HUMANITIES 110 <corrected 8/28/00>

FALL, 2000

Required Texts:

Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Lloyd-Jones (California)

Aristophanes, Lysistrata, trans. Henderson (Focus)

Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Irwin (Hackett)

ed. Curd, A Presocratics Reader (Hackett)

Essays on Ancient Greece (Pamphlet / Bookstore)

Euripides, Euripides V: Electra, The Phoenician Women, The Bacchae, ed. Grene and Lattimore (Chicago)

Herodotus, The History, trans. de Selincourt (Penguin)

Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, and Shield, trans. Lombardo (Hackett)

Homer, The Iliad, trans. Lattimore (Chicago)

Miller, Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation (Hackett)

Murray, Early Greece, 2nd ed. (Harvard)

Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates, trans. Grube (Hackett)

Plato, Plato’s Republic, 2^nd ed., trans. Grube/Reeve (Hackett)

Pollitt, Art and Experience in Classical Greece (Yale)

Sophocles, Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, ed. Grene and Lattimore (Chicago)

Thucydides, The Landmark Thucydides, trans. Strassler (Simon and Schuster)

 

Recommended Texts:

Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Fitzgerald (Doubleday)

Marius, A Writer’s Companion, 3rd ed. (McGraw)

J.A.C.T., The World of Athens (Cambridge)

Hacker, A Writer's Reference, 3rd ed. (Bedford)

Osborne, Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Oxford)

Williams, Style: Toward Style and Grace (Chicago)

All texts may be purchased at the Reed College Bookstore; a limited number of each are on reserve in the Library. Also on reserve (and very useful): Oxford Classical Dictionary; Oxford Companion to Classical Literature; Penguin Atlas of Ancient History; Richard Lanham, Revising Prose.

CONFERENCE ASSIGNMENTS:

The Registrar makes initial assignments to conferences in the course. Students who subsequently find it necessary to change conferences must petition the Humanities staff (forms for this purpose may be obtained from the Registrar or from Karen Bondaruk, Vollum 308). Return completed forms to Karen Bondaruk, Vollum 308. Nathalia King, Hum 110 Chair, will let you know by e-mail if and when your request is approved. No conference changes will be allowed after the second week of the semester.

 

PAPERS, WRITING ASSIGNMENTS, AND EXAMINATIONS:

Four course-wide papers will be assigned, due at the times designated below on the schedule of readings and lectures. A mid-term examination will be given on Friday, October 13 from 9:00 to 9:50 a.m. in Vollum Lecture Hall. A final examination for the fall term will be given Monday, December 11 from 6-10 p.m. in Vollum Lecture Hall. Rescheduling of the mid-term or final exam will be allowed only for medical reasons.

 

Electronic access:

An archive of course materials for Humanities 110 is available on the course's web page. It includes the syllabus, paper topics, schedule of videos, and many of the lecture handouts from this year and last year, as well as some pages designed to help students to tap Internet resources on course-related subjects. The web page can be reached through Reed's main page via Academic Life and Departments, or directly at this address: http://academic.reed.edu/Humanities/Hum110 . Many of the course materials are also archived in Microsoft Word format on the Courses Server (via the Chooser in the zone Academic Servers).

Week 1

Mon 28 Aug Homer, The Iliad

Lecture: Introduction to Greece, Homer, and the Humanities / Walter Englert

 

Wed 30 Aug Homer, The Iliad; Murray, Early Greece, chs. 1 and 3

Lecture: Homer and the Oral Tradition / Nathalia King

 

Fri 1 Sept Homer, The Iliad; Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System" in Essays on Ancient Greece

Lecture: The Religion of the Iliad / Michael Foat

 

Week 2

Mon 4 Sept LABOR DAY--No School

 

Wed 6 Sept Homer, The Iliad; Gombrich, "Reflections on the Greek Revolution" in Essays

No Lecture

 

Fri 8 Sept Homer, The Iliad

Lecture: The Ending of the Iliad / Walter Englert

 

Week 3

Mon 11 Sept Hesiod, Theogony; Vernant, "Feminine Figures of Death in Greece" in Essays on Ancient Greece

Lecture: Hesiod’s Theogony / Nathalia King

 

Wed 13 Sept Hesiod, Works and Days; Murray, Early Greece, chs. 4-7

Lecture: Farms, Markets and the Idea of Citizenship / Nigel Nicholson

 

Fri 15 Sept Miller, Greek Lyric, Archilochus, Semonides, Alcman, Solon, Xenophanes, pp. 1-12, 22-26, 31-37, 64-76, 107-111; Murray, Early Greece, chs. 8, 9, & 11

Lecture: The "Lyric Age" of Greece: "Counterbalanced against the iron is the sweet lyre-playing" / Elizabeth Drumm

FIRST PAPER DUE Saturday, September 16 in your conference leader's Eliot mail box

Week 4

Mon 18 Sept Miller, Greek Lyric, Alcaeus, Sappho, Theognis, Anacreon, pp. 38-63, 82-94, 99-103; Murray, Early Greece, ch. 12; Judith Hallett, "Sappho in Her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality" in Essays

Lecture: Defining Eros / Nathalia King

 

Wed 20 Sept Curd, A Presocratics Reader, pp. 9-16, 29-41

Lecture: Heraclitus and the Invention of Reason / C. D. C. Reeve

 

Fri 22 Sept Herodotus, The Histories, Bk/Ch. 1.1-1.216

Lecture: Herodotus and the Invention of History / Elizabeth Duquette

 

Week 5

Mon 25 Sept Herodotus, The Histories, Bk/Ch. 2. 1-64, 113-120, 164-182; Bernal and Lefkowitz in Essays

Lecture: Black Athena / Pancho Savery

 

Tues 26 28 Sept Video and Discussion: "Black Athena," VLH, 7:00 p.m.

 

Wed 27 Sept Herodotus, The Histories, Bk/Ch. 3.61-3.97, 5.55-7.171

Lecture: The Structure of a World and a Story / Michael Foat

 

Fri 29 Sept Herodotus, The Histories, Bk/Ch. 7.172-8.103, 9.114-9.122; Finley, "Was Greek Civilization Based on Slavery?" in Essays

Lecture: The Problem of Greek Freedom and Slavery / David Sacks

 

Week 6

Mon 2 Oct Aeschylus, The Oresteia, Agamemenon

Lecture: Drama Queens / Jan Mieszkowski

 

Wed 4 Oct Aeschylus, The Oresteia, Libation Bearers and Eumenides

Lecture: Trial - and/or Error? / Tom Gillcrist

 

Fri 6 Oct Aeschylus, The Oresteia, Libation Bearers and Eumenides; Gould, "Law, Custom and Myth: Aspects of the Social Position of Women in Classical Athens" in Essays

Lecture: Justice and Gender in the Oresteia / Gail Sherman

 

SECOND PAPER DUE Saturday, October 7

 

Week 7

Mon 9 Oct Sophocles, Oedipus

Lecture: Oedipus as Tyrannos / Elizabeth Drumm

 

Wed 11 Oct Sophocles, Antigone

Lecture: The Cultural Work of Tragedy / Laura Arnold

 

Fri 13 Oct MID-TERM EXAM: 9:00-9:50 a.m. in VLH

 

14-22 OCTOBER: FALL BREAK

 

Week 8

Mon 23 Oct Robert F. Sutton, "Pornography and Persuasion in Attic Pottery"; Sarah Pomeroy, "The Family in Classical Greece and "The Domestic Economy" in the Oeconomicus," both in Essays; Pollitt, Art and Experience in Classical Greece, chs. 1-2

Lecture: Representation and Gender in Athenian Vase Painting / Ellen Stauder

 

Wed 25 Oct Pollitt, Art and Experience in Classical Greece, ch. 3; Connelly, "Parthenon and Parthenoi" in Essays

Lecture: The Parthenon / Laura Arnold

 

Fri 27 Oct Pollitt, Art and Experience in Classical Greece, chs. 4-5

Lecture: Greek Sculpture: Conceptions of the Ideal Body / Ben David

 

Week 9

Mon 30 Oct Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Intro., Bk/Ch. 1.1-1.146

Lecture: Thucydides and the Purpose of History / Walter Englert

 

Wed 1 Nov Thucydides, Bk/Ch. 2.1-2.65; Jones, "Athenian Democracy and its Critics" in Essays

Lecture: Pericles and Athenian Democracy / David Sacks

 

Fri 3 Nov Thucydides, Bk/Ch 3.1-3.85, 5.13-5.24; Davies, ch. 6 of Democracy and Classical Greece, in Essays

Lecture: Tragedy and Democracy / Thomas Gillcrist

Week 10

Mon 6 Nov Thucydides, Ch/Bk 5.83-6.41, 6.105-7.87

Lecture: Alcibiades and the Politics of Rumor / C.D.C. Reeve

 

Wed 8 Nov Euripides, The Bacchae

Lecture: God and Theatre in The Bacchae / Thomas Gillcrist

 

Fri 10 Nov Plato, Euthyphro, Apology and Crito in The Trial and Death of Socrates

Lecture: On the Euthyphro / Peter Steinberger

 

THIRD PAPER DUE Saturday, November 11

 

Week 11

Mon 13 Nov Plato, The Republic

Lecture: On the Virtues of Socratic Aporia in Book I of Plato's Republic / Ellen Stauder

 

Wed 15 Nov Plato, The Republic; Curd, A Presocratics Reader, pp. 17-24, 97-107

Lecture: Plato’s Mathematics of Morals/ C.D.C. Reeve

 

Fri 17 Nov Plato, The Republic

Lecture: Platonic Metaphysics / Walter Englert

Week 12

Mon 20 Nov Plato, The Republic

Lecture: What's Wrong with Democracy / David Mandell

 

Tues 21 Nov Dramatic Reading of the Lysistrata by Theatre 110 students, VLH, 7:00 pm

 

Wed 22 Nov Aristophanes, Lysistrata

Lecture: The Comic City / Nigel Nicholson

 

NOVEMBER 23-26: THANKSGIVING VACATION

 

Week 13

Mon 27 Nov Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Lecture: Aristotle on How to Live / C.D.C. Reeve

 

Wed 29 Nov Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Lecture: Straightening Bent Sticks: Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean / Nigel Nicholson

 

Fri 1 Dec Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Lecture: Egoism, Altruism and Friendship/ Steven Arkonovich

 

FOURTH PAPER DUE Saturday, December 2

 

Week 14

Mon 4 Dec Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

DE ORGANOGRAPHIA

 

Wed 6 Dec Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Lecture: God / Michael Foat

 

Finals Week

Mon 11 Dec FINAL EXAM: 6-10 p.m. in VLH