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Kies de Nederlandse taal
Course module: UCHUMCLA12
UCHUMCLA12
Ancient Literature and History
Course info
Course codeUCHUMCLA12
EC7.5
Course goals
After completing the course, students are able to:
  • critically study, analyse and discuss, both from historical perspective and intrinsically, a selection of historical and literary sources, intellectual topics and cultural phenomena of the ancient world.
  • critically evaluate and appreciate the relevance of the classics today.
  • search for traditional and digital sources on the ancient world; get access to the relevant Greek and Latin sources (in modern language translations); acquire the ability to interpret sources through close reading analysis and appreciation of the historical context.
Content
Greece and Rome occupy a central position in the history of Western civilisation. Many aspects of Western civilisation have their origin in the classical world. Literature, philosophy, the arts, science, the ideal of democracy, and the rule of law, for example, were invented and developed by the Greeks and Romans and transmitted to the modern age.
While being basic to Western culture, the civilisations of the Greeks and Romans were also very different and therefore are difficult to understand from a modern perspective. Thus the study of the ancient world and classical literature is a journey into the known and the unknown, the familiar and the strange, at the same time.
In this course students will explore a selection of literary highlights from these cultures and learn to interpret them within their historical context. The texts will be subsumed under a variety of different themes: such as classical heroism, the classical philosophy of the ‘good life,’ the art of oratory, the practice of religion as a moral guide to the afterlife, the rise of Christianity and the concept of the ‘classical’.

Format
Class meets two times a week. The first meeting consists of a general introduction to the subject to be studied that week. The second meeting consists of a seminar in which a classical text will be interactively discussed and analysed. Student activities include the careful reading and study of the course material, the preparation of papers, and active participation in class discussions.
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Kies de Nederlandse taal