AP/HUMA 1710 6.00

THE ROOTS OF WESTERN CULTURE

Note: Successful completion of this course fulfills General Education requirements in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.
This course begins by considering the look back into such ancient times when stories were reworked and transmitted for generations through oral culture, and orienting students to the emerging cultural identities of the ancient Greek and ancient Hebrews.

For example we will study the documentary hypothesis which suggests that the Hebrew Bible is a composite work from several sources, and we will consider how our knowledge of "the Greeks" is often based on scant physical remains, fragmentary literary sources dependent on second and third hand authors, and is always interpretative. Students will be introduced to many kinds of literature which emerged in the ancient period: epic poetry, lyric poetry, fables and parables, dramatic works, philosophical and medical treatises and historical prose. We will want to engage in close readings of primary texts with a view to understanding key themes and ideas, historical, political, and social contexts, and religious beliefs and practices.Thus, along the way, we might consider parallels to, and influences from, even more ancient civilizations; highlight certain Greek gods and goddess and their festivals; and, consider the social status of women, or cultural differences between the Spartans and Athenians. We will always want to engage with the texts critically which will involve examining the perspectives of ancient authors, the use of art and literature for ideological ends, as well as our own assumptions about the past.

In addition to excerpts from the Old and New Testament, we will engage with a number of Greek and Roman authors which will include many of the following: Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Aesop, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus, Thucydides, Hippocrates, Livy, Virgil, Lucretius, Epicurus, Epictetus, Apuleius and Ovid. It was in the climate of the Roman world that the two major stands of Western thought, the Greco-Roman and Judeo–Christian, came together. After having spent some time on Archaic and Classical Greek writers, we will examine the adoption of Greek culture by the Romans who gave it their own personality. We will end the course with a look at the early Christian authors as they attempted to distinguish themselves both from the Law of the Jews and Greco-Roman polytheism