Classics Undergraduate Courses Spring 2026
This Spring, 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 UN1102 Elementary Greek II/MWF 1:10-2:25
Prerequisites: GREK UN1101 or the equivalent, or the instructor or the director of undergraduate studies permission. Continuation of grammar study begun in GREK UN1101; selections from Attic prose.
GREK UN1121 Intensive Elementary Greek/TRF 1:10-2:25/Spiliotopoulos, Georgios
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: Prose/TR 6:10-8:00/Spiliotopoulos, Georgios
Prerequisites: GREK UN1101-GREK UN1102 or the equivalent. Selections from Attic prose.
GREK UN2102 Intermediate Greek II: Homer/TRF 11:40-12:55/Irwin, Elizabeth
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 UN3310 Greek Literature Selections II/TR 1:10-2:25/Irwin, Elizabeth
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. Topic is Sophocles, Antigone.
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.
GREK GU4010 Selections from Greek Literature/MW 1:10-2:25/Folch, Marcus
Prerequisites: GREK UN2101 - GREK UN2102 or the equivalent. Since the content of this course changes each year, it may be repeated for credit. Topic is Attic Orators.
GREK GU4100 Survey of Greek Literature/MW 4:10-6:00/Scharffenberger, Elizabeth
The chief aims of this one-semester course are to improve students’ reading skills and familiarize them with some of the canonical works in the principal ancient genres, both poetry and prose, and to provide an overview of these genres. Students will also be introduced to particularly influential and/or original discussions of the primary texts in secondary literature, with a view to becoming acquainted with a variety of recent interpretations and methodological approaches. This fast-paced, advanced course is designed first and foremost to help Ph.D. candidates in the Department of Classics prepare for their Greek M. Phil. translation examination, and texts will be drawn from the reading list posted on https://classics.columbia.edu/eading-list
Latin
LATN UN1101 Elementary Latin I/TR 6:10-8:00
For students who have never studied Latin. An intensive study of grammar with reading of simple prose and poetry.
LATN UN1102.001 Elementary Latin II/TRF 10:10-11:25
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 UN1102.002 Elementary Latin II/MW 6:10-8:00/Van Geel, Lien
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/MWF 1:10-2:25/Krasne, Darcy
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 Intermediate Latin I/MWF 10:10-11:25/Krasne, Darcy
Prerequisites: LATN UN1101 & UN1102 or LATN UN1121 or equivalent. Selections from Catullus and Cicero.
LATN UN2102.001 Intermediate Latin II/TRF 10:10-11:25
Prerequisites: LATN UN1101 & UN1102 or LATN UN1121 or equivalent.
LATN UN2102.002 Intermediate Latin II/MW 6:10-8:00/Spiliotopoulos, Georgios
Prerequisites: LATN UN1101 & UN1102 or LATN UN1121 or equivalent.
LATN UN3310 Latin Literature Selections/TR 8:40-9:55/Stoner, Rosalie
Cicero’s De Oratore (55 BC/E) had described the education and abilities of an ideal public speaker. But could such a person still exist and flourish in the political circumstances of the principate, where the scope and freedom of speech were curtailed? In this advanced reading course in Latin prose, we will explore works by Quintilian (Institutio oratoria) and Tacitus (Dialogus de oratoribus), whose divergent perspectives on the role of rhetoric in Roman life during the early Empire do much to illuminate—and obscure—the workings of language, power, and ethics at the turn of the first century AD/ CE.
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 UN3998.003 Supervised Research in Latin Literature
*Prerequisites: the director of undergraduate studies permission. A program of research in Latin literature. Research paper required.
LATN GU4010 Selections from Latin Literature/TR 10:10-11:25/Volk, Katharina
Prerequisites: LATN UN3012 or the equivalent. Starstruck lovers, alluring courtesans, clever slaves, ponderous old men, braggart soldiers, lots of crazy Latin, and a fourth wall that is broken by the minute: in this advanced course, we will explore the rambunctious genre of Roman comedy, reading in the original Latin two plays by Plautus (Pseudolus + Miles Gloriosus).
LATN GU4100 Survey of Latin Literature/MW 4:10-6:00/Volk, Katharina
This course provides a survey of Latin literature. It aims to improve students’ reading skills, familiarize them with some of the most canonical works of Latin literature, afford them a sense of Latin literary history, and introduce them to modern methodological approaches. Readings are drawn from the Classics Ph.D. reading list.
LATN GR5139 Elements Latin Prose Style/MW 2:40-3:55/Milnor, Kristina
Prerequisites: at least four semesters of Latin, or the equivalent. Intensive review of Latin syntax with translation of English sentences and paragraphs into Latin.
Modern Greek
GRKM UN1102 Elementary Modern Greek II/MW 12:10-2:00/Kakkoufa, Nikolas
A continuation of UN1101 but new students may be placed into it, after special arrangement with the instructor. The students are expected to be able to read texts containing high frequency vocabulary and basic structures; understand basic conversations or understand the gist of more complex conversations on familiar topics; produce simple speech on familiar topics; communicate in simple tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters; write short texts or letters on familiar subjects. In parallel, the students continue to explore Modern Greece’s cultural landscape and deepen their understanding of Greek culture.
GRKM UN2101 Intermediate Modern Greek II/MW 6:10-8:00/Filippardos, Chrysanthe
Prerequisites: GRKM UN2101 and GRKM UN1102 or the equivalent. Corequisites: GRKM UN2111 A continuation of UN2101, upon completion of the course, the students are able to read simple Greek newspaper articles, essays and short stories and to express their opinion on a number of familiar topics. In addition to these skills, students will be exposed to a number of authentic multi-modal cultural material that will allow them to acquire knowledge and understanding of the vibrant cultural landscape of Greece today.
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 BC3000 Ethnicity, Race, & Power: Ancient Med./TR 10:10-11:25/Andujar, Rosa
Concepts of ethnicity and race – deeply complex and often fraught – are catalyzing forces in modern society. This seminar explores the changing definitions and resonances of these categories in ancient contexts. Course readings will cover a variety of societies but return repeatedly to Egypt and Nubia as a touchstone. Over the course of the semester, we will explore how Nubians and Egyptians viewed one another as well as how both Egyptians and Nubians experienced and were experienced by immigrants, colonizers, and travelers. Throughout the ancient Mediterranean, as we’ll see, self-definitions and cultural boundaries shifted radically according to changing power dynamics both within groups and between them.
In seminar discussions, we’ll pose the following questions: How and when did groups who saw themselves as distinct from one another cooperate and intermarry? Define themselves in opposition to other groups or actively blur boundaries? Mobilize concepts of ethnicity or race to justify oppression? Engage in competition or resistance? Where, we will ask, did societies fracture and/or integrate? And what role did bicultural individuals play in cultural conversations and mediations? We will also seek to understand how our conceptions of ethnicity and race in the past are influenced not only by the biases of the present but by the methodologies we employ. In our discussions and investigations this semester we will learn a great deal about Northeast Africa in antiquity – but, so too, about ethnicity, concepts of race, and power throughout the ancient Mediterranean.
CLCV UN3008 The Age of Augustus/MW 1:10-2:25/Van Geel, Lien
The reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus (27bce-14ce), has been seen as a Roman revolution, both political and cultural. Rome had for centuries been governed as a Republic, but a series of increasingly divisive civil wars allowed Augustus to create a new political system in which he exercised sole rule as the ‘first citizen’ within a ‘Restored Republic’. Augustus’ reign lasted more than 40 years, and established a model of autocratic rule that would last for four centuries. During this time there were profound changes in the political, social, and cultural structures of Rome. In this course, you will examine the nature of these changes, Augustus’ political strategies, military activities, and religious initiatives through his own writing, the accounts of (often hostile) historians and a range of literary and archaeological sources, including Roman poetry. Ultimately, we will address the question: how did Augustus achieve the seemingly paradoxical feat of becoming a monarch within a republican system?
CLGM UN3090 Confined Bodies/Th 6:10-8:00/Panourgia, Neni
Used as punishment since antiquity for the political and social dissidents, exile, penal colonies, concentration camps, and prisons have been produced as conceptual and concrete spaces where constructions of the body politic have been contested. How does the experience of the spatialized body produce social and political subjectivities, especially with the employment of discourses of inclusion and exclusion, of grafting and excising onto and from the body politic? In this seminar we will explore these questions especially as they pertain to the instrumentalities that seek to erect rhetorics and narratives of utopias within the enclosures of specific dystopic spaces: prisons, refugee and concentration camps, schools and other morphing institutions of re-formation.
CLLT UN3129 An Odyssey of Odysseys: Receptions of the Odyssey from Antiquity to the 21st Century//Th 2:40-3:55/Krasne, Darcy
Homer’s Odyssey, likely composed around the 9th or 8th century BCE, has had an enduring legacy. Our journey this semester will bring us into contact with a varied selection of artistic endeavors, spanning different cultures, times, and media, that draw on the Odyssey for material or inspiration. A guiding set of broadly-formulated questions will steer our course: Can we find in the Odyssey some of the same meaning, today, that it held for its original audience and that it held, subsequently, for later Greeks? Do receptions of the Odyssey try to recapture it, reframe it, refashion it, or become something independent? (Are these mutually exclusive options?) How do we read these works in light of the Odyssey, and also how do we re-visit and re-read the Odyssey in light of its receptions? It is no secret that the present bears the enduring weight of the past, but is the past changed as a result? There is no requirement to have read the Odyssey previously: students who have read it or have not read it will approach the course in different, but equally fruitful, ways.
CLST UN3037 Writing and Power in the Roman Empire/M 11:10-1:00/Rahyab, Susan
Despite low literacy rates in the ancient world, engagement with writing concerned all socioeconomic groups across the Roman Empire, from public documents and tax receipts to personal letters and magical spells. The Roman government placed considerable importance on the written word, a vital component to political, social, religious, economic, and cultural life, both at the center of the empire in Rome and in the provinces. Between Roman authorities and provincials, writing was used by ruler and ruled in various ways as a tool of power to exploit, secure social mobility, resist, maintain ideological power, protect, legitimize, empower, and communicate. This interdisciplinary course explores the theme of writing and power in the Roman Empire during the period of the High Empire (30 BCE to 235 CE), taking both macro and microhistorical approaches. Through close analysis of papyrus documents, inscriptions, archaeological sources, ancient histories, and coins, we will consider how power and control were exercised through and over writing, the various groups interested in the power of writing and to what ends, the elaborate system of archives imposed and maintained across the empire, Roman censorship practices, and the value of studying writing and power to the history of imperialism, provincial resistance, administration, literacy, social mobility, personal and civic identity, and culture in the Roman Empire. In addition to the capital city of Rome, we will study four eastern provinces (Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria) and two western provinces (Britain and Gaul), allowing us to consider certain power structures in both the center and periphery. We will have opportunities to visit papyrus documents at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library in Butler as well as Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artifacts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
CLGM UN3110 The Ottoman Past in the Greek Present/T 12:10-2:00/Antoniou, Dimitris
Almost a century after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman past lives on in contemporary Greece, often in unexpected sites. In the built environment it appears as mosques, baths, covered markets, and fountains adorned with Arabic inscriptions. It also manifests itself in music, food, and language. Yet Ottoman legacies also shape the European present in less obvious ways and generate vehement debates about identity, nation-building, human rights, and interstate relations. In this course, we will be drawing on history, politics, anthropology, and comparative literature as well as a broad range of primary materials to view the Ottoman past through the lens of the Greek present. What understandings of nation-building emerge as more Ottoman archives became accessible to scholars? How does Islamic Family Law—still in effect in Greece—confront the European legal system? How are Ottoman administrative structures re-assessed in the context of acute socio-economic crisis and migration?
CLGM UN3650 Mental Health in Literature from Antiquity to Futurity/T 2:10-4:00/ Kakkoufa, Nikolas
This seminar explores the relationship between literature, culture, and mental health. It pays particular emphasis to the poetics of emotions structuring them around the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and the concept of hope. During the course of the semester, we will discuss a variety of content that explores issues of race, socioeconomic status, political beliefs, abilities/disabilities, gender expressions, sexualities, and stages of life as they are connected to mental illness and healing. Emotions are anchored in the physical body through the way in which our bodily sensors help us understand the reality that we live in. By feeling backwards and thinking forwards, we will ask several important questions relating to literature and mental health, and will trace how human experiences are first made into language, then into science, and finally into action.
The course surveys texts from Homer, Ovid, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, C.P. Cavafy, Dinos Christianopoulos, Margarita Karapanou, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Katerina Gogou etc., and the work of artists such as Toshio Matsumoto, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Anohni.
CLCV GU4411 Egypt in the Classical World/MW 11:40-12:55/Morris, Ellen
Greeks and Jews first came to Egypt at the invitation of Saite rulers (c. 685 BCE) as merchants and mercenaries. In inviting unprecedented numbers of foreigners to settle in trading cities like Naukratis, in garrisons like Elephantine, and in bustling metropolises like Memphis—these pharaohs initiated a period of vibrant multiculturalism that lasted (for our purposes in this class) up until the closure of the last pagan temple in Egypt (c. 550 CE). Intermarriage and religious syncretism soon blurred ethnic lines, and thus when Alexander and then Augustus introduced foreign rule and raised Hellenes to a position of political supremacy, centuries of entanglement meant that ethnicities and alliances could rarely be determined with clarity. Egypt’s early embrace of Christianity further altered cultural dynamics. This class explores the nature and evolution of these cross-cultural interactions in personal, political, economic, and religious spheres. We pay close attention to the flashpoints that created conflicts between Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews, and also to those aspects of society that encouraged integration and hybridity. We’ll discuss shifting categories of legal and social identity and investigate the long and fraught transition from paganism to Christianity. Even when Egypt became predominantly Christian, however, tensions related to ethnicity and class did not lessen; rather they increasingly served as a subtext to doctrinal disputes within the church. Situational identity, as we’ll see, is especially interesting to consider with respect to gender. And there will also, of course, be a class devoted to Cleopatra.
CLCV GU4050 The ancient novel: from the Graeco-Roman world to the Classical past and beyond/Martzavou, Paraskevi
In this seminar we will explore the ancient novel, this fascinating product of the Graeco-Roman world. We have a two-fold goal: on the one hand, we aim to explore how narrative works and how genre is constructed. On the other hand, we will explore how the construction of genre relates to history. We will look closely at four novels: first, Daphnis and Chloe by Longus and the Aethiopian Story by Heliodorus, both originally written in Greek; then the Satyricon by Petronius and the Metamorphosis by Apuleius, both originally written in Latin. At the same time, we will look for parallels and contrasts in other texts and also in material culture.
Romance, love, desire, past and present, nature and society, city and countryside, the construction of gender through the narrative, the imaginary and real landscapes of the Roman world, reality and fantasy, Roman Greece, social class and religious choices, human and divine as historical products, individual and community, literature and history are only some of the themes we will explore. A pivotal issue will also be the reception of the novel in modern and contemporary literature, music, and film, always in tension between traditionalism and modernity.
CLEN UN3725 Literary Guides to Living and Dying Well/T 2:20-4:00/Eden, Kathy
Surrounded by friends on the morning of his state-mandated suicide, Socrates invites them to join him in considering the proposition that philosophizing is learning how to die. In dialogues, essays, and letters from antiquity to early modernity, writers have returned to this proposition from Plato’s Phaedo to consider, in turn, what it means for living and dying well. This course will explore some of the most widely read of these works, including by Cicero, Seneca, Jerome, Augustine, Boethius, Petrarch, and Montaigne, with an eye to the continuities and changes in these meanings and their impact on the literary forms that express them.
CLEN GU4414 History of Literary Criticism: Plato to Kant/MW 4:10-5:25/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.
THTR UN3008 Performing Greek Tragedy on the Modern Stage/MW 2:10-4:00/Cardenas Ojeda, Gisela and Foley, Helene
This course aims to explore performing Greek tragedy on the modern stage. It will include an introduction to original performance practices in ancient Greece (space, masking, choral performance, costume, acting techniques) and an examination of how artists from different contemporary theatrical traditions have adapted ancient texts in modern performances and new versions of the plays. The bulk of the course will be focused on the problems of acting, interpreting, and reinterpreting parts of three plays on the stage, Sophocles’ Antigone, Euripides’ Medea, and Sophocles’ Ajax along with a new version by Ellen McLaughlin, who teaches playwriting at Barnard, Ajax in Iraq. Students will view all or parts of particularly interesting recent productions from various theatrical traditions, which will help them to tackle challenging issues such as choral performance and choral rhythms, masking, character work, dialogues and presenting formal political debates.
For contemporary actors training in Greek tragedy offers a unique opportunity to improve their performance on stage through ensemble work and representing character through speech. It enhances dramaturgical capacities that a contemporary theater practitioner must exercise in exploring theory in practice and vice versa.
This class is directed to students particularly interested in dramaturgy, directing, designing, translation, and Greek tragedy as well as acting.