Required Texts:

Apuleius, trans. Lindsay, The Golden Ass (Indiana University Press)

Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony the Great (Eastern)

Augustine, Confessions (Oxford University Press)

Beard and Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic (in bookstore and on reserve)

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha/ New Revised Standard Version: College Edition (Oxford University Press)

Brown, World of Late Antiquity (W. W. Norton)

Garnsey, Peter and Richard Saller, Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture (University of California Press)

Josephus, The Jewish War (Penguin USA)

Livy, Early History of Rome (Penguin USA)

Lucretius, The Way Things Are (De Rerum Natura) (Indiana University Press)

Ovid, Metamorphoses (Oxford World Classics)

Readings on the Roman World (Pamphlet in Bookstore)

Seneca, The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca (W. W. Norton)

Tacitus, The Agricola and the Germania (Penguin USA)

Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin USA)

Virgil, The Aeneid (Bantam Doubleday Dell Publications)

 

Recommended Texts:

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

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

Williams, Style: Toward Clarity 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: Oxford Classical Dictionary; Oxford Companion to Classical Literature; Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I; Richard Lanham, Revising Prose.

 

 

 

CONFERENCE ASSIGNMENTS The Registrar makes initial assignments to conferences in this course which continue through the year. Students who subsequently find it necessary to change conferences must petition the Humanities staff (forms for this purpose may be obtained from the Registrar or from Karen Bondaruk, CC 308). Turn completed forms into Nathalia King, Hum 110 Chair, in CC 305. No conference changes will be permitted after the second week of the term.

 

 

PAPERS, WRITING ASSIGNMENTS, AND EXAMINATIONS Three course-wide papers will be assigned, due at the times designated on the schedule of readings and lectures. A mid-term examination will be given on Friday, March 16th from 9-9:50 a.m. in Vollum Lecture Hall. A final examination for the spring term will be given Tuesday, May 8, 1-5 p.m. 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 previous years, as well as some new pages designed to help students tap Internet resources on course-related subjects. Many of the course materials are also archived in Microsoft Word format on the Courses Server (via the Chooser in the zone Academic Servers).

 

 

 

Schedule of Readings and Lectures

Week 1

Jan. 22

Beard and Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic (available in the bookstore and on reserve)

Lecture: Raymond Kierstead, "The Virtuous Republic"

 

Jan. 24

Livy, Early History of Rome, pp. 33-101

Lecture: Walter Englert, "Livy and the Re-Creation of Rome"

Jan. 26

Livy, Early History of Rome, pp. 105-180, 374-402

Lecture: Nathalia King, "What is a Body Politic?"

 

Week 2

Jan. 29 Augustus,

The Accomplishments of Augustus; Suetonius' "Augustus" from The Twelve Caesars (both in Readings)

Lecture: Carl Anderson, "The Amaranthine Republic"

 

Jan. 31

Garnsey and Saller, The Roman Empire, Chapters 1-3

Lecture: Gordon Kelly, "How to Be a Good Roman Emperor"

 

Feb. 2

Virgil, Aeneid, Books 1-4

Lecture: Nathalia King, "Dido and Aeneas, or Relations of History and Romance"

 

 

Week 3

Feb. 5

Virgil, Aeneid, Books 5-8

Lecture: Ellen Stauder, "Ekphrasis in the Aeneid"

 

Feb. 7

Virgil, Aeneid, Books 9-12

Lecture: Tom Gillcrist, "Why the Aeneid Ends as it Does"

 

Feb. 9

Holliday, "Time, History, and Ritual on the Ara Pacis Augustae"; Galinsky,"Art and Architecture"; Bergman, "Exploring the Grove: Pastoral Space on Roman Walls" (all in Readings)

Lecture: Gordon Kelly, "Contexts for the Ara Pacis"

 

 

Week 4

Feb. 12

Garnsey and Saller, The Roman Empire, Chapters 6-9, Conclusion

Lecture: Laura Arnold, "My So-Called Roman Life"

 

Feb. 14

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 1-3

Lecture: Walter Englert, "Ovid’s Epic of Transformation"

 

Feb. 16

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 4-6, 15

Lecture: Nigel Nicholson, "Silver Latin"

 

First Paper Due - Saturday, Feb. 17th, 5 p.m.

 

 

 

Week 5

Feb. 19

Tacitus, Annals, pp. 31-60, 90-99, 104-128

Lecture: Kenneth Wolfe, "'Sine ira et studio': Tacitus' Historical Project"

 

Feb. 21

Tacitus, Annals, pp. 157-255

Lecture: David Sacks, '"Virtue,' Politics, and History in Imperial Rome"

 

Feb. 23

Tacitus, Annals, pp. 275-324, 335-397

Lecture: Nigel Nicholson, "'At that repulsive gathering his had been merely a female part' (Ann. XI.36): Gender Boundaries in Ancient Rome"

 

 

Week 6

Feb. 26

Lucretius, The Way Things Are (De Rerum Natura), Books 1 and 3

Lecture: Walter Englert, "Poetry and Philosophy in Lucretius"

 

Feb. 28

Lucretius, The Way Things Are (De Rerum Natura), Books 5 and 6

No Lecture

 

March 2

Seneca, The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: On Providence, On the Tranquillity of the Mind, and Letters, 47, 65, 70

Lecture: Jan Mieszkowski, "New World Order"

 

 

Week 7

March 5

Tacitus, Germania in The Agricola and the Germania; Tacitus, Histories 5. 1-10 (in Readings); recommended reading: Josephus, The Jewish War, Preface and Chapter 1

Lecture: Nathalia King, "Two Cities"

March 7

Genesis: 1-21; Kugel and Greer, "The Rise of Scripture" (in Readings)

Lecture: Peter Steinberger, "Genesis"

March 9

Genesis 21-50; Nancy Jay, "The Logic of Sacrifice" and "Sacrifice and Descent" (in Readings)

Lecture: Gail Sherman, "Sacrifices and Stories"

 

Second Paper Due - Saturday, March 10th, 5 p.m.

 

 

Week 8

March 12

Exodus 1-7:19; 11-24; 32-40

Lecture: Arthur McCalla, "Idolatry and the Law"

 

March 14

Isaiah 40-55; Daniel; Kugel, "The Messiness of History" (in Readings)

Lecture: Nigel Nicholson, "Jew, Greek or Babylonian: Jewish Identity Before the Roman Empire"

 

March 16 MID-TERM EXAM - 9-9:50 a.m., Vollum Lecture Hall.

 

 

SPRING BREAK - March 18-25

 

 

 

Week 9

March 26

Gospel of Matthew, Josephus, The Jewish War, chapter 7

Lecture: Michael Foat, "Knowing Jesus"

 

March 28

Josephus, The Jewish War, the Preface (p. 27-31) and Chapters 17-23

Lecture: Laura Arnold, "The Enemy Within"

 

March 30

The Tractate Avot (The Ethics of the Fathers); Cohen, "The Emergence of Rabbinic Judaism"; "The Rule of the Community" (all in Readings)

Lecture: Michael Feener, Tractate Avot and Rabbinic Law

 

 

Week 10

April 2

Paul, Romans; Acts 9-19; Frend, "Paul and the First Expansion 30-65" (in Readings)

Lecture: Nathalia King, "Commission under Grace"

 

April 4

Gospel of John

Lecture: Ellen Stauder, "Between Jew and Hellene: the Emerging Christian Community of the Gospel of John"

 

April 6

Revelation

Lecture: Michael Foat, "Lifting the Thick Heavy Curtain"

 

 

Week 11

April 9

Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph, chapters 4-5, "The Survival and Fall of the Classical city in Late Roman Africa" and "Sex and the Body of the Other"(in Readings)

Lecture: Laura Arnold, "To Carthage and Beyond: Africa in the Roman Imagination"

 

April 11

Apuleius, Golden Ass

Lecture: Gail Sherman, "Narrative and Repetition"

 

 

April 13

Apuleius, Golden Ass

Lecture: Walter Englert, "The Danger of Curiosity, or Lucius' Conversion"

 

 

Week 12

April 16

The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas (in Readings); Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, pp. 1-48

Lecture: Nathalia King, "The Martyrdom of St. Perpetua"

 

April 18

Athanasius, Life of Anthony; Anthony (Antony), Letter #6 (in Readings); Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, pp. 49-112

Lecture: Michael Foat, Perfect Virtue and the Ascetic Polis

 

April 20

Augustine, Confessions

Lecture: Nigel Nicholson, "'So Tiny a Child, So Many Pages': Augustine's Beginnings"

 

Third Paper Due - Saturday, April 21st, 5 p.m.

 

 

Week 13

April 23

Augustine, Confessions

Lecture: Elizabeth Duquette, "Augustine and the Pleasure of Conversion"

 

April 25

Augustine, Confessions

Lecture: David Sacks, "On Knowing and Willing"

 

April 27

Augustine, Confessions

Lecture: Michael Foat, "Contemplation"

 

Final Exam Tuesday, May 8th, 1-5 p. m., Vollum Lecture Hall

 

---

Hum 110 | Reed Classics | Reed Library | Reed | Perseus