Teaching

Survey in Imperial Greek Literature
L09 Greek 540

Greek literature during the Roman Imperial period regularly defines itself in retrospective terms: antiquarianism, Atticism, and philological acumen were arenas in which proper understanding and control of the Greek past contributed to the cultural weight of present intellectual activity, all under the shadow of Imperial rule. This course will provide a thematic selection of Imperial Greek authors (1st-3rd centuries CE) along with associated secondary scholarship. Beyond facility with the course content, this seminar aims to train students further in academic writing and presentation. Authors may include Aelius Aristides, Aretaeus, Athenaeus, Dio Chrysostom, Diogenes Laertius, Epictetus, Galen, Heliodorus, Longus, Lucian, Marcus Aurelius, Pausanias, Plutarch, and Sextus Empiricus.

Beginning Greek I & II
L09 Greek 101D & 102D

An intensive introduction to Classical Greek, the language of Homer, Sophocles, Plato, and the New Testament. The goal will be to develop a reading knowledge as rapidly and efficiently as possible and the work of the course will include extensive readings in literary texts.

Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine
L08 Classics 3801

This course introduces the student to the practice and theory of medicine in the ancient Mediterranean, beginning in Egypt and continuing through Greece and Rome. In the end, we will find ourselves in the middle ages. Our focus will be on Greco-Roman medicine: how disease was understood; how disease was treated surgically, pharmacologically, and through diet; the intellectual origins of Greek medicine; the related close relationship between Greco-Roman medicine and philosophy; and the social status of medical practitioners. We will also discuss how medicine was written and in what terms its practitioners conceived it.

Galen’s On Prognosis: A Social History of Medicine in Second Century Rome
L09 Greek 471

In this course we will be reading Galen’s treatise On Prognosis, in which he recounts his career in the city of Rome, from his arrival in the early 160s through his tenure as an imperial physician to at least the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. While ostensibly a medical account, On Prognosis has little to say on technical medical issues. Rather, Galen’s story is a carefully constructed professional autobiography that pivots from searing denouncements of Roman life, to tense public performances of medical expertise, and finally to intimate case histories of Rome’s rich and powerful. The text presents us a fascinating window through which to examine not only the social practice of elite medicine in Rome of the second century, but also the complicated experience of a Greek intellectual navigating the corridors of the Imperial court. Course goals include: improving accuracy and speed in reading Greek prose, acquiring greater familiarity with intellectual discourse of the Imperial Period, and training in methods of research and writing.

Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine
L08 Classics 3801

This course introduces the student to the practice and theory of medicine in the ancient Mediterranean, beginning in Egypt and continuing through Greece and Rome. In the end, we will find ourselves in the middle ages. Our focus will be on Greco-Roman medicine: how disease was understood; how disease was treated surgically, pharmacologically, and through diet; the intellectual origins of Greek medicine; the related close relationship between Greco-Roman medicine and philosophy; and the social status of medical practitioners. We will also discuss how medicine was written and in what terms its practitioners conceived it.

Beginning Greek I & II
L09 Greek 101D & 102D

An intensive introduction to Classical Greek, the language of Homer, Sophocles, Plato, and the New Testament. The goal will be to develop a reading knowledge as rapidly and efficiently as possible and the work of the course will include extensive readings in literary texts.

Plato’s Early Dialogues
L09 Greek 451

This course will focus on a set of Plato’s dialogues known as his Early Dialogues. We will read two and perhaps three of the Euthyphro, Protagoras, and Meno in Greek. We will accompany these readings with a relatively small sample of secondary scholarship in English that aims at contextualizing the dialogues in the broader scope of Plato’s work. Our aim will be to gain familiarity with Plato as a prose author as well as a philosophical thinker. Evaluation of student progress will consist of 1) regular translation assessments, 2) occasional short writing assignments (ca. 3-5 pages), and 3) a summative translation exam at the end of the semester.

Beginning Greek I & II
L09 Greek 101D & 102D

An intensive introduction to Classical Greek, the language of Homer, Sophocles, Plato, and the New Testament. The goal will be to develop a reading knowledge as rapidly and efficiently as possible and the work of the course will include extensive readings in literary texts.

Medical Writing in the Greek Intellectual Tradition: Galen and the Hippocratic Corpus
L09 Greek 5535

This class will offer an introduction to the writings of the Hippocratic Corpus as well as their reception in the philosophico-medical work of Galen of Pergamum (2nd century CE), which is primarily responsible for the picture of Hippocrates and Hippocratic medicine that survives to the present. We will situate the texts of the Hippocratic Corpus in the intellectual context of the Classical period and examine how their proper interpretation became a contested site for intellectual authority in Hellenistic and Imperial discourse about texual authenticity, climate, the body, empiricism, and the role of theory in scientific endeavors.

Topics in Ancient Studies: Science and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome
L08 Clasics 4361

There is a sometimes popular narrative that contemporary science represents the culmination of a tradition that began in the Greco-Roman world. In a trivial sense, this story is true; in a far more interesting sense it is not. This course examines the scientific traditions of the ancient Greco-Roman world, with a focus on ancient biology and medicine. We will consider how the Greeks distinguished their sciences from traditional cultural accounts and discuss what factors contributed to the emergence of this distinction. It begins with the emergence of Greek scientific accounts in the Classical period (5th-4th centuries BCE), the growing importance of empirical observation in the Hellenistic period (4th-1st centuries BCE), and culminates with Galen of Pergamum’s (2nd century CE) synthesis of the medical traditions that preceded him. A final week will describe the heirs of Greco-Roman science, from medieval Europeans and the Islamic world up to the Scientific Revolution. The goal of this course will be to expose the student to approaches and pitfalls to the study of ancient science while also engaging with the Greco-Roman scientific tradition, especially the ancient biological tradition, from the perspective of its practitioners.