Semester:
Offered:
Rachel Love (Department of the Classics)
First-Year Seminar 63R 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment: Limited to 15
Note: All readings are in English, and no knowledge of Latin or Greek is expected.
The question of what makes certain works "classics" has plagued readers ever since they had more than one book to choose from. When faced with more works of literature and art than one could consume in a single lifetime, the label "classic" provides readers with a narrowed selection that is guaranteed to be worth the time and effort to engage with, that is vital to participation within an intellectual community. Classical literature, classical art, classical music—all suggest art forms that are fundamental, elevated, perhaps even elite? but why? And who gets to decide what qualifies as "classical," especially when those who constitute today's intellectual communities are increasingly heterogenous and have greater access to an impossibly vast, impossibly diverse trove of global artistic production? In this seminar, we are going to read "The Classics"—defined within universities as the study of literature from ancient Greece and Rome—in order to open up larger questions about the nature, purpose, and consequence of labelling certain works, aesthetics, and ideas "classical." We will read selections from a broad sampling of written works that survive from antiquity, learning firsthand what it means to read a classic. At the same time, we will be reading, watching, and listening to a diverse array of media that explain, criticize, and reimagine the role of classical literature and ideas in today's world.