Literary Theory and Ancient Literature

This course is designed as an exposure to central approaches in

modern literary theory that center on the body and that have been influential in

scholarship on ancient Greek and Latin literature. It explores the centrality of bodily

imagery as grounding for theoretical concepts from various prospects, including

questions of whose body gets theorized (i.e., inflections of race, gender, class, etc.) and

how ancient and modern thinkers theorize the body in performance. It addresses a

perceived need in the department as well as the field to foster continued engagement with

questions of methodology that do not merely treat philological or historical techniques as

neutral and transparent. The course will analyze some dominant theoretical trends,

explore their backgrounds, and consider why literary theorists so often engage with

ancient authors to think with the body.

Each component will extend over three or four classes and address a set of ancient

and modern authors through readings of primary texts and conceptual / contextual

backgrounds.