CL4437 Modern Classics: Classics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

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Module description

But what is Classics for? This is a question that most students of the Greek and Roman worlds have surely had to face at some point in their careers. This module sets out to answer that question in terms of what purposes the Greeks and Romans have been made to serve in the modern world, from approximately the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Topics for consideration include the role of Classical education in constructing social status; why it used to be unacceptable to mention anthropology in classical studies; what museums do to their visitors apart from showing them artefacts in glass cases; why and in what form Greek tragedy keeps coming back to the stage; the ideological baggage of blockbuster films set in Greece and Rome; and what to think about Achilles after two World Wars. If this module doesn't answer your questions about the point of studying the Greeks and Romans, it should at least give you some new ways to think about it.

Intended learning outcomes

• Identify and describe a selection of major episodes of the reception of the Greek and Roman world from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries
• Analyse the relationship between the modern reception and the 'ancient original'
• Discuss these reception episodes in relation to their social, cultural and political contexts
• Identify and explain the role of the reception of the Greek and Roman world in the construction and contestation of modern identities and power-relationships and, where appropriate, their ethical dimensions
• Select the most appropriate forms of evidence to support their argument, including detailed case-studies
• Formulate sophisticated arguments about the relationship between Greece and Rome in the past and in modern culture using appropriate methodologies and evidence