Body, Soul, and Afterlife Journeys in Ancient Greece
GRK 350
Fall 2024
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01
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The connection between body and soul and their journey in the afterlife were at the center of how the ancient Greeks thought not only of mortality but also of the good life itself. This course is connected to the Classical Studies course titled "Death and Afterlife in Egypt and Greece" that will be taught in the fall by Kate Birney. The parent course explores the archaeology of death and burial in Egypt and Greece. It examines how the funerary practices and the very notions of death, the soul, the body, and the afterlife operated in these societies by drawing upon diverse evidence--archaeological, art historical, and mythological.
In this course students with some background in ancient Greek will read selections of the surviving evidence on death and the afterlife. Sources will be drawn from diverse genres and periods: historiography, Homeric poetry, Platonic philosophy, and religious tablets. This diversity will offer a unique opportunity to identify different registers and to explore how language itself reflects and in turn shapes the ideas and practices for which it is used. We will thus be looking at: how different media and performances are used to express loss, hope, and heroism in the face of death; how social class, gender, and political ideology are reflected in these media and how they influence ideas about death and the afterlife; and, last, how we are to create adequate methodologies as "readers" of such diverse evidence.
The selections will be drawn primarily from what the students read in translation in the parent course. The final selection will be based on the level of the students. This course is conceived as appropriate for students on the advanced level of ancient Greek. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CLST |
| Course Format: Language | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: GRK102 |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
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