This course will cover the art and archaeology of the Roman world, from its forerunners in Etruscan and western Greek art in the early Iron Age, ca. 1000 BC, to the end of the reign of Constantine in the fourth century AD. We will consider issues such as how one defines “Roman” in terms of period, territory, language, ethnicity, cultural institutions and the like; the achievements of the Roman state in terms of unifying and developing the Mediterranean world and imposing a uniform culture over a diverse cultures; the uses of Roman art and architecture to establish and communicate identity and power; the arts of emperors, including monumental architecture, sculptures and mosaics, and the more modest arts of private citizens, their houses, paintings and statues. We will look at the arts of the homeland, Rome and Italy, and at the arts of the provinces; and how the Romans used art to maintain ties among the elites from Spain to Syria and from Scotland to the Sahara. We will consider the dramatic changes that Roman art underwent in the later Empire, and the transition from the Roman world, the last and only unified European empire, to the Medieval period.
For this semester, an additional focus of the course will be the exhibit in the Chazen Museum, In Stabiano: Exploring the Ancient Seaside Villas of the Roman Elite, which opens March 17, 2007. This exhibit will showcase frescoes, furniture, artifacts and other finds from the luxury villas at Stabiae near Pompeii, which like that better-known city were buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Special lectures, museum visits and projects will integrate this splendid exhibition into our more general course on Rome.
The primary texts will be
Recommended texts:
The books are available at University Bookstore and at Underground Textbook Exchange. A variety of other books and articles will be on reserve in Kohler Art Library, and assigned readings from the textbooks and other sources are listed on the syllabus.
The course meets in L150 Elvehjem Building (note room change!), Mondays and Wednesdays from 8:25 - 9:40 AM. Please do not bring food or drinks (not even coffee, please) into the classroom, unless you like vermin scurrying around your feet in the dark. Really.
Requirements for the course include attendance and reading (obviously); periodic in-class quizzes; two short written papers responding to scheduled public lectures by noted scholars; a paper responding to the exhibition of Roman works of art in the special exhibit In Stabiano at the Chazen Museum, and a term project. There will be no long midterms or final.
Readings will be primarily in the required texts, but there are also required readings in the books on reserve in Kohler Art Library. All these are on the syllabus.
Instead of full midterms and finals, there will be five in-class quizzes. The quizzes will focus on identifying and understanding works of art and issues we have discussed in class and in reading. They will include slide identifications; short discussions of the interpretation and significance of works of art and architecture; comparisons; a map quiz; short answers and perhaps short essays. They will take 20 minutes or so in class. They are not cumulative, but will cover readings and lectures between the previous quiz and the lecture before the current quiz. See the syllabus for schedule.
We have arranged special lectures to accompany the exhibit In Stabiano. Prof. Thomas Howe, one of the directors of the Ancient Stabiae project, is speaking on “Powerhouses of Rome: The Ancient Seaside Villas of Stabiae” on Thursday, Mar. 22 at 7:00 PM in L160 Elvehjem Building. John Clarke will be speaking on “Patrons and Wall Painting at Oplontis and Stabiae” on Wednesday, April 25 (time and place TBA). You should attend these lectures, take notes, and write a 2-3 page summary and analysis of the talk. You can discuss the subject matter, the argument and how he develops it, what sorts of evidence the speaker brings in, how his argument and conclusions are similar to or differ from what you have heard in lecture or read; questions you would like to have answered, or issues you would like to know more about. This must be a serious essay which shows that you attended, understood and thought about the lecture. By doing the work for this class and surviving week after week of my tedium early in the morning, you should be more than adequately prepared. If unavoidable work or some other serious conflict prevents you from attending a lecture, I will assign an alternative topic; but I strongly recommend you take advantage of these opportunities; the alternatives will probably be less interesting and more difficult. These will be due in class one week after the lecture (or at Wednesday’s class for a Thursday lecture).
The following additional lectures are scheduled: Cynthia Shelmerdine, “Unearthing the Mycenaeans”, Mar. 27, 4:00 PM; Nicholas Cahill, something about Sardis, Mar. 29, 5:30 PM, L150 LVM. You are all more than welcome to attend these, and extra credit will be given for short summaries and analyses of these talks; as they are not on Roman topics, however, they cannot be substitutes for the Howe and Clarke lectures.
The third writing assignment will be an analysis of the exhibit In Stabiano at the Chazen. The class is large enough that we cannot all attend together, but I will try to arrange a few tours guided by either myself or another faculty member or docent. The assignment will involve an analysis or More on this assignment after I have seen the exhibit myself. The assignment will be of medium length (7-8 pages) and the due date will be announced in class.
You probably all know that there are different standards and conventions for scholarly writing, such as how to cite sources, placement of footnotes, bibliography, spellings, and the like. For this course, you have a choice of either the Chicago style (see the Chicago Manual of Style, in almost every reference library on campus, Z253 U69 2003) or the American Journal of Archaeology style sheet (http://www.ajaonline.org/index.php?ptype=page&pid=2). Make sure you have proofread your paper.
For the first time, this class will use no slides, only digital images. I expect some technical difficulties. Please be patient. Images will be made available on the web (http://www.wisc.edu/arth/ah304/index.html), but not in the usual Art History Dept. / InSitu format, so no flashcards, quizzes, or all those other goodies, as many of the images for this class are not in InSitu. Unless you’re willing to help rework my web pages yourself, please don’t complain about this, as I may get (even more) grumpy.
Art History / Classics 704 meets with 304, but is reserved for graduate students. Graduate students are required to do additional readings, prepare a research paper on an aspect of Roman art and archaeology, and give a short presentation on the results of their research in the last week of class. We will meet for additional meetings at mutual convenience to discuss research methods in Classical Archaeology.
Nick Cahill: room 202 Elvehjem. Office hours Tuesdays 9-11, or by appointment. Phone 263-8980; email ndcahill at wisc.edu.
Honestly, Wikipedia does not have the final answer to all your questions. There are better resources in the library:
Scholarly bibliographies usually abbreviate journal and standard book titles. Look them up in the American Journal of Archaeology (http://www.ajaonline.org/index.php?ptype=page&pid=8).