of the final week.        We shall be reading in translation from masterworks of history and literature: Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, we shall also take into account documentary sources, including translated Linear B texts from the Greek Bronze Age and inscriptions of the historical period.        We shall discuss carefully critical methods for interpreting primary sources.

Technically AHC 325 CC 354C HIS 354C is an upper-division course. However, it assumes no background knowledge of the subject and will combine survey of periods with in-depth discussion of particulars. There are no prerequisites. This course counts towards the major in Ancient History and Classical Civilization.

GK 324 Advanced Greek:

Reading and analysis of classical authors such as Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, and Plato.

Prerequisites: Greek 312K or 312L (or 322) with a grade of at least C; or Greek 412 with a grade of at least A-, and consent of the undergraduate adviser.

For over thirty years, Intensive Summer Greek at UT Austin has been giving students of diverse backgrounds and interests a rapid and deep understanding of the structure of the Greek language and a love of Greek prose and poetry.  You need have no previous knowledge of Greek. If you have had a semester or two or more, the special approach in this  course will strengthen your grasp of how Greek works and why it is so subtle a vehicle for conveying ideas.

You will use *Lexis*, a unique textbook and reader designed by the late Gareth Morgan.  All of its exercises are based on full passages of real, unaltered and unabbreviated Classical Greek.  First readings of Ionic Greek will make you aware of word formation, and that knowledge will enable you to acquire vocabulary quickly.  Ionic Greek also is a main component of the Homeric dialect.  Once you learn it, you can move easily forward to standard Attic authors and Biblical Greek and backward to Greek epic verse.

You will not read one dreary practice sentence made up in clever desperation or desperate ingenuity.  By the sixth day, you will be reading continuous pure Herodotus.  All students who successfully complete the course will be well prepared for sophomore level classes and dedicated students from past intensive courses have been able to go into classes at higher levels.  Students of other subjects have used Greek right away to enrich and inform their studies.

Students must register for both GK W804 and W412.  The course runs through both summer sessions.  It meets for five hours each day for about fifty class days, and, if satisfactorily completed, counts for 12 semester hours. Classes working under these language-saturation conditions have achieved an enthusiasm and spirit conducive to an unusually rich learning experience.   Usually, in the second half, besides ample grammar review, we read Homer's Odyssey IX, Euripides' Medea, Plato's Apology, and some supplementary readings handed out in class.

Studying Greek history gives us the chance to view in microcosm all the variables that affect the course of history at other times in other places. We can see human beings and human societies at their best and worst, understand how power works in human societies, observe different kinds of political and economic systems, and consider how cultural values are shaped and what influence they have on what human beings do. We shall study the origins of democracy and de-mystify what ancient democracy was. The history of Greece is also a history of warfare and competition.       This course surveys Greek history from the palatial period of the late Bronze Age (1600-1200 B.C.E.) through the 'Dark Ages' and into the 'polis' period down through the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.E.).        We shall puzzle over how to interpret the often very uneven and very peculiar evidence for the social, political and economic systems that develop in different districts of Greece in 'prehistoric' and historical times.        There will be very little use of visuals. We shall concentrate on sources and how to use them.        The course will consist of two hours of lecture per week plus a one-hour discussion section. Each member of a discussion section will have to lead discussion (with a well-prepared handout) at least once during the semester. Afterwards s/he will write up a retrospective on the discussion to be handed in at the beginning of the final week.        We shall be reading in translation from masterworks of history and literature: Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, we shall also take into account documentary sources, including translated Linear B texts from the Greek Bronze Age and inscriptions of the historical period.        We shall discuss carefully critical methods for interpreting primary sources.

Technically AHC 325 CC 354C HIS 354C is an upper-division course. However, it assumes no background knowledge of the subject and will combine survey of periods with in-depth discussion of particulars. There are no prerequisites. This course counts towards the major in Ancient History and Classical Civilization.

C C 383 Studies in Classical Civilization:

Studies in various aspects of Greek and Roman literature, history, and culture.

Myths accompanied Greek and Roman culture as a constant from the pre-literate era before the Homeric epics through the hyper-literary myths of the Roman period. These myths helped the ancient Greeks and Romans to make sense of their world and to address issues with regard to religion, philosophy, and even early attempts at natural science. In different forms, myths still inform our understanding of the world, and Classical mythology in particular has continued to influence western art and literature up to the present day. This class begins with an examination of the Greek understanding of the creation of the world, the pantheon of gods, and the creation of humanity. Time will also be spent on the origins of Greek mythology, looking to the mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, which have influenced Greek thought. Throughout the course attention will be given to particular gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines and the myths which surround them in both the Greek and Roman traditions.

Fulfills the Visual and Performing Arts requirement.

Carries the Global Cultures flag.

Fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

GK 390 Seminar in Classical Studies:

Selected topics in Greek studies. Topics given in recent years include Mycenaean documents, Aristotle's ethics, Archaic poetry, and Plato's Symposium.

Studying Greek history gives us the chance to view in microcosm all the variables that affect the course of history at other times in other places. We can see human beings and human societies at their best and worst, understand how power works in human societies, observe different kinds of political and economic systems, and consider how cultural values are shaped and what influence they have on what human beings do. We shall study the origins of democracy and de-mystify what ancient democracy was. The history of Greece is also a history of warfare and competition.       This course surveys Greek history from the palatial period of the late Bronze Age (1600-1200 B.C.E.) through the 'Dark Ages' and into the 'polis' period down through the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.E.).        We shall puzzle over how to interpret the often very uneven and very peculiar evidence for the social, political and economic systems that develop in different districts of Greece in 'prehistoric' and historical times.        There will be very little use of visuals. We shall concentrate on sources and how to use them.        The course will consist of two hours of lecture per week plus a one-hour discussion section. Each member of a discussion section will have to lead discussion (with a well-prepared handout) at least once during the semester. Afterwards s/he will write up a retrospective on the discussion to be handed in at the beginning of the final week.        We shall be reading in translation from masterworks of history and literature: Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, we shall also take into account documentary sources, including translated Linear B texts from the Greek Bronze Age and inscriptions of the historical period.        We shall discuss carefully critical methods for interpreting primary sources.

Technically AHC 325 CC 354C HIS 354C is an upper-division course. However, it assumes no background knowledge of the subject and will combine survey of periods with in-depth discussion of particulars. There are no prerequisites. This course counts towards the major in Ancient History and Classical Civilization.

C C 348 Topics in Ancient Civilization:

The development and progress of ancient civilization, including history, philosophy, literature, and culture. No knowledge of Greek or Latin is required.

This course continues the introduction to reading Ancient Greek begun in Greek 506.  Starting with a brief review, we shall complete the basic grammar and move on to read passages from various Greek authors.

Daily assignments covering grammar, vocabulary, composition, and translation will enable the diligent student to acquire a firm grasp of Attic Greek.  Regular attendance is essential.

Prerequisite:  Greek 506 or equivalent (i.e. one semester of Greek).

This course can be counted for partial fulfillment of foreign language requirements.