Courses
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 110/120: Elementary Modern Greek
Maria Kaliambou
MTWTh 9.25-10.15, 1 HTBA
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
MTWTh 10.30-11.20, 1 HTBA
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 complemented with grammar, vocabulary and exercises in an effort to expand students’ familiarization with modern Greek language and culture.
See also MGRK 201 below which counts as an L5 course.
Other Courses:
MGRK 201a/L5: Modern Greek Poetry and Music
George Syrimis
TTh 9.00-10.15, 1 HTBA
The course is an advanced modern Greek course structured as an interdisciplinary study of the history of Greek poetry and song from the beginnings of the 19th century to the present. Through the prism of musical creation, the course examines the aesthetic, literary and intellectual debates of modern Greece, including the so-called “language question,” the professed east-west polarity of modern Greece, class and ideological conflict, the diversity of “the Greek Nation,” modernization, as well as gender and sexual politics. The course will pay attention to the structure, content, instruments, and performance contexts of Greek songs and will question the validity, political consequences, and social significance of terms such as “demotic song,” “Rebetiko,” “laika”(popular), “entechne” (artistic), “New Wave,” “Greek Rock,” and the post 1980s-crisis generation. In addition to its thematic emphasis, the course is intended to intended to improve students’ conversation and writing skills with a focus on the acquisition of analytical and interpretive vocabulary. Focus will be on advanced grammar, linguistic registers, dialects and the ideology of modern Greek. All materials after the title “Music/Texts” will be in Greek. Discussion in class and writing assignments will be in Greek.
MGRK 202b /CLCV214b/LITR225b/HUMS278b/WGSS337b/WR: The Poetry of C. P. Cavafy: At a Slight Angle to Nationalism, Gender and Sexuality
George Syrimis
F 1.30-3.20
The course examines the interaction between gender, sexuality, and nationalism in the poetry of C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933). Major focus is given to questions of biography and representation, disclosure and evasion, as well as to Cavafy’s aestheticism. The course explores the multiple ways in which Cavafy appeals to and simultaneously resists prevailing notions of writing, desire, language, the Classical tradition and modernity as well as his contribution to our understanding of the history and politics of Greek and gay identity in the twentieth century. Finally, the course addresses Cavafy’s legacy and formative influence on authors and poets in the English speaking world (E.M. Forster, W.H.Auden, Lawrence Durrell, James Merrill) through a reading of the re-working of his poetry in translation. The course is offered as a Writing Course (WR)
MGRK 212a/GMST212a/HUMS277a/LITR328a: Folktales and Fairy Tales
Maria Kaliambou
T 2.30-4.20
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. The course will encourage a comparative reading of the primary texts from many European countries (German, French, Italian). However, the course will place specific focus on Greek material and will challenge the applicability or relevance of the Western European scholarship to an oral tradition of a country of the European margins such as Greece. Texts will be available in English though students are encouraged to read available material in the original language.
MGRK 225b/HIST243b/INTS374b: Occupied Europe during World War II
Konstantina Maragkou
MW 2.30-3.45
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.
MGRK 226a/INTS372a/HIST251Ja: History of European Integration
Konstantina Maragkou
T 1.30-3.20
The purpose of this course is to survey the history of Western Europe’s most prevalent post-World War II development, - and arguably the most exciting and controversial ensuing political experiment, namely European Integration. Particular care will be placed on relating this process to wider historical developments, most importantly the Cold War. After examining the pre-WWII antecedents of European Integration and establishing the extent to which the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War contributed to the early stages of European integration leading up to the signing of the Treaties of Rome, the seminar will proceed with examining its development from the foundation of the European Communities to the establishment of the European Union. Through the evaluation of the evolutionary process of European integration, this seminar will assert that there were multiple moments when the European integration and the Cold war did influence each other; hence, the development of neither can be fully understood without reference to the other.
MGRK 228a 01 (12662) /HIST205J: Greece in the Twentieth Century
Konstantina Maragkou
M 1.30-3.20
The seminar is devoted to the critical study of the landmarks in the history of Modern Greece, a country often referred to as Southern European, Balkan, Mediterranean, Near Eastern. It will examine in details aspects of Greek society, politics, economics and foreign policy during the formative twentieth century, while a synoptic study of earlier periods will be also undertaken to place the present in its proper historical context. The main aim of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the interplay between domestic and international factors and developments in the shaping of Greece’s contemporary history and the multitude of challenges, which Greek society experienced during the 20th century.
See also Related Courses:
HIST237Jb: Cold War in Europe
Konstantina Maragkou, offered by the History Department
It will be the aim of this course to survey the Cold War, this phenomenal superpower conflict for global hegemony, from a European point of view, focusing on its origins, effects and dynamics on the European continent. It will cover the period between the end of World War II and the coming of the Cold War and the détente process, which culminated in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The selected topics vary from the study of specific Cold War crises in a number of European countries to the exploration of broader themes. It aims to equip the students with a comprehensive understanding of the causative factors that drove Cold War politics in Europe and the familiarization with the historiographical controversies and problems of interpretation. Finally, it aspires to offer a firm basis for more advanced work in Cold War history either as a general era or in terms of national history, as more declassified material becomes available.
HSAR 597a : Word and Image in Byzantium
Robert Nelson
W 1.30-3.20
Word and image studies are a burgeoning field of art history and now have their own journal. This course looks generally at that literature and focuses on the Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire to consider the nature of words combined with images. Topics of interest are ekphrasis or the description of a work of art, inscriptions around works of art, and especially manuscript illumination, an area of sustained interest of Anglo-American scholars and historically the most popular subject of scholarship on Byzantine art. More attention has been paid lately to the image or icon, and this work needs to be integrated with a reconsideration of the nature of written and oral discourse.
HSAR 265b: Art of Byzantium, 850-1200
Robert Nelson
MW 2.30-3.45
A survey of the art of Byzantium, a multinational empire that considered itself the direct successor to ancient Rome. Mosaics, churches, icons, enamels, silks, and carved ivories are placed in the context of the empire, the theology of religious images, and the history of devotional practices.
HSAR 599b:Byzantium and Italy
Robert Nelson
T 1.30-3.20
According to Vasari, the rude, crude art that we call Byzantine was surpassed by Cimabue and Giotto. This paradigm that persisted for centuries was challenged in the twentieth century by Byzantinists, who argued the superiority of their art, while others contended that both cultures were part of a larger medieval art of the Mediterranean. These perspectives, however, devote little attention to the uses that Italian artists and larger societies made of the foreign and ignore the impact of Italians in the Eastern Mediterranean. Topics include the creation of public space, spolia, palace architecture, aristocratic dress, kingship, and icon and the rise of panel painting in Italy. General theoretical issues at play are the power of icons, cultural identity, cultural interaction, the social status of the foreign, and European colonialism before its expansion in the sixteenth century.