CX 112-15

This module will introduce students to a range of themes in ancient Greek and Roman thought.

Convenor: Dr. Caroline Petit

Lecturers: Xavier Buxton; Caroline Petit; David Fearn; Nicolas Liney; Joe Watson.

Teaching: weekly 2-hour lectures (Thursdays 1-3, FAB 5.03) + 2 1-hour seminars (in week 4 and week 8)

Assessment: Gobbets (to be handed in in week 5) + essay (end of term 1). No exam.

Syllabus:

Week 1: Orientation (CP/DF); Understanding the world from Homer to the 5th Century BC (XB)

 

Week 2: Radical brainpower in fifth-century Athens: the sophists (DF)

 

Week 3: Plato (DF)

 

Week 4: Ancient rhetoric: Aristotle (CP)

 

Week 5: Hippocratic medicine (CP)

 

Week 6: reading week: no class (focus on gobbets)

 

Week 7: Searching for happiness: Epicurus and Epicureanism (CP)

 

Week 8: Philosophical therapy: avoiding distress (CP)

 

Week 9: Roman Thought and Cicero (NL)

 

Week 10: Life in the face of death: Stoicism in Rome (JW)