CAS CL351/651 Latin Seminar
Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy
Prereq: CAS CL 212 or equivalent
Topic for Fall 2025: Catullus. Was Catullus a love poet, tortured by his adulterous on-again, off-again relationship with Lesbia? Was he primarily an invective poet, given to obscene attacks on his enemies (or frenemies), who anger him by stealing his girlfriend (or boyfriend), by displaying too much rapacity and greed, or simply by misreading his poetry? Or was he a poet dedicated to the Alexandrian ideal of learned poetry and obsessed with obscure allusions and complex meters, similes, and other literary tropes? This semester, we will read through these many different Catulluses and try to appreciate the unifying threads among them, as well as the dissonance between them. This course may be repeated for credit as topics change.
TR 2:00-3:15PM Professor Leah Kronenberg
CAS CL391/691 Greek Seminar
Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy
Prereq: CAS CL262 or equivalent
Topic for Fall 2025: Plato’s Republic.. May be repeated for credit as topics change.
TR 12:00-1:45PM Professor Stephen Esposito
CAS CL520 Studies in Latin Literature
Topic for Fall 2025: Critical Theory and Latin Literature. This seminar is a methodological introduction to literary theory and its potential applications to readings of Latin literature. In other words, students in this course will learn how to read theory and how to use it in their own research. The first half of the semester offers an introductory survey of the foundations of literary theory, from Russian formalism and French structuralism to cutting-edge debates in ecocriticism and new materialisms. The second half of the semester will focus on case studies drawing from a wide range of canonical and non-canonical Latin literature, including Lucretius, Vergil, Seneca, Apuleius, and the late antique Vandal poet Luxorius, as we approach these authors from, among others, Marxist, affective, queer, and feminist theoretical angles.
TR 3:30-4:45PM Professor Rebecca Moorman
CAS CL563 Greek Prose Composition
Topic for Fall 2025: TBD
TR 9:30-10:45PM Professor Laurie Hutcheson
CAS CL791 Graduate Greek Seminar
Topic for Fall 2025: The Greek Anthology
W 3:30-6:15PM Professor Steven Smith
A study of the Anthology’s compilation, organization, and various epigrammatic subgenres from the Hellenistic to the middle Byzantine period. Weekly readings in Greek will consist of representative epigrams from each of the collection’s fifteen books and the Planudean appendix, as well as two hexameter ekphraseis by Paul Silentiarius and John of Gaza, both included in the Palatine anthology. Student presentations on recent and important scholarship and final thesis in consultation with the instructor. The course will also introduce Greek paleography, with a focus on the Palatine codex (Palatinus graecus 23).