WOMEN IN ANTIQUITY             

CLAS-2322; HIST-2170; WMST-2322; ARCH-2322                                  Fall, 2004

 

Tues. & Thurs. 10:00-11:15    Fahy: 303

Professor: Fred Booth.  973-275-5822   boothfre@shu.edu

Office Hour: 234 Fahy  Thurs 8:45 to 9:45 a.m.  and by appointment.

 

Required Texts[1]:

Fantham et al., Women in the Classical World, Oxford

Bernard Knox, The Norton Book of Classical Literature, W.W. Norton

Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 1, University of Chicago

Aristophanes, Lysistrata, Tr. Parker, New American Library

 

Helpful Website:

Diotima: Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World        http://www.stoa.org/diotima/

 

Welcome to Women in Antiquity!

 

            The course will examine the lives of women in ancient Greece and Rome, from which the modern Western world has inherited many of its traditions and institutions.  Many modern attitudes and ideas about the relationship of the sexes and their roles in society owe a lot, for better or worse, to our Greco-Roman heritage.  We will consider the political, legal, social and religious status of women over a period of a thousand years, beginning with Homeric Greece and to the time of the Roman Empire which held sway in Europe, North Africa and Asia.

 

Our main text is Women in the Classical World, by Fantham and others, which will be supplemented with readings from other texts, as well as handouts distributed in class, and Internet materials for you to download.  You should finish the assigned reading before each class and bring your books and other materials with you, since we will go over the most important sections of the readings in class.  Please remember to print out the readings posted on Blackboard or on web sites, and bring them to class, as well.   Please read the syllabus carefully so that you bring the right book or printouts with you. 

 

Grades will be based on attendance and participation, two tests, and a final examination. The tests will consist of essays and objective questions on the readings, lectures, and films shown in class.  I will post study guides on Blackboard before each review session.  The class will be conducted according to the guidelines for academic integrity as they are outlined in the Seton Hall catalogue.

 

I hope you have an interesting and enjoyable semester learning about the lives and roles of women in Greece and Rome.

 

 

Class   Date                                        Topic

.

I.                                  Homer and the Archaic Period

 

1 Th.    9/9                   Introduction

                                    On Blackboard:  Time line of Greek and Roman History

On Blackboard    Names of the gods/Hesiodic succession myth

           

2. T.     9/14                 Fantham

Ch. 1  Women in Archaic Greece: Talk in Praise and Blame

                                    Sources                                                                                    10-12

                                    Transition to Marriage                                                 22-33

                                    Wives                                                                                      33-39

                                    Mourners                                                                                 44-53

                                    Knox

                                    Homer: The Iliad:

                                    Hector and Andromache        pp. 63-68

                                    Online  Homeric Hymn to Demeter

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/demeter.htm 

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

http://www.sacredspiral.com/Database/aphrodite/homeric.html

 

 

3. Th.   9/16                 The Odyssey  Archetypes of the Feminine

 

                                    Knox

                                    Homer: The Odyssey

Calypso                                                                                   112-117

                                    Nausicaa                                                                                  117-127

Circe                                                                                        143-152

Clytemnestra                                                                           159-161

                                    Sirens, Scylla Charybdis                                                         163-167

Athena                                                                                                167-177

Penelope                                                                                  177-186

 

4.  T.    9/21                 Fantham

Archaic Misogyny and the Creation of Woman                     39-44

                                    Knox

                                    Hesiod: Works and Days, Pandora                                        187-191

                                   
Online

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm

Hesiod: Theogony                   lines 116-210: 453-616

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM

                                    Genesis 1-4  or your own Bible

                                    Handout:

Semonides, “An Essay on Women”

 

5. Th.   9/23                 Sappho:  The Female Voice

 

                                    Fantham

                                    Maidens                                                                                  12-22

                                    Knox  

                                    Sappho                                                                                    223-231

                                    Alcman  (2)                                                                             212-216

 

6. T.     9/28                 Fantham

Ch.  2   Spartan Women                                                          56-67

           

7. Th.  9/30                 Review

 

II                                 Women in Classical Athens: Heroines and Housewives

 

8.  T.   10/5                 Test 1

 

9. Th.   10/7                 No Class

 

10. T.   10/12               Fantham

                                    Ch. 3   Women in Classical Athens:

                                    The Tragic Wife                                                                      68-74

                                    Women in Relation to the Polis                                              74-83

Knox

The Oresteia                                                                            305-335

Handout: Chorus on Women

 

11. Th. 10/14              Fantham

                                    Civic Religion                                                                         83—97

                                    Knox

                                    Antigone                                                                                  359-400

 

12. T.   10/19               Fantham

                                    Weddings                                                                                98-115

                                    Grene and Lattimore

                                    Euripdes,  Medea

 

13. Th. 10/21              Fantham

                                    Hetairai                                                                                   115-127

Grene and Lattimore

                                    Euripdes, Alcestis

 

 

 

14. T. 10/26                 Fantham

Ch 4. Amazons                                                                       128-135

                                    Aristophanes Lysistrata

 

III.                               The Hellenistic World

 

           

 

15. Th. 10/28              Fantham

Ch. 5 The Hellenistic Period

Women in a Cosmopolitan World                                          136-169

Knox

Menander:  Shopping for a Wife; Daughter to Mother           520-521

                                    Erinna                                                                                      572-573

 

16. T.   11/2                 Fantham

                                    The Female Body                                                                    169-182

Knox

Apollonius                                                                               534-547

                                    Theocritus                                                                               553-559

 

17. Th. 11/4                 Fantham

                                    Ch. 6  Medicine: The “Proof” of Anatomy                            183-203

                                    Ch. 8  Etruscan Women                                                          243-259

 

18. T.   11/9                 Review

 

19. Th.            11/11              Test 2

 

IV.                               The World of Rome

 

20. T..  11/16               Fantham

                                    Intro. Women in the Roman World                                        211-215

                                    Ch. 7  Republic Roman I                                                        216-242

                                    Knox

                                    Livy                                                                                         707-711

 

21. Th. 11/18               Fantham

                                    Ch. 10  The New Woman                                           `           280-293

                                    Knox

                                    Catullus                                                                                   604-614

                                   Poems # 5, 7, 8, 43, 45, 76, 11, 6, 58, 70, 83, 85 86, 107

                       http://www.tonykline.co.uk/Browsepages/Latin/Catullus.htm  

                                    Poems # 34, 37, 51, 60, 61, 62, 72, 75, 76, 79, 87     

 

22. T.   11/23               Fantham

                                    Ch. 9  Republican Rome II                             260-279; 289-292; 302-306

                                    Guest Lecture on Women in Roman Law

                       

23 T.    11/30               Fantham

                                    Ch. 11  The Age of Augustus and the Julio Claudians          294-329

                                    Knox

                                    Virgil Aeneid Book IV  Dido and Aeneas                              651-676

 

24.. Th. 12/2                Ovid: The Poet of Love

                                    Knox

                                    Ovid    Amores and The Art of Love                                       727-754

Ovid    Metamorphoses

Apollo and Daphne                                                     763=766

            Pyramus and Thisbe                                                    766-769

            Tereus, Procne, and Philomela                                    769-777

                                                Tristia                                                                          779-782

 

25. T.   12/7                Fantham:Ch. 12  The Women of Pompeii                              330-344

 

 

26. Th. 12/9                Review