Latin (LAT)

LAT101 First-Year Latin: Semester I

Conquer Latin in two semesters! Acquire a basic vocabulary and build your skills with essential grammar as you develop your ability to read passages in Latin from the principal classical authors--including Cicero, Vergil, and Ovid. This first semester covers half the textbook. In the second semester (LAT 102), you will complete the textbook.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT102 First-Year Latin: Semester II

Continue your conquest of Latin by completing your acquisition of a basic vocabulary and essential grammar.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: LAT101

LAT104 Intensive Introductory Latin

Learn Latin in a semester with this intensive introduction to grammar and syntax. Readings in original authors help illustrate and reinforce the fundamental principles of the language in preparation for more advanced reading at the intermediate level. Recommended for students wanting accelerated Latin acquisition or those with some background wanting a quick review.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT201 Catullus and Cicero: Love and Life in Republican Rome

A selection of the poems of Catullus and portions of Cicero's "Pro Caelio" as a reflection of life in late Republican Rome, with a particular emphasis on the intersection between the lives of Catullus, the young Caelius, and their mutual love-interest Lesbia/Clodia. This course is intended for students with one year of college Latin or the equivalent (normally three to four years of high school Latin) and includes a thorough review of Latin grammar and syntax.

This course will fall under the Literature and Performance track.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT202 Latin Lyric Poetry

In this intermediate-level Latin course, students will continue to develop their facility with the Latin language and their understanding of Roman literary history through a reading of selections of Latin lyric and elegiac poetry, two corpora that are both heavily influenced by earlier Greek models and show a remarkable degree of Roman ingenuity. The work of Horace and Catullus will provide an entry point into this fascinating material. We will then turn to work by the elegists Propertius and Tibullus, as well as shorter poems by Ovid. Throughout the course, we will also be investigating a number of questions. What is lyric poetry, and to what extent must Latin lyric poetry be read as a continuation of the Greek lyric tradition? How do Roman authors take Greek models and rework them to address the interests of their contemporary audience? How and for whom were these poems performed, and how does this affect the way we read this corpus? To facilitate our discussion we will be reading translations of a number of Greek lyric songs and of Latin lyric poetry by Seneca and Statius, some examples of modern lyric, and scholarly literature. In addition to our daily reading in Latin, we will undertake a careful review of Latin grammar, as well as long-term translation and commentary assignments.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT203 Latin Prose: Roman Letters

An introduction to the reading of classical Latin prose, the course will include a review of Latin grammar and syntax. Students will read selections from the letters of Seneca the Younger and Pliny the Younger. Seneca, a distinguished philosopher and statesman of the Neronian period, uses his experiences in contemporary Rome as texts from which to derive simple philosophical messages. Pliny recounts events from the life of an Italian aristocrat of the first century CE, including an eyewitness account of the eruption of Vesuvius. The course will begin slowly, with the aim of gradually acclimatizing students to the rhythms and stylistic and syntactical patterns of Latin prose. The emphasis will be on understanding and translating the Latin, but we will consider the social and cultural background to the texts we read.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT221 Roman Comedy

It has long been recognized that Plautus and Terence displayed widely different comic styles: Terence was an artist; Plautus, an untutored genius. We shall examine this difference through a critical reading of selected plays in their divergent literary and historical contexts.

This course will fall under the Poetry & Performance and History/Social Justice tracks.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT230 Love and Suffering in Ancient Rome (CLAC.50)

In this CLAC course students with some background in ancient Latin will read selections of the extant sources on love and suffering in Roman myth, history, and thought. The sources that we will cover will be drawn from diverse genres and periods: historiography, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and comedy. This diversity will offer a unique opportunity to students to identify and analyze the intersections of age, class, status, gender, and ethnicity and the way they shaped Roman ideology on "love." We will be looking at how cultural practice shapes language, how ideology shapes law, and how literature challenged cultural norms of love and marriage, all the while unpacking and interrogating the Roman belief that love had no place in the citizen life dedicated to serving the state: love produces suffering. In turn, we will reflect on the ideological shift in the last 150 years that has come to dominate "western" beliefs on love and marriage, that is, "all you need is love," over family, friends, and society, despite the obstacles: suffering produces love.

The selections of readings will be drawn primarily from what the students read in translation in the parent course. The final selection will be based on the level of the students. This CLAC is conceived as appropriate for students on the intermediate and advanced level of ancient Latin.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Identical With: CGST231
Prereq: LAT102

LAT251 The Age of Nero

Nero: artist or monster (or both)? This course will focus on the personality and politics of the emperor and the reaction he evoked in contemporary and subsequent accounts of his reign, concentrating especially on the powerful picture of Nero and the Neronian regime painted by the Roman historian Tacitus in his "Annals," with supplementary evidence from Suetonius's "Life of Nero," imperial inscriptions, and visual propaganda. Topics discussed will include Tacitus as a historian, public and private life in Neronian Rome, how to die well, and whether Nero really sang of the Fall of Troy while Rome burned.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT254 Apuleius: THE GOLDEN ASS

Fast-paced, magical, sexy, and bizarre, Apuleius' GOLDEN ASS, or METAMORPHOSES, contains more than enough rowdy episodes to keep us entertained for a semester. The novel tells the story of the feckless Lucius, the man-turned-ass whose encounters with the residents of Thessaly range from the vulgar to the weird to the sublime. Our goals, in addition to reading and understanding the Latin, include tracing prominent themes and becoming acquainted with recent relevant scholarship.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT281 Roman Satire: Juvenal

Roman satire, as practiced by Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal is a strange hybrid: it combines social criticism, literary parody, philosophical rumination, and obscene burlesque, a self-consciously "humble" genre set in the framework of dactylic hexameter, the meter of high-flown Homeric and Vergilian epic. It is among a small minority of ancient literature which directly addresses itself to the humbler aspects of the everyday lives of Roman citizens. This course on Roman satire will focus on Juvenal, the last practictioner of Roman verse satire. We will begin the course with a selection of short readings from each of the four Roman satirists in order to orient ourselves with standard topics of Roman satire (including dining, country vs. urban life, the body, sex, and gender roles) and differentiate the approaches. We will spend the rest of the semester exploring Juvena's seminal works: his first and second book of Satires, wherein he situates himself as a figure marginalized by a new order of foreign interlopers, powerful gender deviants, and tyrannical patrons and emperors, as well as Satire 10, his caustically philosophical take on the "Vanity of Human Wishes."
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT301 Petronius

Follow the down-and-out Roman Encolpius as he embarks on a titillating tour of the Mediterranean, persecuted (with impotence!) by the phallic god Priapus. Join him as he attends the longest dinner party in Latin literature, a class-crossing affair including nouveau riche, citizens, slaves, freedmen, and foreigners. In addition to reading the Latin, we will examine issues of scholarship, from the title (Satyrica? Satyricon?), to the genre, to sexuality, to class and status.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT322 Lucretius

"Imagine there's no heaven..." This course offers close reading in Latin of extensive selections of the DE RERUM NATURA, the remarkable poem in which Lucretius argues that the world is made up of atoms, that the soul dies with the body, that the gods never help or punish human beings, and that mortals should live their lives in search of the peace of mind of Epicurean philosophy. We will try to understand Lucretius' Latin, which we will hope to read with increasing ease and accuracy to relate fully to his rhetorical and poetic techniques and to the literary, philosophical, historical, and cultural background of this unusual and fascinating poem.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT330 Love and Suffering in Ancient Rome (CLAC .50)

In this CLAC course, students with some background in ancient Latin will read selections of the extant sources on love and suffering in Roman myth, history, and thought. The sources that we will cover will be drawn from diverse genres and periods: historiography, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and comedy. This diversity will offer a unique opportunity to students to identify and analyze the intersections of age, class, status, gender, and ethnicity and the way they shaped Roman ideology on "love." We will be looking at how cultural practice shapes language, how ideology shapes law, and how literature challenged cultural norms of love and marriage, all the while unpacking and interrogating the Roman belief that love had no place in the citizen life dedicated to serving the state: love produces suffering. In turn, we will reflect on the ideological shift in the last 150 years that has come to dominate "western" beliefs on love and marriage, that is, "all you need is love," over family, friends, and society, despite the obstacles: suffering produces love.

The selections of readings will be drawn primarily from what the students read in translation in the parent course. The final selection will be based on the level of the students. This CLAC is conceived as appropriate for students on the intermediate and advanced level of ancient Latin.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Identical With: CGST331
Prereq: LAT102

LAT331 Vergil: AENEID 2

Vergil's Aeneid book 2 is almost cinematic in its tragic, poignant, and frenetic depiction of the fall of Troy, from looming threat of the Trojan Horse to the firing of the city, rooftop battles, and the violent loss of loved ones while the gods manipulate events with petty disdain for human life. Students will read book 2 in its entirety in Latin, and the rest of the work in English. The purpose of this course is to continue to develop skills in reading Latin poetry and to continue the study of Latin grammar with close reading and critical analysis.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT335 Martial

This half-credit course will explore a variety of themes in Martial's "Epigrams." Underappreciated today, the "Epigrams" depict friendships, rivalries, sexualities, ethnicities, violence, gender roles, professions, aspirations, and failures in a sharp social commentary on the imperial Roman world. In addition to weekly translation, we will survey the latest scholarly literature on Martial's corpus.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT351 The Age of Nero

Nero: artist or monster (or both)? This course will focus on the personality and politics of the emperor and the reaction he evoked in contemporary and subsequent accounts of his reign, concentrating especially on the powerful picture of Nero and the Neronian regime painted by the Roman historian Tacitus in his "Annals," with supplementary evidence from Suetonius's "Life of Nero," imperial inscriptions, and visual propaganda. Topics discussed will include Tacitus as a historian, public and private life in Neronian Rome, how to die well, and whether Nero really sang of the Fall of Troy while Rome burned.

For CLST Major requirements, this course can be used for the Literature and Performance track.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT353 Demagogues and Tyrants in the Roman Historians

Reading selections from Livy's ab Urbe Condita, Sallust's Bellum Catilinae, and Tacitus' Annales we will consider these historians' depictions of tyrants and demagogues (e.g., the Tarquins, Catiline, Tiberius, Nero) throughout Rome's political history, their views on the interactions between these controversial figures and the Senate and people of Rome, and their narratives describing the circumstances behind their rise and fall. At the same time, we will explore the role of fact vs. fiction, propaganda, and bias in the writing of Roman history through comparative analysis with contemporary sources and inscriptional evidence.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT360 Constructing Masculinity and Identity in Roman Elegy

This course will explore the ways in which Roman elegists used the genre of their poetry to construct a literary alternative to Roman masculinity and mores. Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid each developed a masculine persona that rejected career politics and militarism in favor of the battlefields of love, creating a culture war between the status quo and a new Roman masculinity. The course will include weekly translation and secondary readings.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT375 Set in Stone: Reading Roman Life through Inscriptions

Inscriptions are our tweets from the ancient Romans. From the alphabets scrawled by school children on wax tablets to the curse tablets of scorned lovers and the biographical epitaphs on funerary monuments lining the roads leading into Roman cities they provide an intimate view of daily life in the ancient world, while public inscriptions document the political, religious, and social workings of the Roman state. This course will survey a representative sampling of the Latin inscriptional record from the earliest period through the Empire, including examples of laws, decrees, and religious dedications, Augustus' Res Gestae, and the methods employed in inscribing objects.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CLAS
Prereq: None

LAT401 Individual Tutorial, Undergraduate