Gender and Sexuality in Greece and Rome

Catalog description

Provides an introduction to constructions of gender and sexuality with special focus on their intersections with culture, ethnicity, and class. Course will combine close readings of primary texts and discussions of material culture with secondary literature. Broader discussions will emphasize change over time, noting not only how gender and sexuality develop and evolve across centuries of Greek and Roman culture but also how they influenced subsequent Western cultures. By means of close readings of these texts students will practice analyzing, interpreting, and contextualizing literature and material culture, and also come to a greater appreciation of how antiquity and modernity construct gender and sexuality. Course format will involve lecture combined with discursive analysis of texts, material culture, and especially visual arts.