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The Major in Ancient and Modern Greek
Offered by the Classics Department

The major in Ancient and Modern Greek is designed to offer students an opportunity to integrate the study of post-classical Greek language, history, and culture into the departmental program in Ancient Greek and Classical Civilization. The program covers Hellenic civilization from the Bronze Age to the modern day, and traces the development of the language and the culture across traditionally-drawn boundaries. The study of both ancient and modern Greek allows the student to appreciate how familiarity with one enriches understanding of the other, and to chart the development of a language which has one of the oldest continuous written traditions in the world. The literature, history, philosophy, religion, and art of the ancient Greek and Greco-Roman worlds are studied both as an end in themselves and also as a foundation for appreciating later (medieval, Ottoman and modern) developments in these areas. Students are encouraged to develop a sense of the continuity of Greek language and culture, and an understanding of how Byzantine and modern forms relate to their ancient forebears.

Admission to the major. There are no formal pre-requisite courses. Students may start both Ancient and Modern Greek from scratch at Yale. Students who take MGRK 130 must either have completed MGRK 115, or must be able to satisfy the director of the program in Hellenic Studies that they have the required proficiency. All students interested in the major should meet with the program directors of both Classics and Hellenic Studies as soon as possible to discuss a program of study.

The Standard Major. The requirements for the standard major are:

Candidates must complete at least ten term courses as follows:

* No fewer than six term courses at the level of 390 or above in Ancient Greek, of which four are the double-credit Survey for the Major in Ancient Greek. The language courses should include GREK 390.
* One additional course in Ancient Greek history.
* No fewer than two term courses in Modern Greek must be elected, at the intermediate level (MGRK 130) or above
* At least one term course in the history, art history, literature or culture of the Greek-speaking Balkans (or the Hellenic diaspora) in the medieval, Ottoman, or modern period.

For more information please visit www.yale.edu/classics

Hellenic Studies Program Course Descriptions

Language Courses:

MGRK 115: Elementary Modern Greek
Maria Kaliambou
An introduction to modern Greek with emphasis on reading, writing, speaking and oral comprehension. The course will cover all major noun and adjective groups and their declension; the basic verb conjugations, all tenses, active and passive voice as well as the basic uses of the subjunctive mood; basic daily vocabulary; the basic syntactical structure of Greek.

MGRK 130, 131: Intermediate Modern Greek
Maria Kaliambou
The course intends to develop the student’s proficiency in understanding, speaking, reading and writing modern Greek. Exposure to contemporary cultural material (newspapers, Greek websites,, films, literary and musical material) will be complimented with grammar, vocabulary and exercises in an effort to expand the students familiarization with modern Greek language and culture.

Other Courses:

MGRK 210a, HUMS 262a, WGSS 247a, RLST 212a, LITR 341a:
Irreverent Texts: Religion and Literature in the Modern age
George Syrimis
 The course examines the complex relationship between religion and modern literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Based mostly on the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions as these two clash in the literary texts, the course focuses on questions of modernity and tradition, the legitimacy of ritual, the relationship between church and state, the reception of antiquity, as well as the emergence of the modern discourses of gender and sexuality in light of religious practice and dogma. Readings include Henrik Ibsen, Emmauel Roidis, Georgios Vizyenos, Constantine Cavafy, Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, Nikos Kazantzakis, Stratis Myrivilis, and Gore Vidal.

MGRK 211b, HUMS 263b, WGSS 248b, CLCV 211b, LITR 335b:
Literature and War
George Syrimis
Based primarily on the Greek tradition, the course examines the generic origins of literature from the experience of war. Covering a range of texts from the ancient and modern traditions, we will examine genres that are either derived or respond to war as inhuman violence, honorific endeavor, necessary evil, sacred cause, or gendered conflict. We will focus on the way literature of war entails explicit and implicit figurations, interpretations, or incarnations of what it means to be human, including the self-constructions of identity through various periods of history. Genres under discussion include, epic, history, myth, romance, lyric, tragedy, and the novel. Authors include, Homer, Sappho, Herodotus, Thucydides, St. Augustine, Plutarch, Stratis Myriviles, Kazuo Ishiguro, Erich Maria Remarque.

MGRK 212, LITR 328, GMST 212a:
Folktales and Fairy Tales
Maria Kaliambou
The course approaches, in the first part, the folktale as a genre of oral literature. Some basic concepts of the folktale and fairy tale scholarship will be discussed. The folktale will be placed in the oral literary canon by discussing and challenging the academic classifications of oral narratives. Topics such as performance, storytellers and audience will be analyzed. In the second part, the course scrutinizes the most important theoretical approaches, such as formalism, psychoanalysis, feminism and history-sociology. At the third and last part, the course will deal with the problem of orality versus literacy, as expressed in early European folk and fairy tales from Italy and France, followed by the Brothers Grimm collections through to popular chapbooks of fairy tales.

MGRK 226a, HIST 251a, INTS 372a:
History of European Integration
Konstantina Maragkou
This seminar will survey the history of two prevalent elements in Western Europe’s post-World War II development, namely the Marshall Plan and European Integration. The Marshall Plan, the more commonly used term for the American proposal for a European Recovery Program, was a cold war milestone, which played an important role in the future course of European integration. It will therefore be one of the main aims of this seminar to examine its origins and its significance for the making of Postwar Europe. After having established the extent to which the Marshall Plan and other Cold War developments contributed to the European integration until the signing of the Treaties of Rome, the seminar will proceed with surveying the development of European Integration from the foundation of the European Communities to the Treaty of Maastricht. Through the examination of the antecedents and the evolution of European integration, this seminar will assert that there were multiple moments when the European integration and the Cold war did influence each other and the development of neither can be fully understood without reference to the other. 

MGRK 225b, HIST 243b, INTS 374b:
Occupied Europe during WWII
Konstantina Maragkou
The Second World War has been one of the most extensively studied periods of modern history. During this war, the worse ever recorded in the history of humankind, the vast part of the European continent was subjected to a long and traumatic series of foreign occupations. Against conventional wisdom in the West, which associates the occupation of Europe with the Nazi regime almost exclusively, this course aims at surveying the experience of every occupied European country under a number of different conquerors, including Stalin’s USSR and Mussolini’s Italy, as well as the Allied powers at the concluding phases of the war. Moreover, this course will not only span over the whole course of the war but would also incorporate those cases of European occupation which although linked to the war era, took place outside the official duration of the war, for instance Czechoslovakia. Its focus will lay on surveying the national destinies and exploring the conduct and effects of occupation of the European countries under the different conquerors, although substantial emphasis will unavoidably be placed on the prevailing Nazi and USSR rule. While its emphasis will be placed on the social, cultural and political history of Europe during the Second World War, military history per se will remain in the background. The prevalent themes, which this course aspires to address, are the experience of occupation by all occupied European countries, resistance and genocide, both from the conquerors point of view and the seized countries’ angle.

Past Courses