Ancient Mediterranean Studies Courses
Spring 2026
- Ancient Greek and Latin Language and Literature
GRK101 – Elementary Ancient Greek 1 – Professor Carina De Klerk – WL1
Homer, Herodotus, Sappho, others — experience ancient Greece through the language of the ancient Greeks. This course introduces you to ancient Greek grammar, vocabulary at the elementary level. Reading of simple texts, including actual quotations from ancient authors. Simple conversation in the target language to aid in learning. For majors and non-majors.
LAT102 – Elementary Latin II – Professor Carina De Klerk – WL2
Second of two semesters of essential grammar and vocabulary for developing reading skills in classical Latin. Second half of the assigned grammar textbook will be completed along with a significant introduction to Roman literature and culture and supplementary work in prose composition. For majors and non-majors. Prerequisites: Latin 101 or equivalent as determined by permission of instructor.
GRK203 – Intermediate Greek – Professor Andrew Scholtz – WL3
Review and continuation of grammar, then a selection of ancient Greek literature read in the original with special attention to literary and cultural exploration.
LAT320 – Medieval Latin – Professor Tina Chronopoulos
This course focuses on Latin literature written during the medieval period. The work of the course involves close analysis and reading of texts written in a variety of genres (prose and verse) in order to become acquainted with the social, intellectual, and cultural climate in which they were produced. Students will be expected to prepare texts for each week and to offer at least one class-presentation or essay. Other assignments include word studies, collaborative translations, and similar. Students should have completed at least three semesters of Latin at college level or the equivalent. Students should contact the instructor if they have questions about their qualifications.
- Archaeology/Material Culture
AMS181A – Archaeology of Rome and Pompeii – Professor Hilary Becker – N
While it is true that Rome and Pompeii are ancient cities, the archaeology and social history can help us to reanimate them. This course will focus on key cities of Roman Italy and will examine them in a topic-based approach that seeks to illuminate and explicate key pieces of archaeological and historical evidence so that we might arrive at a better understanding not only of these ancient places but also of the people that inhabited them.
AMS234 – Art in the Ancient Greek World – Professor Jeffrey Becker – AN
This course explores the art and archaeology of the Greek world from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman period. The course focuses on architecture, sculpture, painted pottery, and wall painting as its main object classes and situates artistic and stylistic developments within their social, political, and historical context. We will consider issues of style, regional developments, technique and craftsmanship, trade and economy, and art forms in various contexts.
AMS 380 – Hellenistic & Roman Sculpture – Professor Jeffrey Becker – AC
A survey of sculptural forms in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds from the time of Alexander the Great to Late Antiquity. Key sculptural media will be considered from chronological and thematic perspectives. Attention to contextual analysis, social history, form, technique, regionalism, the tradition of copying, artists’ workshops.
AMS 380A – Cultural Heritage in Crisis – Professor Lubna Omar – ON
This course examines the cultural heritage of the Levant through archaeology, anthropology, and heritage studies. It explores how material culture, landscapes, and traditions have been shaped—and often endangered—by conflict, displacement, and colonial legacies. Case studies highlight historic sites, threatened practices, and community preservation efforts, while students critically consider how archaeology and heritage are used to construct or challenge political and cultural narratives.
AMS 330 – Roman Economy – Professor Hilary Becker – CH
This course entails a study of the mechanics of the ancient economy, with special attention to the economy of ancient Italy and the Roman empire, all the while examining economic systems across the Mediterranean basin and beyond. In particular, we will examine commerce and exchange in both pre-monetary and monetized environments. Issues including production, consumption, trade routes, markets, funerary economy, organization of industry, and manpower will be considered. Throughout the course the main goal will be to arrive at an understanding of how the ancient economy works, all the while taking care to consider these economic systems within the social and political contexts in which they operated. No prior background in Classics, archaeology, or economy is required. However, Economics majors must have completed ECON 160 and ECON 162 to take this course.
- Literature in Translation & Culture
AMS232 – Classical Mythology – Professor Pavlovskis-Petit – HITW + FYA
Classical myth in ancient literature and art. Myth as theology, cosmology, explanation of psychological and social phenomena. Correlations between history and mythology. Modern schools of myth interpretation. For majors and non-majors. Weekly lecture and discussion session. One final examination, one 15-page paper.
AMS280F – Love Stories 1: Ancient/Medieval – Professor Pavlovskis-Petit – OW + FYA
Some of the most representative love stories from Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages are studied as expressions of the psychology of love and as documents revealing socio-historic factors that determined how love was defined and perceived. Format: Weekly lectures followed by discussion. Oral presentations a Basic part of the course. Final examination.
AMS 365 – Race for Glory:GrkCivUnderRome – Professor Andrew Scholtz –OTHIW
In a poem from 1845, Edgar Allan Poe longs for "the glory that was Greece, / And the grandeur that was Rome." But what was Greek glory under Rome? As we shall see, it was in many ways a re-performance of past greatness in the face of a problematic present. For the challenge posed by being proudly Greek under Roman rule involved a tricky sort of negotiation, both with the ruling power and with fellow Imperial subjects. Indeed, it seems to have fostered a climate of intense rivalry in the Greek-speaking Roman East, whose star orators, athletes, and others competed on a grand scale. Hence competition as a theme central to the course: celebrity sophists battling one another for prestige; cities battling for Imperial favor; ordinary folks seeking to get ahead of, or not to be left behind by, other ordinary folks. There were prizes to be won, but dangers, too, especially those posed by envious rivals. In the end, such concerns generated much cultural production, but they reveal as well fault-lines within ideologies shaping the creation and ancient reception of materials to be studied.
AMS380C – Slavery in Greek and Roman Literature and Culture – Professor Carina De Klerk – DHO
When we think about the literatures of ancient Greece and Rome, our imagination tends to be captured by figures such as Achilles or Caesar. This course offers a survey of Greek and Roman literature in translation that looks past the well known literary and historical figures to the enslaved people around them. In reading excerpts from the Odyssey, for instance, we shift our gaze from the trials and exploits of Odysseus to the enslaved people that support him, as well as to those that are caught up in the collateral damage of his bloody return home. Instead of the oratory and achievements of Marcus Tullius Cicero, we consider what can be gleaned of the life and work of Marcus Tullius Tiro, a man enslaved by Cicero and later bound to him as a freedman. In analyzing the representation of enslaved people across a range of literary genres and time periods, we will grapple with a number of questions. How does the representation of enslaved people differ based on literary genre and socio-historical context? What can fictional enslaved people reveal about the lived experiences of their real life counterparts? Do the voices of real enslaved people survive, and if so, how and what do they have to say? How was slavery justified and was it ever challenged? What sort of people were enslaved and under what circumstances could one end up becoming enslaved? Ample evidence from material culture (pot paintings, sculpture, inscriptions, etc.) will add depth to the readings, which will include selections from all major literary genres of ancient Greece and Rome.
- History & Philosophy
AMS 280C – Plato And Aristotle ‐ Professor Mateo Duque – ITHW + FYA
In this course we will examine two of the most intriguing philosophical thinkers of all time: Plato and Aristotle. We will briefly look at the Early Greek philosophers. We will study several of Plato’s dialogues, and investigate the views on epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics represented in the dialogues. We will also read several of Aristotle’s treatises, and excerpts of others.
AMS283A -- Ancient Middle East: From the East -- Professor John Starks -- GINT
In this social and cultural history course, student and instructor will investigate the extensive achievements, complex power networks and rivalries, and significant challenges discernible for several major cultures of what Greeks and later “Western” writers termed “the East,” based on their own biases about their own exceptional qualities and the “otherness/alterity” of cultures to their geographic east. While guided by expert contemporary scholars through archaeological and historical study of these cultures’ documents, literatures (when extant), and material artifacts, and the extensive writings of their Greek, Roman, Israelite/Judaic, and other rivals, we will seek to understand “Phoenicians,” Carthaginians, “Syrians” (broadly construed, as in antiquity), and Persians, and from their own perspectives, as often as possible. Investigations will include delving into all aspects of daily life: religion and traditions; politics, law and governmental systems; warfare and diplomacy; economics, labor, crafts, and trade; languages; ethnic identity, suppression, and adaption; socioeconomic differentials in autocratic, oligarchic/plutocratic, and enslaving societies; arts and entertainment; urban planning and architecture, public, monumental, private, and domestic; gender and sexuality; health and living conditions; modes of dress and gesture/expression; aging, death, and memorialization.
AMS 381C Ancient Palestine and Israel – Professor Nathanael Andrade – INTC
Beginning with Iron Age Israel, Judah, and Philistia and ending with the Arab conquest of Roman Palestine, the course traces the historical experiences of ancient peoples who located their ancestral and sacred territories in the south Levant and embraced concepts of Israelite or Palestinian community, including Palestinian Christians, Jews, and Samaritans.
AMS 480B– Stoic Ethics – Professor Anthony Preus – JHT
Philosophical examination of ethical writings of the ancient Stoic philosophers from Zeno of Citium and other early Stoics via the writings of Cicero and Diogenes Laertius (primarily), to Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. For the sake of context, we will also look at the ethical teachings of the Academy, of the Epicureans, and of Skeptics and Cynics.