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UNIVERSITY OF LONDONM.A. Courses in:
2008 - 2009Published on behalf of: |
The list of courses given below is as accurate as is possible, but provision of courses is subject to demand, and courses may have to be withdrawn or added if necessary. Updates to the courses on offer will be posted on the website at the earliest opportunity.
'Dedicated M.A. course' means 100% M.A. teaching.
'B.A./M.A. course' normally means a 50/50 package.
'B.A./M.A. course, subject to numbers' normally means a 50/50 package unless the numbers of M.A. takers make it appropriate to arrange a separate M.A. group.
* indicates a dedicated M.A. course.
+ indicates a language-testing or language-acquisition course for M.A. Classics.
All courses are coded K - if taught exclusively at King's College London; M or CLASM - if following a common syllabus shared between colleges; CL or HS - if taught exclusively at Royal Holloway, University of London; CLASU, CLASG or HISTG - if taught exclusively at University College London; or MB - if they are taken from the M.A. in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies.
A literary study of the Iliad and Odyssey, with close attention to eight books (four from each of the epics) which are studied in the original Greek. Topics considered will range from the texture of Homeric verse to the ideology of the Homeric poems.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: two essays of 4,000 words each and one detailed commentary on the original Greek text (each piece of work worth one third of the marks).
Teachers: Professor Ahuvia Kahane (RHUL).
Meetings over two terms on Tuesdays from 11.00-13.00 in room ST 273; the first class will be on 30/9/08.
Greek poetry of the third century BC renaissance is both absorbing and fascinating in itself, and of huge historical signficance for its influence on Roman poetry of the late Republican and Augustan periods, and thus on European literature more broadly. This course offers an intensive study of key poems by three major poets fo the period - Callimachus, Theocritus and Apollonius of Rhodes - including both complete and fragmentary works, and epigram as well as large-scale compositions. Class time will be devoted to a combination of close reading of texts in the original Greek and discussion of larger issues of interpretation, bearing both on the individual poets, and the cultural environment in which they worked.
Set texts (in the first instance):
Callimachus, Hymns 2, 3 and 4
Theocritus, Idylls 15-18
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica Book 3
A selection of empigrams and fragmentary texts (e.g. Callimachus, Aitia and Hecale)
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: two essays of 4,000 words each and one detailed commentary on a prescribed text (each piece of work worth one third of the marks).
Teachers: Professor Giambattista D'Alessio (KCL).
Meetings over two terms, on Thursdays from 2.00-4.00 at KCL, room to be confirmed.
A study of selected Greek lyric poets of the seventh, sixth and fifth centuries in the original language. Topics considered may include dialect, style, metre, literary interpretation, circumstances and manner of performance, social, political and religious context, textual transmission. The first term will be devoted to a selection of solo and choral poets, the second to Pindar and Bakchylides.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: two essays of 4,000 words each and one detailed commentary on the original text (each piece of work worth one third of the marks).
Teacher: Professor C. Carey (UCL) and Professor Giambattista D'Alessio (KCL).
Meetings over two terms at UCL, on Mondays from 2.00-4.00, location to be confirmed.
A study of two Greek tragedies and two Greek comedies in the original language. Topics considered will include style, interpretation, textual transmission, dramaturgy, staging, metre, and social, political and religious context.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: two essays of 4,000 words each, and one detailed commentary on the original text (each piece of work worth one third of the marks).
Teacher: Professor C. Carey (UCL), Dr Miriam Leonard (UCL).
Meetings over two terms on Tuesdays 11 - 1, location to be confirmed.
The course will cover two of the nine books of Herodotus’ Histories in Greek, with the intervening book being read in translation. It will train students in the close reading (linguistic, literary, narratological, historical) of one of the key texts of ancient Greek historiography and literature. Teaching will deal with book 5 in term 1 (taught mainly by Simon Hornblower) and book 7 in term 2 (taught mainly by Chris Carey); students will also be expected to read book 6 in translation and additional classes on structure will be available in the summer term.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: two essays of 4,000 words each and one detailed commentary on the original text (each piece of work worth one third of the marks).
Teacher: Professors Simon Hornblower and Chris Carey (UCL).
Meetings: over two terms on Wednesdays 11-1, location to be confirmed.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Special prerequisite: A good reading knowledge of Latin.
Assessment: two essays of 4,000 words each, and one linguistic commentary on a passage of text (each piece of work worth one third of the marks).
Teacher: Dr Gesine Manuwald (UCL).
Meetings: Twenty two hour classes, a suitable time to be devised based on the participants' availability.
The course aims to introduce Horace as a lyric poet. In his first book Horace offered the reader an exceptional variety of lyric forms and themes (hymns, narratives, erotic, sympotic, and political situations). In addition to seeing how Horace adapted the rich tradition of Greek lyric (and epigram) for Latin lyric, we will particularly concentrate on his poetic style, since one of the issues he faced was the creation of a satisfactory verbal medium for lyric, which had only a slight tradition in Rome. Close attention will therefore be paid to diction, word order and sentence structure. The organization of the individual ode, and the ordering of the poems within the book will also be studied.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Set texts for study in Latin:Special prerequisite: Advanced or Intermediate Latin at BA level.
Assessment: is by 3 elements, each contributing equally to the total mark: two essays, each of around 4,000 words, chosen from a set list, and a 2-hour unseen test on the prescribed text at the end of the course containing passages in Latin for translation and comment.
Teacher: Professor Roland Mayer (KCL).
Meetings: Twenty two hour classes, times and venue to be confirmed.
Through a close reading of Tacitus, Annals 13-16, the course combines historical study
of the reign of Nero with literary study of Tacitus. Tacitus' language and style are analysed in the
context of their creation of a particular portrait of Nero. Tacitus' presentation of the key episodes
and issues in Nero's reign is examined and compared with other accounts and evidence to assess the
historicity of the Tacitean image of Nero.
While the course is based on reading passages of Tacitus in Latin, language-testing assessment is
optional and the course is accessible to students with basic Latin.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Set text for study in Latin: Tacitus, Annals 13-16 (the OCT edition).
Texts for background study in translation: Suetonius, Nero; Cassius Dio,
Roman History 61-63; other miscellaneous texts and documents provided on course hand-outs.
Prerequisites: For language-testing assessment: Advanced or Intermediate Latin at BA level. For assessment without testing language: Beginners Latin at BA level.
Assessment is by 3 elements, each contributing equally to the total mark:
two essays, each of around 4,000 words, chosen from a set list, and a 2-hour unseen test
at the end of the course containing passages in Latin for translation and comment in the
language-testing version, and passages with translation for comment in the non-language-testing
version.
Teacher: Professors R G Mayer and D W Rathbone (KCL).
Meetings: One two-hour class weekly, for 20 weeks, at KCL; in term 1, the class is planned for Thursdays from 11.00-1.00 in Room E5.
Preparation of text and background reading for discussion in class are expected.
A course on Greek and Roman prose fiction, with texts studied in translation. Principal texts
will be Chariton, Chaireas and Callirhoe; Xenephon of Ephesus, Ephesiaca; Longus,
Daphnis and Chloe; Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon; Heliodorus,
Aethiopica; Petronius, Satyrica; Apuleius, Metamorphoses; Apollonius
of Tyre. There will also be a consideration of fragmentary and summary texts, related to works
in the corpora of Lucian, Dio, and Philostratus; the Alexander Romance; and the genre's
Byzantine and Renaissance Nachleben.
Aspects to be studied will include origins and antecedents; genre and audience(s); cultural and literary
contexts; narrative form and technique; ecphrasis and excursus; irony, parody, satire, and subversion;
love, sexuality and the person; reflections and reinventions of history ethnicity and cultural
self-definition in the Hellenistic and Imperial oikoumene; religion and religiosity; intimations of
Christianity; and literacy and literary form between roll and codex.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: three coursework essays of 4,000 words each.
Teachers: Dr N J Lowe (RHUL).
Meetings over two terms, 2-4 on Mondays, in GSB2 (basement of 2 Gower St, but sign-in and door entry code from 11 Bedford Square); the first session will be on 7/10/08.
The fall of the Roman Republic brought about change in the cultural values of the Roman state. No longer was Rome a Republic in which it was possible to pretend that all citizens were equal, but now even the most powerful of Roman aristocrats were under the power of the Roman emperor and his servants. The period from the accession of Vespasian to the death of Hadrian saw a re-evaluation of cultural values in the new world and also a revisiting of the literary values of the Augustan and earlier periods in the scholarly Latin of the so-called Silver Age. The new literature of the period played with traditional models and reworked them into sometimes disturbing, sometimes challenging, sometimes ironic depictions of contemporary society, either addressing the topic directly (through epistolary writers and historians) but other times indirectly, through the imaginative worlds of the poets. The period is, therefore, a particularly appropriate field of study to explore changes in literary and social convention and discussions about the meaning and purpose of literature and society, about what it is to be a man or woman in society, and how individuals are to behave in their society. This course follows a variety of themes in literary and social history which come together in this period (though may have origins earlier), and draws on a variety of methodologies to attempt an understanding of being Roman in this crucial period in the evolution of Roman society.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: three pieces of coursework, each of 4,000 words.
Teacher: Professor R Alston and Dr E Spentzou (RHUL)
Meetings: over two terms, Thursdays 11-1 at the ICS, room to be confirmed.
The course is in two parts. The first term is exploratory: students will read a substantial sample of verse and prose, concentrated in a particular period, normally c. 1100 - 1200 AD (e.g. accounts of the First Crusade and of the Murder of Thomas Becket, Carmina Burana, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Abelard). In the second term the class will learn how to edit a medieval Latin text. The text chosen will be one which (i) has not been published, or critically edited, before; (ii) exists in at least one accessible MS(S) for first-hand collation (i.e. BL or Lambeth; other witnesses may be supplied in microfilm); (iii) is of interest to the current takers of the course. Texts for reading will be provided in photocopy. If you would like to do some preparatory reading, C. Beeson, A Primer of Medieval Latin, old but still in print, offers an excellent anthology with introduction on the main differences between classical and medieval Latin.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Prerequisite: a good reading knowledge of Latin. The course on Latin Palaeography is highly recommended as a concurrent option.
Assessment: first term, class presentation or essay (worth 25%); second term, edition of section of text (worth 75%). Translation and commentary will show linguistic competence.
Teacher: Miss A. C. Dionisotti (KCL).
Meetings over two terms, with one weekly two-hour class on Mondays in Senate House, Room NG 16, from
1000 - 1200.
In the first part of the course students will be expected
to prepare texts for each week and to offer at least one class-presentation
or essay. In the second term each student will be given a section of the text
to edit with critical apparatus, translation, and commentary on all aspects.
The aim of the course is to acquaint students with the main forms taken by Greek books and Greek handwriting from the Hellenistic period to the fifteenth century AD, and to give them the ability to read new samples from any point within this timespan with confidence. The first term is devoted to developments between the third century BC and the eighth century AD, including the transition from roll to codex form; the second term considers developments from the emergence of minuscule as a book-hand to the production of the first fonts for printed Greek.
The course develops a practical skill valuable both in itself, as training in scholarly habits of precise observation and accurate description, and as a tool for the production of critical editions of Greek texts. At the same time, it increases students' knowledge of an important aspect of the transmission of classical literature, and of the cultural history both of classical antiquity and of the Byzantine era.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Set texts: practical work is based on photographs/photocopies of papyri and
manuscripts, distributed week by week and varying from year to year.
Short bibliography: E.G.Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World
(OUP, 1971; rev.ed. ICS, 1987); G.Cavallo and H.Maehler, Greek Bookhands of
the Early Byzantine Period, AD 300 - 800 (ICS, 1987); R.Barbour, Greek
Literary Hands, AD 400 - 1600 (OUP, 1981); F.W.Hall, Introduction to
Greek and Latin Palaeography (OUP, 1912); E.G.Turner, Greek Papyri (rev.ed.,
OUP 1980); B.A.van Groningen, Greek Palaeography (Sythoff, 1963).
Prerequisite: a good knowledge of classical Greek.
Assessment: four written assignments.
Teachers: Dr Charalambos Dendrinos (RHUL)
Meetings: over two terms, times and venue to be confirmed.
Preparation of samples for reading and discussion is expected for each class,
and (in the second term) the production of a weekly written transcription
and accompanying notes.
The course concentrates on the minuscule script from the 9th-15th centuries. It aims to bring students up to a level where they would be able to transcribe texts from facsimiles of Greek manuscripts, and distinguish different styles. The material is adapted each time to the level of the class. In general the course covers simpler minuscule literary hands, nomina sacra, ligatures, abbreviations and symbols. The course involves 40-60 hours of teaching and coursework, mainly transcribing texts from facsimiles of manuscripts and commenting on the layout of the text and on the script, either in class or individually. This course may be taken by students who are starting to learn Greek.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: one three-hour unseen written examination in May.
Teachers: Dr Dendrinos (RHUL)
Meetings: over two terms, times and venue to be confirmed.
[Pre-approved course from the M.A. in Medieval Studies (Western Europe) at KCL]
The aim of this course is to train students to read, date and describe Latin manuscripts from AD 1 - 1500 and to understand manuscript culture. It consists of a survey of the history of Latin handwriting from Cicero to the Renaissance. Students will also be taught how to describe a manuscript book and will be introduced to codicology.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Set text: basic reference, B.Bischoff, Latin Palaeography (Cambridge, 1990).
Prerequisite: basic Latin.
Assessment: one three-hour unseen written examination, and sample manuscript description.
Teacher: Professor David Ganz.
Teaching: Mondays from 12.00-2.00 in King's College London, room GFSB3.
This course aims to introduce participants to the study of Greek papyri, documentary as well as literary, and to offer training in editing them. Each class will focus on a small number of texts, one or two of which will be studied in detail on a photograph. The texts are chosen to illustrate the development of Greek cursive scripts and bookhands; to examine formal aspects of the transmission of Greek literature on papyrus; and to give an idea of the range of documentary types available as sources for the history of Egypt from the age of the Ptolemies to late antiquity.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Prerequisite: A good knowledge of Greek is essential.
Assessment: Three written assignments.
Teacher: Dr N Gonis (UCL).
Meetings: One two-hour class weekly over two terms, times and location to be confirmed, UCL.
Some reading or other preparation will be expected in advance of each class (except the first).
The aim of this course is to give students both a training in the practical techniques of epigraphy, experience in dealing with inscriptions and their context, and also practice in the analysis and use of inscribed texts in the study of the Greek-speaking world. The course is designed with an extensive chronological range from the earliest inscriptions of the 8th century BC to the last phases of the significant use of inscriptions in civic life, in the 6th century AD. In order to cover it adequately, experts on different periods will teach their particular specialisms; it is also intended to co-operate closely with the British Museum and to exploit their collection. By the end of the course a student will be expected to be able to establish the text of an inscription; appreciate its archaeological context; provide comparative material; and compose a brief account of its significance in historical and related terms.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Assessment: students will be required to take two tests, on the last teaching day of each semester. Each test will cover the work done in that semester, and each will account for 30% of the final mark. Students will also be required to complete two essays of c. 2,500 words, one in each semester. Each essay will be worth 20% of the final mark.
Teachers: I. Polinskaya (KCL), L. Rubinstein (RHUL), R. van Bremen (UCL), C. Roueché (KCL) - staff to be confirmed.
Meetings for two hours weekly over two terms, times and rooms to be confirmed.
The aim of the course is to introduce students to both the practical study and the interpretation of Latin inscriptions of all types. The course will review the expanding resources available for the study of Latin inscriptions, including printed corpora, resources on the Internet and databases on CD-ROM; the production of epigraphic material from the point of view of those commissioning it and the individual craftsman; the development and decline of the 'epigraphic habit'; and the analysis and interpretation of the texts in the broader context of the artefacts, monuments or buildings to which they were attached. Much of the course will consist of workshops in which students will study and interpret a wide variety of examples of different types of inscriptions: official, public, private and graffiti. It is intended to make use as much as possible of photographs and of epigraphic material in the British Museum. The course will cover the inscriptions of Rome, Italy (including the Pompeian graffiti) and the provinces from the Republic to the Late Empire. By the end of the course, students will be expected to be capable of establishing the text, archaeological context and date of an inscription, and of providing a reading, translation and full epigraphic and historical commentary to a publishable standard.
Dedicated M.A. course.
Prerequisite: a good pass in Beginners' Latin (as a minimum). Desirable also is a reading knowledge of Italian, French and German.
Assessment (subject to approval): students will be required to submit three coursework assignments: two epigraphic commentaries of c. 3,000 words (worth 60%) and one essay of c. 5,000 words (worth 40%).
Teachers: Dr B Salway (UCL), et al.
Twenty two-hour seminars throughout the year in Stewart House, room 2.73, starting Tuesday 30 September at 14.00.
Last Modified by Michael Broderick December 22, 2008