2024-2025 Graduate Courses & Descriptions

Prose Composition

Language-Intensive Courses

Research Seminars

Prose Composition Course Descriptions

GRK1000H Advanced Studies in Greek Language - D. Kenny

A course designed to enhance language skills. Prose composition, sight translation, stylistic analysis of classical Greek prose. 

Students should enhance their skills in reading Greek prose in this course. Specifically, at the end of the course they should: 

• have increased confidence and ability in reading classical Greek prose at sight 
• be able to translate passages of English prose into classical Greek prose 
• have improved their appreciation of classical Greek prose style 

Graduate students entering the program will already have the knowledge they need for accomplishing these objectives; this course will focus on the application of that knowledge and the development of some appropriate skills. 

LAT1000H Advanced Studies in Latin Language - J. Welsh

Detailed study of classical Latin prose. Students will consolidate their knowledge of advanced Latin grammar and be introduced to a variety of different prose styles. Particular attention will be paid to prose composition and to stylistic analysis of classical Latin prose.

Language Instensive Course Descriptions

GRK1800 Democracy in Crisis - V. Wohl

Around the world (and disturbingly close to home) democracy is in crisis. Are there lessons to be learned about this current crisis from the history of ancient democracy? In this class, we will read the literature of democratic Athens and discuss the promise and limitations of democracy as a political system, as well as the threats (internal and external) it may face. Our readings will be drawn almost exclusively from reading list texts, and will cover a broad range of genres, including tragedy, comedy, historiography, oratory, and political theory. The primary objective of the course is to support students in enhancing their Greek reading skills and familiarizing themselves with the central texts of classical Greece and the skills of classics scholarship. Students who want more information or a preliminary preview of the readings are encouraged to email me.

LAT1800 Special Topics in Latin Literature: Readings in Latin Epic - M. Dewar

The aims of this course are, first and foremost, to help students improve their general fluency in reading Latin epic poetry and, secondly, to help them prepare for the Qualifying Examinations. We shall begin with Catullus’ neoteric epyllion, Carmen 64. Students will be consulted in January to determine which other texts on the Qualifying Examinations Reading Lists they prefer to study in class.

Time in class will be spent on a range of differing activities. Practice in translating portions of the set texts into English will feature prominently, as preparation for the Qualifying Examinations, and discussion of stylistic, linguistic, literary-historical, and literary-critical considerations will also be encouraged.

Research Seminars Course Descriptions

CLA3020Y Ancient History Core Course - B. Chrubasik (Fall) & B. Akrigg (Spring)

Description TBD.

CLA5022H Early Greek Political Thought - R. Barney.

Description TBD.

CLA5028H Theology in first-century Rome: Cicero and the intellectual history of the Late Republic - A. Bendlin

Description TBD.

CLA5024H Roman Work - S. Bernard

Description TBD.

CLA5023 The Rhetoric of Empire - E. Gunderson

Roman imperialism unfolded over several centuries. It was a basic, albeit complex, element of life in the ancient Mediterranean. It affected, directly or indirectly, just about everyone of every gender, class, and ethnicity, and often differentially so. Accordingly the question is both too important to ignore but also too large to admit of any comprehensive summary.

We will attempt to explore a specific facet of imperial life. One could call it the putting into discourse of the empire. Narrowly, this is just a matter of listening to what people said about the life in an imperial context. But, in practice, what is said is confusing: it is incomplete, misleading, full of exaggerations, marked by omissions, … Little is ever put in the terms one might most expect. Some people are obviously being coy, but when piercing the veil of so-called veiled speech do we really see “behind it all” quite what one expected? Nor, for that matter, did one speak about the here and now empire in the terms that preceding generations had used to speak of empires. So one cannot just say that we are today making anachronistic demands of yesterday. Something complex was afoot, and it cannot be reduced to a matter of rhetoric vs reality or any such simple schema.

We will survey a variety of authors and genres including orations, essays, political tracts, letters, biographies. Will use these reading to assemble an archive of various episodes where the question of the subject and power were articulated. And we will ponder the contents of this archive as we seek to generate our own account of the structuring fantasies of political subjectivity in an imperial world.

Comparative literature students are encouraged to bring in other episodes from other places and times. The current political moment generates them almost daily.

Methods of Evaluation: Students will give in class presentations and write a final paper.

(This seminar is cross-listed as JCO5121H1F.)

CLA5018H Roman Seas - C. Atkins

Description TBD.

CLA5025H Early Greek Society - S. Murray

This seminar focuses on early Greece, defined here as the period between the demise of Bronze Age Aegean palatial states and the beginning of the Archaic period, ca. 1200–700 BCE. Early Greece has traditionally been considered of interest primarily because of its rhetorical positioning as a period when the social relationships and structures that would shape the historical Greek world were developing. Departing from that tradition, this seminar approaches the increasingly rich body of available evidence from this era as compelling on its own merits, a basis for reconstructing five-hundred years of dynamic social, political, and economic history. Emphasis is on historiographical review of extant scholarship framing the period as a ‘transition’, independent examination of material and textual evidence, and generative discussions aimed at developing research pathways that might yield novel insights and models. A larger vector of critique concerns the force of overarching master ‘rise-and-fall’ narratives that frame the structure of Greco-Roman history, and consideration of whether such narratives retain analytical utility in the context of contemporary scholarly discourse. Coursework will involve extensive study of archaeological evidence, while readings will draw from ancient Greek textual sources, particularly poetry by Homer and Hesiod, which are frequently referenced in discussions about early Greece.

CLA5023 Palladas - K. Wilkinson

Description TBD.

MACS1000Y MACS Core Course - S. Bernard

Description TBD.