CLAS 210 - Sex, Gender and Power in Ancient Literature

FDR: HL
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Fall, 2011 and every third year.

What does it mean to be a woman or a man and what power dynamic exists between the two genders? Definitions of gender and gender roles are not a modern phenomenon but have their origins in antiquity. Both literary and visual sources reveal to us the constant puzzling over issues of gender that preoccupied the ancient Greeks and Romans. In this course, we examine sources from various genres and media – for example, philosophy, epic, drama, poetry, history, painting, and sculpture – in an attempt to understand the various ways the Greeks and Romans conceived of gender. Readings include primary sources from antiquity (e.g., Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, Terence, Cicero, Livy), as well as secondary sources from modern scholarship on gender in antiquity. Park.