Art & the History of Art 432 - Art and/in the Literature of Greco-Roman Sicily

(Offered as ARHA 432 and CLAS 432) Sicily holds a special place in the ancient Mediterranean world, geographically and culturally. It’s location as a stopover point in the Western Mediterranean made it into a site of fierce colonization by Greeks, Carthaginians, and eventually Romans, demonstrating along the way the complexities of cultural interactions among these rival groups. Rome in essence learned to become an empire there, in and after the First Punic War (264-241 BCE). Sicily would become a crucial source of grain as the empire grew and was, already under Greek rule, a place of immense wealth and the luxury that went with it, especially the cultured luxury of the Greek material world (architecture, statuary, painting, pottery, among other things). This course focuses on Sicily as a site of intense cultural flourishing under Greeks and Romans, with a particular emphasis on the material culture of the island and the interconnections of its literary and artistic legacies. This is a research-oriented seminar, intended for students wanting to learn the craft of research, whether for their academic work generally or in preparation for writing an honors thesis. Students will develop several research skills: planning and time management for research projects, the production of annotated bibliographies, the use of standard academic resources (handbooks, journal databases, other online resources), the analysis of and writing about texts and objects, and the crafting of original research ideas. The class builds up to the writing of a research paper as the final project and also addresses writing an abstract and delivering a professional talk about one’s research.

Three class hours per week, plus participation in one day-long writing retreat. Limited to twenty students. Fall semester. Professor van den Berg.

How to handle overenrollment: Other things being equal, preference will be given to Classics majors.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Reading, visual analysis, field trips, written work, research skills, oral presentations, group work, group discussion, and class participation.