Clsc 100 F '09 Syllabus

THE CLASSICAL WORLD OF GREECE AND ROME Instructor: J. Mark Sugars, Ph.D. Office hours: MTuWTh 1100-1200 Instructor’s e-mail address: [email protected]

Office: MHB 611 Campus mailbox: MHB 517

Section 02 = Class #1738; Room = LA5-355; Meeting Time = MWF 1000-1050 Course description: This is a general education course designed to introduce you to the literature, art, history and culture of the ancient Greek and Roman world. We will be looking at and discussing a variety of sources, especially ancient literary texts, to become acquainted with these civilizations; we will also look at how people of later times have interpreted and reinterpreted the cultural heritage of Greece and Rome. We shall explore the ways in which the ancients have influenced our modern world, and we shall consider how our knowledge of them may help us to understand our own times. Required texts: Homer, The Essential Homer (translated by Stanley Lombardo); Herodotus, On the War for Greek Freedom; Sophocles, Oedipus the King and Antigone; Pomeroy, Burstein et al., A Brief History of Ancient Greece (Oxford, 2004); Loeb Classical Library Reader; several texts available on-line. We may be viewing photos in class, as well as scenes from several films, including, tentatively: The Western Tradition, The Greek Temple, Gladiators, Alexander the Great, and The 300 Spartans. There are many sites on the Internet devoted to ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Some of your assignments in this class will involve studying specific materials on particular websites, and doing research on the Internet as well as in a conventional library. Grading: Students will be responsible for all material presented in the readings, lectures, and visual presentations, and for participating in class discussion. There will be several opportunities, which I will announce and describe in class, for students to get extra credit this semester. Your grade will be based on: Two essays: 40% (20% each) Short in-class quizzes and tests (several, at times to be announced later): 35% Final exam: 25% Tests in my class are somewhat cumulative, but emphasizing the most recently-learned material. They will usually take the form of short quizzes, which I will give at the end of class, about every other week. There will be true/false, short answer, quotationidentification and multiple-choice type questions based on reading and lectures; no, you will not need Scan-trons; yes, I will usually warn you when I have planned a quiz for

the following class session. From time to time I will post study guides on BeachBoard. The University’s Withdrawal Policy: It is the responsibility of the student who wishes to withdraw from a class to do so. Instructors are under no obligation to drop students who do not attend class, and it is not my policy to do so. Withdrawing during the final four weeks of instruction is not permitted except in cases such as accident or serious illness where the circumstances causing the withdrawal are clearly beyond the student’s control and the assignment of a grade of “Incomplete” is not practical. Ordinarily, withdrawal in this category will involve total withdrawal from all classes, except that a “Credit/No Credit” grade or an “Incomplete” may be assigned for courses in which sufficient work has been completed to permit an evaluation to be made. Request for permission to withdraw under these circumstances must be made in writing on forms available in Enrollment Services. The requests and approvals will state the reasons for the withdrawal. These requests must be approved by the instructor, department chairperson, and dean of the school. Copies of such approvals are kept on file in Enrollment Services. Tentative schedule of class discussion of assigned texts: Week 1, August 31-Sept. 4: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. I. Week 2, September 9-Sept. 11: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. II; Essential Homer, Books 1-6, 8-9 and 11 of the Iliad. Week 3, Sept. 14-Sept. 18: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. III; Essential Homer, Books 12-16 and 18-24 of the Iliad. Week 4, Sept. 21-Sept. 23 (Sept. 25 is a furlough day): Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. IV; Essential Homer, Books 1, 4-6 and 8-12 of the Odyssey; Homer passage in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 5, Sept. 28-Oct. 2: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. V; Essential Homer, Books 13, 16-19 and 21-24 of the Odyssey; Hesiod passage in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 6, Oct. 5-Oct. 9: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. VI; Tyrtaeus selection on BeachBoard; Pindar, Pausanias and Herodotus passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader; 1st selections from Herodotus, On the War for Greek Freedom. Week 7, Oct. 12-Oct. 16: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. VII; 2nd selections from Herodotus, On the War for Greek Freedom; Pindar, First Olympian Ode on BeachBoard; Sophocles, Euripides and Thucydides passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader.

Week 8, Oct. 19-Oct. 23: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. VIII; Sophocles, Oedipus the King and Antigone; Aristophanes passage in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 9, Oct. 26-Oct. 30: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. IX; Aristophanes’ Lysistrate, on BeachBoard; Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle and Callimachus passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 10, Nov. 2-Nov. 6: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. X & XI; Josephus, Plutarch and Lucian passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 11, Nov. 9-Nov. 13: Brief History of Ancient Greece, ch. XII; Terence, Cicero, and Caesar passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 12, Nov. 16-Nov. 20: Lucretius, Virgil and Horace passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 13, Nov. 23: Livy passage in Loeb Classical Library Reader; Tibullus poem on BeachBoard. Week 14, November 30-December 4: Propertius, Ovid, Manilius and Seneca passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader. Week 15, Dec. 8-Dec. 11 (December 7 is a furlough day): Pliny, Petronius, Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Apuleius and Jerome passages in Loeb Classical Library Reader.

There is a slight possibility that I may need you to read a few texts in addition to what I have listed above; if there are any texts for you to read that are not in your course textbooks or course packet, they will either be on BeachBoard or on the Perseus website: www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html.

In case some of you are curious about what I look for in your writing, I can tell you that I grade according to a fairly standard grading rubric for essays, one that I first became familiar with when I was a teaching assistant in the Humanities Core Course at UC Irvine in 1989:

Letter Grades

A

B

C

D

Conceptual

Thesis

Development and Support

Structuring

Offers cogent analysis, shows command of interpretive and conceptual tasks required by assignment and course materials; ideas original, often insightful, going beyond ideas discussed in lecture and class

Essay controlled by clear, precise, well-defined thesis; is sophisticated in both statement and insight

Well-chosen examples; persuasive reasoning used to develop and support thesis consistently; uses quotations and citations effectively; causal connections between ideas are evident

Appropriate, clear and smooth transitions; arrangement of paragraphs seems particularly apt

Language

Uses sophisticated sentences effectively; usually chooses words aptly; observes conventions of written English and manuscript format; makes few minor or technical errors Shows a good Clear, specific, Pursues thesis Distinct units of Some mechanical understanding of the texts, argumentative consistently; develops thought in difficulties or ideas and methods of the thesis central a main argument with paragraphs stylistic problems; assignment; goes beyond to the essay; clear major points and controlled by may make the obvious; may contain may have left appropriate textual specific and occasional one minor factual or minor terms evidence and supporting detailed topic problematic word conceptual inconsistency undefined detail; makes an effort sentences; clear choices or to organize paragraphs transitions awkward syntax topically between errors; a few developed, spelling or cohering, and punctuation errors logically or clichés; usually arranged presents quotations paragraphs that effectively are internally cohesive Shows an understanding of General thesis Only partially develops Some awkward More frequent the basic ideas and or controlling the argument; shallow transitions; wordiness; several information involved in the idea; may not analysis; some ideas some brief, unclear or assignment; may contain define several and generalizations weakly unified awkward some factual, interpretive, central terms undeveloped or or undeveloped sentences; or conceptual errors unsupported; makes paragraphs; imprecise use of limited use of textual arrangement words or overevidence; fails to may not appear reliance on passive integrate quotations entirely natural; voice; one or two appropriately contains major grammatical extraneous errors (subjectinformation verb agreement, comma splice, etc.); effort to present quotations accurately Shows inadequate Thesis vague or Frequently only Simplistic, tends Some major command of course not central to narrates; digresses from to narrate or grammatical or materials or contains argument; one topic to another merely proofreading errors significant factual and central terms without developing summarize; (subject-verb conceptual errors; does not not defined ideas or terms; makes wanders from agreement; respond directly to the insufficient or awkward one topic to sentence demands of the assignment; use of textual evidence another; fragments); confuses some significant illogical language marred ideas arrangement of by clichés, ideas colloquialisms, repeated inexact word choices; inappropriate quotations or citations format

Writer has not understood lectures, readings, discussions, or assignment

F

No discernible thesis

Little or no development; may list facts or misinformation; uses no quotations or fails to cite sources, or plagiarizes

No transitions; incoherent paragraphs; suggests poor planning or no serious revision

Numerous grammatical errors and stylistic problems seriously distract from the argument

On the subject of plagiarism mentioned above, there is a good description of what is and is not plagiarism in the Schedule of Classes.