module descriptions 2020/21 - classics, ancient history ......rd classics, ancient history &...

Classics, Ancient History & Archaeology

Module Descriptions 2020-21

Level H (i.e. 3rd Yr.) Modules

Please be aware that all modules are subject to availability.

If you have any questions about the administration of the modules, please contact us at

[email protected].

For many of these modules, some experience of studying Classics, Ancient History & Archaeology

may be required, and you should remember this when choosing your modules. If there is another

module that you need to have studied before taking this, it will be stated in the module description.

Please note that at the time this document has been prepared (February 2020) the following

information is provisional, and there may be minor changes between now and the beginning of

2020/21 academic year.

Please read through the option descriptions below.

Please note the following:

Each of the modules is worth 20 credits. Options are usually assessed by 4000 word essay if running in Semester 1, and by 3-hour

exam if running in Semester 2. If an option has a different form of assessment, it is stated in the table below.

Please note that students must have some prior historical knowledge/background in the subject area in order to be able to take the LH modules in Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology.

mailto:[email protected]

SEMESTER 1 MODULES

MODULE TITLE Face to face with Egypt's Gods

MODULE CODE 32026

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 1x 4,000 word essay

TEACHING METHOD TBC

SEMESTER 1 (Autumn term only)

DESCRIPTION

This module explores core concepts of ancient Egyptian religion and kingship by looking specifically at how they are reflected in pharaonic material culture, most notably within the visual arts (statuary, reliefs, minor arts) and architecture.

Through a number of well-chosen case studies relating to iconography, temple building and funerary archaeology we will investigate Egyptian attitudes towards kings, gods, and the dead. Students will learn for example to identify and analyse depictions of the chief deities of ancient Egypt such as Amun, Re, Ptah, Isis, and Osiris, or how temples for gods differed from those for kings.

In the course of the module students will gain a hands-on experience of ancient Egyptian material culture through the guided study of ancient artefacts in the collection of the Department or at other museums.

In order to facilitate active engagement with the module contents there will be an opportunity for short formative (group) presentations that help with applying the theoretical knowledge gained during the preceding sessions.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr Leire Olabarria: [email protected]


MODULE TITLE Age of Empires

MODULE CODE 27256

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 4000 word essay

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

For city-states of the Greek world, the fourth century was age of great uncertainty and change. Old empires and long-established powers were overturned, new challengers rose and fell, and the most basic structures of interstate relations were transformed. In the fourth century Aegean, agency in interstate relations resided at many different levels. At the highest level, great cities, leagues of cities, empires and kingdoms vied for resources and power as well as prestige. However, these actors operated in a fragmented, anarchic world which was made up, at a fundamental level, of more than a thousand smaller city-states (poleis). The central problem for greater powers was to find means of controlling and channelling the resources of these minor Greek cities, which had their own local interests and agenda and were increasingly keen to assert their local autonomy and freedom. We will explore how a succession of different actors managed or failed to manage this basic tension, and the perspective of these minor communities themselves. We possess a particularly rich record of evidence for this period – consisting of historical narratives, contemporary speeches, and a large dossier of original documents preserved as inscriptions on stone. In this option we will use this material, with a particular focus on the original documents, to explore the central events and dynamics of interstate relations in the Greek world in this pivotal period from the end of the Peloponnesian war to the dawn of the Hellenistic age.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr Will

Mack: [email protected]


MODULE TITLE Love in Greek Literature

MODULE CODE 28093

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 1,500 word comparative commentary (40%) and 2,500 word essay (60%) to be submitted as a portfolio and assessed as one piece of work.

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

Love fascinates Greek writers throughout antiquity. Love is personified by two deities, Aphrodite and

Eros, each of them multifaceted and mysterious; love has power over even the gods themselves.

From the judgement of Paris onwards, it is the catalyst for great stories of heroism and tragedy. It

causes the most intense pleasure and pain, misery and joy. It can bring out the worst of human

conduct, but also the best. Philosophers find in it the key to the relationship between the human

soul, with its aspirations to eternity, and the mortal, physical world through which life's journey

must be made. This module explores representations of love and its effects in Greek texts across a

range of periods and genres.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr Fiona Mitchell:

[email protected]


MODULE TITLE Palace Societies

MODULE CODE 27283

CREDIT VALUE 20


TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

The palace-based societies that flourished from 2000 BC in Crete and mainland Greece were the first

advanced, literate societies in Europe, capable of major architectural and engineering projects on

the basis of flourishing agricultural and 'manufacturing' economies. Their position in the

Mediterranean allowed trade and even diplomatic relations with Egyptian, Syrian and

Mesopotamian civilizations on the one hand and considerable influence in the development of Late

Bronze Age societies in the Central and Western Mediterranean on the other. In this module you will

have the opportunity to explore such topics as the administrative systems, palatial architecture,

wall-paintings and other artistic creations, military focus and maritime enterprise of the civilisation

which were the forerunners, indeed ancestors, of that of Classical Greece.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr Ken

Wardle: [email protected]


MODULE TITLE Greek Mythology

MODULE CODE 27276

CREDIT VALUE 20


TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

Mythology shaped the identity of the ancient Greeks, and Greek myth has continued to fascinate

people ever since. In this option, we explore the nature and power of myth. We investigate how it

developed as a system of stories such as those of Herakles, the Argo, the houses of Kadmos, Inachos

and Atreus and of the Trojan War. We also investigate its origins in the Greeks’ Indo-European background and in their interactions with older neighbouring cultures in Western Asia and Egypt. We

discuss theories of myth and similarities between the myths of different cultures, and ask why it has

such enduring power today.

MODULE TITLE Myths and Mortals: Mythology in Greek and Roman Visual Arts

MODULE CODE 32029

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 1 x 4000 word essay

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

Myth, and its representation in visual media played a fundamental and ever-present role in the lives of ancient individuals. The aim of this module is to enable students to gain insight into and understanding of the diverse repertoire and complex nature of depictions of myth in ancient art, and to understand the fundamental role visual representations of myth played in the lives of Greeks and Romans. The module will focus on a range of depictions of key mythological narratives in Greek and Roman art (e.g. the Trojan Cycle, the Gigantomachy, Jason and the Argonauts, the Labours of Hercules) and on a range of different roles played by these mythic depictions (e.g. in city foundations and political propaganda; religious activity; domestic settings).

The module’s content will include the creation and formalisation of a visual mythological canon in the Greek Archaic period; the political role of myth and monumental sculpture in the Classical world, the role of mythic images in shaping personal identities in the Hellenistic period, the uses and selections of Greek myths in Roman domestic contexts, and the political role myth and myth-making had for the first Roman emperors.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor: Dr Maeve Mc Hugh ([email protected])


MODULE TITLE War, Peace and Diplomacy in the Roman World

MODULE CODE 30686

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 1 x 4000 word essay

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

This module explores Rome as an international power in the Mediterranean from the Mid-Republic to the creation of the Imperial system. The focus will be on understanding the formal processes through which Rome negotiated power and declared war in order to interact with foreign states, as well as the ideology of ‘empire’ that developed as the Mediterranean moved from a state of anarchy to a single dominant power. You will engage with and understand the historical value of a range of evidence: both literary and non-literary, and material culture.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor Dr Hannah Cornwell:

[email protected]


SEMESTER 2 MODULES

MODULE TITLE Humans and Environments

MODULE CODE 27277

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 1 x 3 hour exam

TEACHING METHOD TBC

SEMESTER 2 (Spring term only)

DESCRIPTION

Environmental archaeology and landscape studies are key to our understanding of many of the sites, cultures, arguments and explanations that make up the study of archaeology. This module will take some of the largest, most exciting and hotly contested of archaeological arguments and see how the environmental and landscape evidence can be used to shape these debates. For example:

What causes the collapse of Bronze Age and other societies?

What happens to the Megafauna?

How does prehistoric woodland change and how is it used?

How does the landscape of the UK change during the late Bronze age and is this significant?

What determines the formation of bogs and mires and why is this archaeologically interesting?

Cess pits!

It will also demonstrate how important these fields are shaping our sense of the past and how rather than being ancillary to 'traditional' archaeological methodology environmental studies are in fact central to our understanding of the human past.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr David Smith: [email protected]


MODULE TITLE Death, Burial and Society

MODULE CODE 24039

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 1x 3 hour exam

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

This course, open to all CAHA students, focuses on the archaeological interpretation of human

bodies and artefacts in burials, funerary architecture and symbolism, and iconographies of death and

identity. It explores the diversity and complexity of mortuary practices and funerary rituals, drawing

on the principal archaeological, anthropological and historical perspectives that underpin current

interpretative approaches in mortuary studies. The approach is thematic and comparative, using

case studies ranging from the first Palaeolithic burials, through later prehistoric, classical, medieval

and modern examples to the 21st century AD.

Key topics and themes, applicable to all periods and regions, include:

Making the dead: the creativity and diversity of mortuary practices and representations

Mortuary evidence and social reconstruction: classic modes of interpretation

Conceptions of death and the dead: cosmology, symbolism, social order and cultural ideals

Funerary ritual and representations of personhood, identity, descent and belonging

Funerary display, power, monumentality and memorialization

Material culture and aesthetics of death: dress, ornamentation and funerary paraphernalia

Landscapes of the dead and the spatiality of death (with a linked field trip)

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr Paul

Garwood: [email protected]


MODULE TITLE Roman Religion and its Limits

MODULE CODE 27675

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 1 x 3 hour exam

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

The Roman world was so full of gods that you were more likely to bump into a god than a human in

the streets, or so one character in an ancient Roman novel tells us. Roman religion was a polytheistic

religion, but were there any limits to who, or what, could be a god? This is the central question of

the module, and as we explore it you will meet a colourful range of gods and goddesses all

worshipped in the Roman world: from the Egyptian goddess Isis, to Mars Belatucadrus (a local god

worshipped at Hadrian’s wall), to the deified Augustus, to the goddess Peace, and even Sterculinius

(god of manure).

At first glance, then, Roman polytheism seems to know no limits, but this course is not just about the

breadth of Roman polytheism. We examine how and why Romans discovered and accepted new

gods, as well as rejecting some. What happened as the Roman empire expanded and came into

contact with the gods of other peoples? How did some emperors and other humans become gods?

Why did some gods get rejected, and by whom? And why did the Jewish and Christian god attract so

much hostility?

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr Ailsa Hunt

[email protected]


MODULE TITLE Sparta

MODULE CODE 22891

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 3-hour exam

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

Spartan society is the enigma of the ancient Greek world. The peculiarity of Sparta excited the

imagination of contemporaries from other Greek states and has continued to serve as both a

positive and a negative social and political model up until the present day. This module will attempt

to get behind the so-called ‘Spartan mirage’ through detailed study of the ancient evidence and a wide-ranging examination of its society and institutions. It will consider Sparta’s military ethos, the

role of the Spartan education system (agōgē), the relationship between the Spartans and the helots,

the roles of women in Spartan society, and the image of Sparta in modern culture. Students will also

examine the varied ways in which Sparta has been appropriated by ancient and modern writers, and

the impact this has had upon academic study of the Spartans in order to evaluate just how far we

can assume an understanding of their unique society.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor, Dr Andrew

Bayliss: [email protected]


MODULE TITLE Hellenistic Literature

MODULE CODE 29632

CREDIT VALUE 20

ASSESSMENT METHOD 3-hour exam

TEACHING METHOD TBC


DESCRIPTION

Hellenistic literature is what connects the literary cultures of classical Greece and Rome. In the period between the death of Alexander and the fall of the Ptolemies (Cleopatra), Greek authors reflected a culture undergoing rapid change, and finding new ways of thinking about the individual’s place in the world. They produced whole new kinds of literature (epigram, epyllion) and studied the classics of the past in new ways: the literature of the age of Cicero could never have happened without them. In this module we will read some of the most important Hellenistic writers, including Callimachus and Theocritus, and find out how they changed the idea of ‘literature’ forever.

For further information, please contact the current module convenor: Gideon Nisbet

[email protected]

module descriptions 2020/21 - classics, ancient history ......rd classics, ancient history &...

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