CLASS 2802 Classical Tradition
Course description
Greece and Rome left behind a cultural legacy that still shapes the artistic, literary, scientific, and legal aspects of the world we live in today. This course traces those continuities of influence, while simultaneously tracking how they were transformed by later societies to fit their own cultural, intellectual, and technological circumstances. Readings that illuminate the adaptations and reconfigurations of Classical culture will be focused on a different theme each year.
Summer 2024: Ithaca campus
| Section ID: | CLASS 2802 101-SEM |
| Number: | 1553 |
| Topic: | Feminist Retellings of Greek Myths |
| Session: | Summer 6-week |
| Class dates: | June 24-August 2, 2024 |
| Final exam/project due: | Tuesday August 06, 1:30 PM - 4 PM / TBA (see Final exams) |
| Time / room: | M-F 1 PM - 2:15 PM / Goldwin Smith Hall 348 |
| Mode of instruction: | In person |
| Credit: | 3 |
| Grade: | Student option |
| Instructor: | Platt, V. (vjp33) |
| Max. enroll: | 20 |
| Notes: | This class explores the classical tradition through the lens of contemporary retellings of Greek and Roman myth by contemporary female authors, focusing on feminist receptions of epic poetry. Alongside readings from the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid in translation, we will explore how female characters are made the center of their own stories in novels such as Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, Madeleine Miller’s Circe, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, and Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia, asking why such retellings have become such a phenomenon within contemporary popular fiction. |
| To enroll: |