CLCV BC

This course explores the intersections of identity and power in the ancient Mediterranean, with a focus on how race and ethnicity were constructed in the art, literature, and material culture of Greece and Rome. We will consider a broad range of texts including epic, ethnographies, medical texts, dramas, novels, and material evidence to examine how ancient Mediterranean peoples articulated and conceived of foreignness and difference. In our considerations of these texts we will discuss ancient theories of ethnic and racial superiority, narratives of belonging and exclusion and how these intersected with political and social control, as well as linguistic, religious and cultural differentiation as a basis for ethnic differentiation. We will also analyze ancient racism through the prism of a variety of social processes in antiquity, such as slavery, trade and colonization, migrations, imperialism, assimilation, and native revolts. By the end of the course, students will have gained a richer understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of the ancient Mediterranean world and will be able to engage in discussions of identity construction in a comparative manner

Subject

CLCV BC

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

points

Type

course

Edition

2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

This course is designed as an accompaniment to the Greek or Latin play that is put on by the Barnard and Columbia Ancient Drama Group each year, though it is open to any student interested in the aesthetics and politics of theater and drama. Course focus and some content will rotate year to year, calibrated to serve the play or plays chosen by the student director. We will read these and other relevant other plays or similarly adjacent texts, as well as scholarly literature on topics centered around the body in performance, including ancient theaters and stage space, costumes and masks, deportment and gestures, proxemics, and so on. We will also explore aspects of ancient drama and theatricality that relate to translation and reception, as well as inflections of gender and status. Other topics may include the mythic background (e.g., in epic and/or lyric), politics of aesthetics in ancient Athens, and gender-genre dynamics. Each component will extend over three or four classes and consider the ancient plays through readings of primary texts (in translation) and conceptual / contextual backgrounds. There will be an additional class hour for those who wish to read the play in the original language (signed up for as a 1-point directed reading)

Subject

CLCV BC

Credits (min)

0

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

points

Type

course

Edition

2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu