UNIVERSITY OF LONDON M.A. Courses in: Ancient History Classical Art & Archaeology Classics Late Antique & Byzantine Studies 2008 - 2009 Published on behalf of: The Institute of Classical Studies King's College London, Classics Department Royal Holloway, Classics Department University College London, Greek and Latin Department University College London, History Department

Reception Courses

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given below is as accurate as is possible, but provision of courses is subject to demand, and courses may have to be withdrawn or added if necessary.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.

*CLASGR01 Approaches to Reception of the Classical World

[Pre-approved course from the MA in Reception of the Classical World at UCL]

This course will be taught by a combination of lectures, seminars and research visits to relevant institutions, such as the British Museum, Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, British Film Institute and Sir John Soane Museum. The core course is intended to provide training in research techniques and resources for postgraduate study in the reception of antiquity, and to introduce students to relevant methods and theories of classical reception studies, as well as offering an overview of different kinds of reception in practice.

Dedicated M.A. course.

Assessment: will be by a two-hour written examination (75%) and coursework of 4,000 words (25%).

Course coordinator for 2008/09: Professor Maria Wyke.

Meetings: Two hours per week, on Thursdays from 3.00-5.00, location to be confirmed.

*CLASG131 The classical past in modern Greece

This MA course focuses on the dialogue between the classical past and Modern Greece. Modern Greek artists were inspired, weighed down and even rebelled against the concept that the ancient Greek past is essential to the formation and perpetuation of the national identity of Modern Greece. This so called 'special relationship' and all that it implies is taken very seriously in Modern Greece and it has affected international and domestic policy as well as the arts. It has also sparked fierce debates and even the occasional fatality! This course is intended to explore this exciting and new area of Modern Greek Receptions contextualising it within the wider field of reception Studies. A team of experts examines aspects of this phenomenon in a variety of mediums: Modern Greek cinema, the revival performances of ancient drama and Modern Greek poetry. This course offers students a grounding in theoretical approaches that is followed by a series of in-depth case studies supplemented by a variety of special events such as film screenings, workshops and evening lectures.
Knowledge of Modern Greek is not a prerequisite for enrolment in this course.

Programme:
• Introduction: Reception Theory (A. Bakogianni)
• Modern Greek Receptions: Theory and Practice (A. Bakogianni)
• Greek Drama on Film: Cacoyannis' Iphigenia (A. Bakogianni)
• Greek Drama on Film 2: Cacoyannis' Electra and The Trojan Women (A. Bakogianni)
• The living past in Greek politics, national and international (P. Tzagouria)
• Ancient Greek myth in Modern Greek poetry (P. Tzagouria)
• After antiquity: Solomos' vision of ancient Greek literature (A. Makrinos)
• The "shade of Homer" in Cavafy's poetry (A. Makrinos)
• Cavafy's Homeric World (A. Makrinos)
• From Homer to Sappho: Elytis' surrealistic reception of antiquity (A. Makrinos)
• Ritsos' Helen: the voice of the retired female (E. Spentzou)
• Classical myth and classical past in Modern Greek women's eyes (E. Spentzou)
• The classical heritage and modern Greek politics: Ritsos' Philoctetes and Orestes (E. Spentzou)
• Modern Greek Odysseys: the theme of return in modern Greek poetry (E. Spentzou)
• "Deification" of Classical Athens in the poetry of Kostis Palamas (1859-1943) (H. Thlivery)
• Monument and landscape in the poetry of Angelos Sikelianos (1884-1951) (H. Thlivery)
• Surrealism and tradition in the painting of Nikos Engonopoulos (1907-1985) (H. Thlivery)
• The Evolution of Performances of Ancient Drama in Modern Greece (H. Thlivery)

Dedicated M.A. course.

Assessment: Assessment will be by three essays of 4000 words selected from a range of titles.

Course management for 2008/09: Dr Anastasia Bakogianni (ICS)and Prof. Chris Carey, (UCL).
Course Tutors: Dr Anastasia Bakogianni (ICS), Dr. Antony Makrinos (UCL), Dr Efi Spenzou (RHUL),
Dr Hara Thlivery (UCL), Dr Polymnia Tzagouria (RHUL)

Meetings: Two hours per week, on Thursdays from 11.00-1.00, location to be confirmed.

CLASGR02 Homer’s legacy

[Pre-approved course from the MA in Reception of the Classical World at UCL]

1. the physical survival of the text
2. the construction of Homer’s biography in subsequent ages
3. Homer’s imitators in the epic traditions of Greece and Rome
4. Homer and Greek lyric
5. the impact of Homer on tragedy
6. Homer and Greek geography
7. Homer and the rise of historiography
8. Homeric poems in Greek education
9. Homer and Greek religion
10. the ethical problems of Homer’s authority and hermeneutic strategies to deal with it from antiquity to the Enlightenment, x. Homer’s political legacy - Pericles, Alexander and beyond
11. the rise of Homeric criticism
12. Hellenistic reception and poetics
13. Homer in Byzantium
14. Renaissance and subsequent epic
15. Critical responses to Homer: analysis, neo-analysis, oral theory
16. Homer in the modern novel, xviii. Homer in modern poetry
17. Homer on film.

Dedicated M.A. course.

Assessment: three coursework essays of 4,000 words each.

Teachers: Professor Chris Carey (UCL).

Meetings: over two terms, on Tuesdays from 2.00-4.00, location to be confirmed.

CL5319 Greek Religion in a Mediterranean Society

CLASGR03 Romans on Film

[Pre-approved course from the MA in Reception of the Classical World at UCL]

How does cinema reconstruct Roman history? What distinguishes cinematic histories of Rome from conventional scholarship? The option will introduce students to the relevant critical vocabulary of reception studies and film analysis, and engage with issues of sources, narrative, spectacle, contemporaneity, commodification, and spectatorship. Through study of a variety of Italian and American representations of ancient Rome, students will explore changes and developments in Rome's cinematic historiography from its beginnings to the Second World War. The module will then explore a variety of post-war Hollywood 'blockbusters' and the decline of the genre in the 1960s. It will conclude with examination of variations from and challenges to the classical Hollywood style of representing Rome, and with consideration of the disappearance of such reconstructions in the 1960s and their re-emergence in the 21st century.

3 essays of 4,000 words.

Teacher: Professor Maria Wyke (UCL).

Meetings: Two hours per week, on Thursdays 11-1 pm, in the office of Professor Wyke, Gordon House (in the first instance), times to be confirmed.

91CLG061 Ancient Greek Theatre and its Reception

This course aims to analyse major texts of the ancient Greek theatre from a diachronic perspective. Beginning from the assumption that the surviving dramas were play-scripts designed for performance, it aims to ask how a selection of eight of the fifty or so surviving ancient Greek dramas - tragedies, satyr plays and Old and New Comedies – have exerted their profound transhistorical influence, and why. The selected texts will vary from year to year according to what plays are being performed in the vicinity of London, since one of the aims is to provide an experience of ancient Greek drama in live performance.

Dedicated M.A. course.

Assessment: two review essays of 3,000 words each and one extended essay (6,000 words)

Teachers: Professor Edith Hall (RHUL) and Dr Leonard (UCL)

Meetings: one two-hour seminar weekly, Wednesdays 10.00-12.00, Bedford Square.

General Courses Page