This course will explore the secular and religious landscapes of ancient Greece, and the climate in which its arts and culture developed and thrived. The course will be organized primarily around the sites in which Greeks lived and worshipped: their cities and sanctuaries. We will start by studying the Greek polis in theory and practice. We will examine the theories of city planning, reading the works of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, urban planners such as Hippodamus of Miletus, and considering historical and social factors such as colonization which led to the foundation of so many cities. We will then turn to the process of building a city. We will look at both monumental and domestic architecture, and consider not only the forms of architecture but also the technologies of construction, patronage, use and reuse of buildings, and the finds which are associated with such buildings which help reconstruct their chronology and use.
Finally, in the latter part of the course we will address the religious life of the ancient Greeks within this civic context. After a brief introduction to Greek religion and cult practice, we will look at various sanctuaries in the Greek world. We will consider how sanctuaries were organized, what sorts of activities went on in them, and how they were related to civic life. We will end with an examination of religious art in its sacred context.
Requirements include attendance and readings, a weekly diary, two medium-length research papers (see below), and active participation in discussion. There will be periodic review and discussion days, generally on Fridays. On these days we will have a more general discussion and question-and-answer session. Potential topics for these sessions will be culled from questions raised in diaries. Attendance and participation in discussion are weighted heavily in grading. There will be no midterm or final examinations.
Three paper topics are given below. You have your choice of two of them.
The weekly diary is intended to help you keep up with lectures and readings, to communicate your questions and insights to me and to the rest of the class, and to help me keep track of your progress. Each diary entry should be 1-2 double-spaced page long (300-400 words), written in complete sentences, organized paragraphs, well-crafted prose. You may address questions you have about material covered in lecture or in readings; comparisons and/or discrepancies between material presented in lecture and in readings; thoughts and connections with other cultures or material you have encountered; comments on what interested you most about the readings or lectures and why they interested you; and issues you would like to explore further, either in class or outside. Please do not just summarize readings or lectures, but write on your own thoughts, questions, and reactions. I will be reading these in part to get a sense of how well you are keeping up with readings and lectures; in this way the diary replaces examinations, so use this opportunity to demonstrate your informed understanding of the material.
Diaries are due by the Monday of each week. They may be submitted on paper or on the Learn@UW web site using the Drop Box (instructions there). There will be a folder for each week. If you submit to the drop box, name your file with your name and the week of the diary, e.g. “John Smith Diary Week 4.rtf.” Questions posed in the diaries may be the topics of Friday’s discussion, so you may take the opportunity to bring up subjects you would like to discuss further in class. Diaries will be graded. You may miss two diary entries without penalty; after that, I will not take late submissions.
The first research assignment will be to write a short paper on one of the cities we have not covered in class. Choose from one of the following Greek poleis:
Research the city’s ancient history, excavation history urban plan, and known buildings. A useful place to start is the Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, in Memorial Library Reference Stacks Room 262 (non-circulating), call number DE59 P7. PECS is also available on Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0006), with links to other material in Perseus such as photographs, plans, catalogs of buildings, sculptures, etc. However, PECS was written in 1976 and so does not include material discovered or published in the past 30 years. You will find Dyabola (above) an essential resource for more recent bibliography. Go to Subject Tree - Topography - Countries/Regions/Sites - Greece (or Italy or Turkey or wherever your site is), and then type the name of your site in the “site” box, and press return. (You may have to explore a bit to find the German spelling!) You will get a list of articles and books about your site; you will then have to look the books and journals in Madcat. Not all will be in English. It is not required that you learn new languages just for this class, but you should look at the pictures and consider who has done the most work on a site. You can also use Dyabola to look for articles by the same author -- if this is someone closely connected with the site, perhaps he or she has written in English as well, or articles on related topics. You will also find useful bibliography in the books and articles on reserve: for instance, for South Italian and Sicilian sites the articles in The Greek World are very useful. You need not read everything written about your city — the bibliography for some cities is huge; but try to become familiar with what has been written about it. It is useful also to start with the most recent work, and read their footnotes and bibliography carefully for other important references. We will discuss this process in class.
Quality of information is critical in this (and any) research assignment. It’s easy to find information about a topic sufficient to write a paper; it’s much more difficult to find good information. But this is the most important aspect of learning: especially if you are new to a field, you need to know that you can trust the source you are reading, and know whether he or she is a flake or a legitimate scholar. Therefore, do not simply Google your site and use whatever comes up. You must use at least two significant scholarly sources beyond the PECS, i.e. books, articles or web sites by recognized and trustworthy art historians/archaeologists, the people who are doing the major research on the field. Other sources are certainly derivative and probably misleading. How do you know who is a recognized art historian/archaeologist? You can look in the bibliographies of assigned readings in this course; look in DYABOLA; or ask me. This is an extremely important topic, and we can discuss this in class; if you have any questions about a source, please contact me. If you do not use sufficiently serious sources, your grade will suffer dramatically.
Write a ca. 10 page (ca. 2500 words) paper on the city. Where is it? What is its geography like, what natural resources does it control, what roads or trade routes? Sketch out the history of the city, when it was founded or first occupied, when it was abandoned, notable events and people associated with its history. What do we know about it from literary sources? Briefly describe the modern history of research, who excavated the city (if it has been excavated), how extensively it has been investigated and published, what sorts of techniques have been used. What do we know about the planning of the city? Does it have a grid? What sorts of walls, buildings, public spaces and buildings, and other features are known, from literary or archaeological information? How is it similar to cities we have covered in class? What is special or unique about it? You may append plans or other drawings. Be sure to attach bibliography. If you have problems with any aspect of the paper please come to see me.
Your paper should have a bibliography, and you should cite sources in the text. You may do this with footnotes (preferred) or in-text citations. In American archaeology, the standard formats are those of the American Journal of Archaeology (AJA); their notes for contributors are on the web at http://www.ajaonline.org/shared/s_info_contrib_4.html
You may include illustrations; this is in addition to the ca. 2500 word text. Due Wed. Feb. 25 in class.
The second assignment will be a research project on a specific building in the Athenian Agora. The Agora has the advantage of being well-published in English, with a variety of sources both general and scholarly. The goal of this project is to investigate a single building known from both archaeological and literary sources, and summarize its architectural, archaeological and historical significance.
Choose one of the following buildings on the Agora:
First, trace the history of current scholarly knowledge about your building. It is easiest to start with the most recent and general scholarship, such as Camp’s Athenian Agora. From there, you should move to the more scholarly publications in the Athenian Agora series (the big blue books, for instance Agora 14: Thompson and Wycherley, The Agora of Athens: the history, shape, and uses of an ancient city center. Finally, go back to the original excavation reports in Hesperia, the journal of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, which is responsible for the excavation of the Agora. Look at the reserve table in Kohler, and in the binder of articles, where I have tried to collect some of the most pertinent articles. Also read the pertinent passages of Wycherley’s Agora 3: Literary and epigraphical testimonia, on reserve.
Your paper should begin by describing briefly the form of the building, its phasing, modifications, and circumstances of destruction, the materials and techniques of its construction. You should address questions of date and phasing of the building, and its reconstruction (including alternative interpretations of the date, reconstruction and other aspects). You should then move to the evidence for the identification of this monument, its use including associated artifacts, literary and epigraphic testimonia, and other questions of interpretation. Consider how appropriate the building is for the purpose for which it was intended. If it was intended to hold a specific group or groups of people, how did it accommodate them? How did it deal with issues such as controlled access, seating, obstruction of view of some central point (e.g. a speaker’s platform), and so forth — how did the building work? This often is the most interesting part of the question, and you should think about and research it carefully. The essay should be ca. 10 pages long, and should include illustrations. Format like Paper 1. Due in class Wed. Mar. 31.
The third assignment will be an evaluation of one of the following Greek sanctuaries:
The organization should be similar to that of the first paper. Consider the history of excavation and research, location, topography, buildings in the sanctuary, and the cult. What makes this sanctuary special: is it famous for an oracle, for athletic or other agonistic events, dedications? To what city, if any, is it related, and what is special about the relationship? Focus on the Greek period, and cover as many of the interesting and significant aspects of the sanctuary as you can. For instance, you could spend a whole paper on the theater at Epidauros, but that would ignore the very interesting (but much less well preserved) healing sanctuary of Asklepios. Give a balanced presentation. Format like Papers 1 and 2. Due in class Wed. May 5.
In general, the scheme I use for grading is:
No points for wackiness: don’t bring in pyramids or astrology, at least not in a serious vein.
In addition to the regular work, graduate students will make short in-class presentations in the final weeks of class. These can be on one of the research papers, but should go beyond the rather short summary treatment of the short paper, and deal with more of the specifics of the site. We will work on these presentations individually: see me during my office hours.
My office is in 202 Elvehjem Building, phone 263-8980. Email ndcahill at wisc.edu. My office hours are Mondays 2-4 PM, or by appointment.
I take this very seriously. All work in this class should be original and your own - this seems obvious, but maybe it’s worth stating again just for the record. The UW has specific policies on academic integrity and misconduct - see their web site at http://www.wisc.edu/students/acad_misconduct_guide.htm. In your research papers (and diaries if appropriate) you should cite all the sources you have used.