2024-2025 Fall/Winter
CLA390H5F - Topics in Greek History and Culture: Magna Graecia: Culture and Society of the Western Greeks (Instructor: M. Haase)
"Greater Greece” (Gk. Megale Hellas; Lt. Magna Graecia) is the collective name for the Greek cities of in the coastal areas of Southern Italy and Sicily, where Greek settlers began to arrive in the 8th century BCE. The course explores Greek culture and society in southern Italy and Sicily through a wide variety of literary sources, including inscriptions, coins, and literary texts, but also material culture including art and architecture. We investigate the historical, political and economic situations that led to the Greek colonization, study its process from historical and archaeological perspectives, and analyse the development and the architectural and artistic productions of several Greek apoikiai (colonies). We analyse and compare the historical narratives on the foundations offered by Greek and Roman authors, the archaeological evidence (such as urban planning, the arrangement of domestic, public and sacred spaces in the Greek cities, and the relationship between each city and its territory), and the foundation myths that legitimized their colonisation. Last but not least, we explore the relationship between South-Italian Greek and non-Greek populations, its evolution over time, and the mechanisms by which local inhabitants appropriated elements of Greek culture.
CLA395H5S - Topics in Classics: Isis and Serapis in the Graeco-Roman World (Instructor: M. Haase)
This course investigates one of the most remarkable phenomena of the Hellenistic and Roman periods: From the fourth century BCE, the worship of Egyptian deities spread throughout the Mediterranean and as far as Arabia and India. What made these gods and their rituals so attractive to non-Egyptians? How were religious traditions rooted in Egypt adapted and modified to appeal to new worshippers outside of Egypt? This course explores the rituals, iconographies and sanctuaries of the goddess Isis and her consort Serapis, their son Harpocrates, Anubis the jackal god, the Apis bull of Egyptian Memphis, and the god of the underworld and the dead, Osiris. Our analysis of texts (literary texts, inscriptions, papyri) but also of impressive art works from Athens, Rome and other centres of the Mediterranean (statues, jewelry, ceramics, coins…) sheds light both on the Egyptian roots and appropriations of these deities.