Week 1: March 31 and April 2: The Invention of Greekness

Topics: Overview and aims of the course, using the assigned texts; chronology; history writing; questions of evidence: science and cultural myths; historia vs. poiesis; nomos vs. physis; Greeks and barbarians

Readings:

Herodotus, The Persian Wars, Introduction and Book 1
[Hippocrates], Airs, Waters, and Places 12-24 (http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/airwatpl.html)
Aristotle, Politics Book 1 (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html)
Stambler, Susanna. "Herodotus." In Ancient Wrtiers: Greece and Rome, edited by T. James Luce, 209-232. New York: Scribner, 1982.
"Athens." In Cartlege, Paul. Ancient Greece: a history in eleven cities, 89-112. New York: Oxford, 2009.

Week 2: April 5, April 7 and April 9: Myth, Tragedy, History

Topics: Introduction to tragedy; the Greater Dionysia; Homeric antecedents; females and barbarians; Greeks, Persians, Egyptians

Readings:

For Monday: Herodotus, The Persian Wars, Book 2 (Egypt)
For Wednesday: Aeschylus, Suppliants
For Friday: Herodotus Book 8.40-99 (Battle of Salamis); Aeschylus, Persians

Week 3: April 12, April 14 and April 16: Tragedy and the Advent of Democracy

Topics: Aeschylean tragedy; Aristotle on history and tragedy; the tragic hero?; tyranny vs. democracy; the politics of tragedy; male actors and female roles; feminine men and masculine women

Readings:

For Monday: Aeschylus, Agamemnon
For Wednesday: Aeschylus, Libation Bearers
For Friday: Aeschylus, Eumenides; Herodotus Book 3 and 6.102-117 (Marathon)

Cool optional reading about Herodotus from The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/04/28/080428crbo_books_mendelsohn

Drafts of first paper due at the start of class April 23

Week 4: April 19, April 21, April 23: Tragedy and the Advent of Democracy, cont’d

Topics: The dynamics of gender polarity; Athens and its institutions; Amazons and cultural difference; Scythians and Greeks

For Monday: just study
For Wednesday: Herodotus Book 3
For Friday: Herodotus Books 4-5

Week 5: April 26, 28, April 30: Cities, Families, Wars

Topics: Oracles; tragic heroes; Divine and human law

Readings: Sophocles, The Theban Plays (Oedipus the King, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus)

For Monday: Oedipus the King
For Wednesday: Paper workshops; bring edited drafts to class
For Friday: Antigone

Final version of first paper due at the start of class May 3

Week 6: May 3, May 5, May 7: Cities, Families, Wars II

Topics: History and truth claims; The Peloponnesian Wars; Athens and Sparta; the language of war; the speeches in Thucydides; Pericles' Funeral Oration; death and memory; plague

For Monday: Oedipus at Colonus
For Wednesday: Thucydides Book 1
For Friday: Thucydides Book 2

Week 7: May 10, 12, May 14: Strange Kind of Justice

Topics: Euripidean tragedy; divine vengeance and divine justice

For Monday: Finish Thucydides, Hippolytos
For Wednesday: Hippolytos
For Friday: Bacchae

Draft of second paper due at the start of class May 21

Week 8: May 17, May 19, May 21: Human justice

Topics: Mytilenean debate; Melian Dialogue (the dialogue form); The Sicilian Expedition; the morality of empire; Athens as imagined community

For Monday: Test on everything from Herodotus Book 3 through Bacchae
For Wednesday: Thucydides, History Book 3 (Mytilene, stasis); Book 5.84-116 (Melians)
For Friday: Book 6.1-87 (Sicilian expedition)

Final version of second paper due May 28

Week 9: May 24, May 26, May 28: What's so funny about Athens?

Topics: Old Comedy; the drama of everyday life; making fun of gods; can this city be saved?

For Monday: Paper Workshops
For Wednesday: Aristophanes, Clouds
For Friday: Aristophanes, Frogs

Week 10: May 31 (holiday) and June 2, June 4: The ideal republic?

Topics: Utopian visions?

For Wednesday: Plato, Republic 327a-445e
For Friday: Republic 449a-471c and 514a-521b

Monday, June 7, 12-3 P.M. Final Exam