Pramit Chaudhuri

Two of the most important conflicts in Roman history – the Second Punic War and the Caesarian Civil War – are the subject of influential treatments in Latin prose and verse. The historian Livy and the epic poet Silius Italicus both describe the Hannibalic War, while Julius Caesar himself and the poet Lucan give an account of the civil war. The existence of such parallel narratives enables us to investigate a variety of questions about the representation of historical events and the function of generic form. In both cases, however, the prose and verse accounts are separated by about a century and therefore reveal changes in interests and attitudes not only from one author/genre to another but also from one period to another. These four texts thus offer a fascinating window onto a wide range of topics in literary and historical study. The course will cover a selection of readings from each author as well as a sample of recent scholarship. Besides translation, graded assignments will also include various components of a research project culminating in a final paper.

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.

Although often assumed to be a strictly European or Western tradition, as well as the preserve of an elite, classical literature engages a much greater diversity of regions, classes, and individuals. Intro to Classical Literature is a new course designed to give you a broad overview of the literature of Ancient Greece and Rome and its connections to other traditions, global as well as mediterranean, modern as well as pre-modern. Develop a knowledge base essential for cultural study in many areas, and beneficial for study in any area.

The two main aims are:

1) Get a sense of the whole. What exactly does the corpus include? What kinds of thing do the texts talk about? What do people study and why? You’ll learn not only about influential genres, such as plays and philosophy, but also about less well-known forms, such as word games and graffiti.

2) Connect the classical to the global. Through references, adaptations, and comparisons, classical literature provides a strong basis for exploring world literature of all regions and time periods. You’ll learn about cultural responses to the classics and parallel literary traditions in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, including works by modern African American and Latinx authors and Hispanophone writers of the early modern New World as well as receptions of Greco-Roman texts in the Caribbean and India.

There is no special background required: if all of the above is unfamiliar, but it still sounds interesting, you’re qualified!

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.

Latin 322 is the gateway course through which students who show a greater mastery of the skills of translation (Latin vocabulary and matching English vocabulary, idioms, Latin word arrangement, grammar) will pass ahead to more demanding courses like Latin 323, 324, and 365.

Debate and Diplomacy in Classical Literature

Classical epic and historiography are centrally concerned with war, against which context they feature scenes of councils and embassies in which characters argue for peace. These moments of tension and possibility have much to teach us not only about Greco-Roman attitudes to war and peace, rhetoric and negotiation, but also about the interpretation of literary texts - since interpretation can itself be viewed as a form of debate and diplomatic exchange with one’s predecessors, peers, and successors. Texts include selections from Homer through to Silius Italicus, especially Augustan and Flavian works, with a particular view to tracing out the nuances of their treatment of embassies and councils. In terms of theory and criticism, we will focus on the work of the early modernist Timothy Hampton as well as some recent scholarship on Roman diplomacy from a historical perspective. Graded assignments will include translation and components of the research project culminating in a final paper.

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 studies a wide range of Latin literary production from the 1^st century AD with some selective forays into later periods. The treatment of material and assignments are partly designed to prepare students for graduate examinations, including a focus on literary history and translation of Latin. As well as getting to know major individual works and their place in the tradition, we will practise two skills crucial for anyone seeking to work in the field: 1) defining a literary problem and a plausible critical approach to that problem; 2) connecting a text or a feature of a text with illuminating comparanda. To that end the course will also introduce some major trends in the recent study of Latin literature, which will allow us to better contextualise our own approaches. By the end of the semester, students should be able to present their knowledge according to a variety of configurations suitable for answering a diverse array of questions about Latin literature. Since the course cannot be comprehensive in its coverage, it is expected that the methods and techniques learned will be applied to material beyond the syllabus.

In the past thirty years, few areas of Latin literature have enjoyed as much scholarly attention as Silver Latin epic. Three principal features account for this popularity: 1) themes of violence, excess, and subversion have appealed to contemporary tastes; 2) produced within a relatively brief period from Nero to Domitian, the corpus is remarkably coherent and invites detailed local comparisons; 3) unlike for Augustan literature, many of the primary models of Silver epic are extant: the Aeneid, Metamorphoses, and Senecan tragedy, besides Greek works. The corpus thus offers critics a rare opportunity to study the workings of Roman poets within near contemporaneous as well as longer timeframes, including reception studies focused especially on the high middle ages and early modernity. In this seminar we will survey portions of each of the surviving epics: Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Silius Italicus’ Punica, and Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid. As well as seeking to understand the key themes of these works and their place in literary history, we will also use the corpus as a means of practising methods of criticism, ranging from traditional philology to the digital humanities, and paying attention to literary theory.

The Fall of the emperor Nero in AD 68 brought to an end the reign of Rome’s first imperial dynasty, the Julio-Claudians, and sparked a year of civil war. Four generals in succession struggled to gain control of the Roman empire, from which turmoil would eventually emerge the Flavian dynasty, whose military and cultural accomplishments shaped the fabric of the city of Rome and the course of history. In this course we read selections from the major accounts of the civil war in Latin by the historian Tacitus and imperial biographer Suetonius. The course has two principal aims: 1) to develop the ability to read Latin prose through enhanced knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and style; 2) to understand how literary language represents conflict and shapes the reader’s response to narrative and character.