Classics Undergraduate Courses Fall 2026
This Fall, the Classics Department offers elementary and intermediate language courses (Latin and Greek), advanced courses in Greek and Latin, courses on Modern Greek language and culture, and courses on Classical Civilization, Classical Reception, and Hellenic Studies (in translation). In addition, the advanced reading classes in preparation for the survey are open to undergraduates upon application to the instructors. We also list courses in related areas that may satisfy departmental requirements. Please do not hesitate to contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies (nk2776@columbia.edu), if you have any questions.
Greek
GREK UN1101 Elementary Greek I/MWF 1:10-2:25/Andujar, Rosa
GREK UN1121 Intensive Elementary Greek/TR 6:10-8:00
Covers all of Greek grammar and syntax in one term. Prepares the student to enter second-year Greek (GREK UN2101 or GREK UN2102).
GREK UN2101 Intermediate Greek I/TRF 1:10-2:25
Prerequisites: GREK UN1101-GREK UN1102 or the equivalent. Selections from Attic prose.
GREK UN2102 Intermediate Greek II: Homer/TRF 11:40-12:55
Prerequisites: GREK UN1101- GREK UN1102 or GREK UN1121 or the equivalent. Detailed grammatical and literary study of several books of the Iliad and introduction to the techniques of oral poetry, to the Homeric hexameter, and to the historical background of Homer.
GREK UN3309 Greek Literature Selections: The New Testament/TR 1:10-2:25/Schwartz, Seth
Prerequisites: GREK UN2101 - GREK UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.
GREK GU4009 Greek Literature Prose Selections: Lyric/MW 1:10-2:25/Worman, Nancy
Prerequisites: GREK UN1201 and UN1202, or their equivalent. Since the content of this course changes from year to year, it may be repeated for credit.
GREK/LATN/ANC UN3996 The Major Seminar/R 4:10-6:00/Ma, John
Prerequisites: junior standing. Required for all majors in Classics and Classical Studies. The topic changes from year to year, but is always broad enough to accommodate students in the languages as well as those in the interdisciplinary major. Past topics include love, dining, slavery, space, and power.
GREK UN3997 Directed Readings in Greek Literature
*Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.
GREK UN3998 Supervised Research in Greek Literature
*Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Greek literature. Research paper required.
Latin
LATN UN1101.001 Elementary Latin I/TRF 10:10-11:25/Krasne, Darcy
For students who have never studied Latin. An intensive study of grammar with reading of simple prose and poetry.
LATN UN1101.002 Elementary Latin I/MW 6:10-8:00
For students who have never studied Latin. An intensive study of grammar with reading of simple prose and poetry.
LATN UN1102 Elementary Latin II/TR 6:10-8:00
Prerequisites: LATN UN1101. A continuation of LATN UN1101, including a review of grammar and syntax for students whose study of Latin has been interrupted.
LATN UN1121 Intensive Elementary Latin/MW 6:10-8:00
Covers all of Latin grammar and syntax in one term. Prepares the student to enter second-year Latin (LATN UN2101 or LATN UN2102).
LATN UN2101.001 Intermediate Latin I/TRF 10:10-11:25/Howley, Joe
Prerequisites: LATN UN1101 & UN1102 or LATN UN1121 or equivalent.
LATN UN2101.002 Intermediate Latin I/MW 6:10-8:00
Prerequisites: LATN UN1101 & UN1102 or LATN UN1121 or equivalent.
LATN UN2102 Intermediate Latin II/TR 6:10-8
Prerequisites: LATN UN2101 or the equivalent.
LATN UN3012 Augustan Poetry/MW 4:10-5:25/Stoner, Rosalie
Prerequisites: LATN UN2102 or the equivalent. Selections from Augustan Poetry. Combines literary analysis with work in grammar and metrics.
LATN UN3309 Latin Literature Selection: Vergil/TR 8:40-9:55/Krasne, Darcey
In this course, we will read the poet Vergil’s earliest set of poems, the Eclogues, together with several poems from the so-called Appendix Vergiliana (poems transmitted to the present day under Vergil’s name) that were (at least sometimes) believed in ancient Rome to have been composed by the youthful Vergil even prior to the Eclogues, and several of which interact in some way with the Eclogues. Alongside these texts, we will read scholarship that considers ideas of literary imitation, forgery, and intertextuality, and explore how these concepts can be usefully interconnected.
LATN GU4009 Latin Literature Prose Selections: Cicero/TR 2:40-3:55/Volk, Katharina
In this course we will study Cicero’s masterpiece of political philosophy. Surviving only in fragmentary form, this lively dialogue discusses constitutional theory (with a focus on the “mixed constitution” of Rome) and the role of justice in politics, culminating in the sublime Dream of Scipio with a vision of a blessed afterlife for the virtuous statesman.
LATN UN3997 Directed Readings in Latin Literature
*Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of reading in Latin literature, to be tested by a series of short papers, one long paper, or an oral or written examination.
LATN UN3998 Supervised Research in Latin Literature
*Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Latin literature. Research paper required.
Modern Greek
GRKM UN1101 Elementary Modern Greek I/MW 12:10-2:00/Kakkoufa, Nikolas
This is the first semester of a year-long course designed for students wishing to learn Greek as it is written and spoken in Greece today. As well as learning the skills necessary to read texts of moderate difficulty and converse on a wide range of topics, students explore Modern Greece’s cultural landscape from parea to poetry to politics. Special attention will be paid to Greek New York. How do our American and Greek-American definitions of language and culture differ from their Greek ones?
GRKM UN2101 Intermediate Modern Greek I/MW 6:10-8:00/Filippardos, Chrysanthe
Prerequisites: GRKM UN1101 and GRKM UN1102 or the equivalent. Corequisites: GRKM UN2111 This course is designed for students who are already familiar with the basic grammar and syntax of the Modern Greek language and can communicate at an elementary level. Using films, newspapers, and popular songs, students engage the finer points of Greek grammar and syntax and enrich their vocabulary. Emphasis is given to writing, whether in the form of film and book reviews or essays on particular topics taken from a selection of second-year textbooks.
GRKM UN3003 Greece Today; Language, Literature, and Culture/ MW 10:10-11:25/ Martzavou, Paraskevi
This course builds on the elements of the language acquired in GRKM1101 through 2102, but new students may place into it, after special arrangement with the instructor. It introduces the students to a number of authentic multimodal materials drawn from a range of sources which include films, literary texts, media, music etc. in order to better understand Greece’s current cultural, socioeconomic, and political landscape. In doing so, it aims to foster transcultural understanding and intercultural competence, while further developing the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Topics of discussion include language, gender equality, youth unemployment, education, queer identities, refugees, and the multi-layered aspects of the crisis.
GRKM GU4300 Hellenism and the Topographical Imagination/T 12:10-2:00/Antoniou, Dimitris
This course examines the way particular spaces—cultural, urban, literary—serve as sites for the production and reproduction of cultural and political imaginaries. It places particular emphasis on the themes of the polis, the city, and the nation-state as well as on spatial representations of and responses to notions of the Hellenic across time. Students will consider a wide range of texts as spaces—complex sites constituted and complicated by a multiplicity of languages—and ask: To what extent is meaning and cultural identity, site specific? How central is the classical past in Western imagination? How have great metropolises such as Paris, Istanbul, and New York fashioned themselves in response to the allure of the classical and the advent of modern Greece? How has Greece as a specific site shaped the study of the Cold War, dictatorships, and crisis? Three Points Global Core.
GRKMUN3997 Directed Readings
*Designed for undergraduates who want to do directed reading in a period or on a topic not covered in the curriculum. Instructor permission required.
GRKM UN3998 Senior Research Seminar
*Designed for students writing a senior thesis or doing advanced research on Modern Greek/Hellenic or Greek Diaspora topics. Permission required by the director of undergraduate studies.
Classical & Ancient Civilizations, Classical Reception, and the Program in Hellenic Studies [in translation]
CLCV BC1001 Introduction to Greek Mythology/TR 2:40-3:55/Andujar, Rosa
The stories of the Greek and Roman gods and heroes are at the root of countless works of art, philosophy, literature, and film, from antiquity to the present. Many familiar phrases from the English language also derive from myth: an Achilles heel (and Achilles tendon!), a Trojan horse, Pandora’s box, and so forth. This course will introduce you to the broad range of tales that make up the complex and interconnected network of Greek and Roman mythology.
CLCV UN1xxx Greek Warfare/MW 6:10-7:25/Ma, John
CLCV UN3018 Illness and Healing in the Classical World and beyond/TR 11:40-12:55/Paraskevi, Martzavou
In this course we will explore the experience of illness and healing in ancient Greece and Rome, with some exploration of other contexts such as Egypt, Babylonia, and Christianity down to modern Greece. The class will focus on close reading of documents, from the viewpoint of the ill and of those who try to understand illness and act on their understanding. We will pay attention to medical texts such as the diagnostic writing of the Hippocratic corpus or the treatises of Galen, but also popular texts and artifacts such as ex-votos.
CLCV BC3027 Digital Classics: History and Method/MW 2:40-3:55/Krasne, Darcey
In this course, we will look critically at the broadly-defined field of Digital Classics—the meeting point of Digital Humanities (DH) and the study of cultures of the ancient Mediterranean—from its origins in the late 1940s through to the present day. In addition to becoming familiar with a range of Digital Classics projects and gaining hands-on experience with some of the core tools that make Digital Classics possible in the present day, we will read theoretical scholarship in both Digital Classics and DH more generally, to think about not just what has been and can be done, but also what should (and should not) be done. We also will think about where (and whether!) to define the boundaries of “Classics” and the boundaries of “digital.” There are no prerequisites: it is NOT NECESSARY for students to have a background in coding or the field of Classics (although knowledge of either or both is welcome!). This course, like the field itself, is multidisciplinary.
CLCV BC3212 Topics in Ancient Drama/MW 2:40-3:55/Worman, Nancy
This course is designed as an accompaniment to the Greek or Latin play that is put on by the Barnard and Columbia Ancient Drama Group each year, though it is open to any student interested in the aesthetics and politics of theater and drama. Course focus and some content will rotate year to year, calibrated to serve the play or plays chosen by the student director. We will read these and other relevant other plays or similarly adjacent texts, as well as scholarly literature on topics centered around the body in performance, including ancient theaters and stage space, costumes and masks, deportment and gestures, proxemics, and so on. We will also explore aspects of ancient drama and theatricality that relate to translation and reception, as well as inflections of gender and status. Other topics may include the mythic background (e.g., in epic and/or lyric), politics of aesthetics in ancient Athens, and gender-genre dynamics. Each component will extend over three or four classes and consider the ancient plays through readings of primary texts (in translation) and conceptual / contextual backgrounds. There will be an additional class hour for those who wish to read the play in the original language (signed up for as a 1-point directed reading).
CLCV UN3244 Global Histories of the Book/MW 11:40-12:55/Howley, Joe
This class will consider the idea and history of “the book” through history and around the world. Its primary objective is to introduce students to major topics and questions in “book history” while working to 1) resist the discipline’s traditional interest in modern European print culture and 2) situate that interest in global and transhistorical contexts.
CLGM GU4300 Retranslation: Worlding C.P. Cavafy/T 2:10-4:00/van Dyck, Karen
Focusing on a canonical author is an immensely productive way to explore translation research and practice. The works of Sappho, Dante, Rilke, Césaire or Cavafy raise the question of reception in relation to many different critical approaches and illustrate many different strategies of translation and adaptation. The very issue of intertextuality, that challenged the validity of author-centered courses after Roland Barthes’s proclamation of the death of the author, reinstates it, if we are willing to engage the oeuvre as an on-going interpretive project. By examining the poetry of the Greek Diaspora poet C. P. Cavafy in all its permutations (as criticism, translation, adaptation), the Cavafy case becomes an experimental ground for thinking about how a canonical author can open up our theories and practices of translation. For the final project students will choose a work by an author with a considerable body of critical work and translations and, following the example of Cavafy and his translators, come up with their own retranslations. Among the materials considered are commentary by E. M. Forster, C. M. Bowra, and Roman Jakobson, translations by Rae Dalven, James Merrill, Marguerite Yourcenar, and Daniel Mendelsohn, poems by W.H. Auden, Lawrence Durrell, and Joseph Brodsky, and visual art by David Hockney, and Duane Michals. Cross-listed with ICLS.
CLEN GU4414 History of Literary Criticism: Plato to Kant/TDB/Eden, Kathy
The principal texts of literary theory from antiquity through the 18th century, including Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Boccaccio, Sidney, and Kant.