Herodotus

Semester and Year	SP 2012
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1448
Section	001
Instructor	Laura Slatkin
Days	Wed
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	2.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM, PREMOD

Notes/Restrictions

Course meets 1/25- 3/7 only.

Description

Referred to both as “the father of lies” and as the founder of the discipline of history, Herodotus (5th cent. B.C.E.) stands at the threshold of historical and ethnographic discourse in the West. Through its primary topic, the wars between Greece and Persia, Herodotus’ Histories examines the distinctive social, political, and religious characters of the major cultures of the ancient mediterranean world. In this class, our reading of the Histories will include a consideration of the following questions: how does the perspective of the Histories contribute to, and complicate, contemporary notions of exoticism and “otherness”; what is the relation of the Histories (with its recognition of cultural pluralism) to the themes and structure of Athenian tragedy? How does Herodotus construct a history out of travel, hearsay, participant-observation? What can we learn from Herodotus about historical method? Our readings will include (in addition to the primary text) selections from: Michel De Certeau, The Writing of History ; Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths and Historical Method ; Leslie Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece .

Syllabus

IDSEM-UG1448

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)