20 courses with the subject GREK, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
GREK 001Intensive First-Year Greek1
Students learn the basics of the language and are introduced to the culture and thought of the Greeks. The course provides a selection of readings from the most important Greek authors, including Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, and Plato. The course meets four times a week. Arts and Humanities. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Czujko. Spring 2028 Turpin.
Students learn the basics of the language and are introduced to the culture and thought of the Greeks. The course provides a selection of readings from the most important Greek authors, including Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, and Plato. The course meets four times a week.
GREK 001 or permission of the instructor. Arts and Humanities. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Czujko. Fall 2027 Munson. Catalog chapter: Classics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/classics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
GREK 011Plato and Socratic Irony1
This course will focus on one or more of the Socratic dialogues of Plato in Greek. Emphasis will be placed on developing skills in reading and composing Greek, and also on the analysis of Plato’s characteristic literary techniques and philosophical thought. The course will include a systematic review of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. GREK 011 is normally taken after GREK 002 .
GREK 001 GREK 002 Arts and Humanities. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Classics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/classics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
GREK 012Homer’s Iliad1
This course examines the literary, historical, and linguistic significance of Homer’s Iliad . Selections from the poem are read in Greek and the entire poem is read in translation. Arts and Humanities. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for CPLT. Spring 2028 Munson.
The main focus will be on reading Book I of the Republic in Greek, giving sustained attention to Greek grammar and vocabulary. We will also read the rest of the Republic in English, and consider select problems of interpretation, such as the role of Plato’s “guardians,” the place of poetry, and Plato’s purpose in exploring an “ideal state.” The course is intended for students who have completed a first year of classical Greek, or the equivalent in High School or summer courses. Humanities. 1 credit. Fall 2027 Ledbetter.
The goals of this course are to sharpen your knowledge of Greek grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and forms; to allow you to appreciate the beauty of Greek prose; and to read classical Greek works in their historical and cultural context. This semester we will start with a master of the most limpid manifestation of Attic oratory, Lysias, who also happened to be an extraordinarily sympathetic historical figure, a marginal (as a metic, or ‘resident alien’ in Athens), well-known to Socrates, Plato, and their friends, a democrat, persecuted with his privileged family by the Athenian oligarchic regime, then finally re-integrated in the democracy he helped to restore, first granted and then denied full citizenship, but in the end successful as a speech-writer and lawyer. In other words, this is a story with a happy ending. I plan to begin each class with a very brief survey on the historical and political context, the features of fifth-century rhetoric, or other issues. But we will also do grammar review. After reading Lysias’ most political and autobiographical court speech (Lysias 12), we can decide whether to continue with another oration by Lysias, read more from authors who more or less belonged to his world (Plato, Xenophon, Thucydides, fragments of the Sophists), or transition to some other text from a different time and place. Humanities. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Munson.
In Sophocles’ Ajax , Achilles is dead and the prize of his arms has been awarded to Odysseus. Can the hero withstand being passed over as ‘the best of the Achaens’? Can he accept that in a political community everything is in flux and friends become enemies, and enemies friends? We will be reading this tragedy in Greek, paying great attention to grammar and style. Humanities. 1 credit.
This course will introduce students to the Linear B script, which was used to write the Mycenaean language during the Aegean Late Bronze Age. We will begin with an overview of the Aegean scripts (Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A, Linear B, and the Cypro-Minoan Syllabary), exploring how they relate to the earlier writing systems of the Eastern Mediterranean devised by the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Egyptians. A thorough outline of the script’s syllabary, spelling conventions, and system of ideograms will follow. Students will learn the dialectal features of the Mycenaean language, for which a prior knowledge of ancient Greek will be beneficial but not strictly necessary. For the remainder of the course, each week we will work through a selection of documents drawn from Michael Ventris and John Chadwick’s Documents in Mycenaean Greek 2 (1973) and the more recent anthology of Yves Duhoux in A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and Their World , Vol. 1 (2008). Humanities. .5 credit
Independent work for advanced students under the supervision of an instructor. Interested students should contact the chair as soon as possible concerning possible authors and topics. 1 credit.
This course will be organized as a research workshop for intermediate and upper-level students in Greek and/or Latin. For more information please contact Professor Jeremy Lefkowitz (jlefkow1@swarthmore.edu). Humanities. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Classics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/classics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
Independent study taken normally in the spring of senior year by course majors. Students will prepare for a graded oral exam held in the spring with department faculty. The exam will be based on any two-credit unit of study within the major (Honors seminar or course plus attachment), with students submitting their final exam and a paper, which can be revised. 0.5 credit.
This seminar usually focuses on selected literary and philosophical topics in the Presocratics and Plato. Arts and Humanities. 2 credits. Fall 2026. Ledbetter.
This seminar studies either the entirety of Homer’s Odyssey in Greek or most of the Iliad . Humanities. Writing course. 2 credits. Spring 2027. Ledbetter.
This seminar is devoted to a study of Herodotus and Thucydides, both as examples of Greek historiography and as sources for Greek history. Humanities. Writing course. 2 credits. Fall 2027 Munson.
This seminar usually focuses on one play by each of the major tragedians-Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Other plays are read in translation. The works are placed in their cultural setting and are discussed as both drama and poetry. Humanities. Writing course. 2 credits. Eligible for CPLT. Spring 2028 Ledbetter.
This seminar will focus on the development of archaic Greek elegy (Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Solon, Xenophanes, Semonides, Theognis) monodic lyric (Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreaon, and Simonides) and choral lyric (Pindar and Bacchylides), paying particular attention to lyric’s dialogue with the epic tradition, the so-called rise of the individual, political and performative contexts, and modern interpretive approaches. This seminar can be taken for 1 credit - please see the instructor. Humanities. 2 credits.
This seminar focuses on selected plays of Aristophanes, which will be read in the context of the history of comedy and the place of dramatic performance in Athenian society and politics. Humanities. 2 credits.
