Freshman/Sophomore Seminar

What can twenty-first century readers get out of reading works that were written in Greek and Latin thousands of years ago?  Is the primary goal historical understanding? the pleasure of an engaging story? a meditation on human emotions that transcend vast shifts in culture and time? In this class we will read some central texts from Greco-Roman antiquity, with the goal of exploring different notions of why this practice makes sense and what we can do with it.  Rather than start from the assumption that reading ancient texts is worth doing, this class will ask students to think critically about why and how such reading might matter or not matter. In fact, the questions we will ask are relevant for reading in general – what do we get out of texts that intersect with our own experience and what do we get from those very foreign to our own experience?