An introduction to the classical myths in their cultural context and in their wider application to human concerns (such as creation, sex and gender, identity, transformation, and death). The course will offer a who's who of the ancient imaginative world, study the main ancient sources of well known stories, and introduce modern approaches to analyzing myths.

This lecture-style course familiarizes participants with the origins, characteristic institutions, and political ideology of the first democracies as they emerged in the Classical Greek world (fifth and fourth centuries BCE). Demokratia ("people power") in ancient Greece represented something similar to, but also strikingly divergent from, the constitutions we know as democracies today. Topics will include direct-democratic assemblies, courtroom procedure, the relationship between democracy and slavery, female citizenship under democracy, democracy and religion, and the collapse of democratic regimes.

The astonishing preservation of Pompeii has captured popular imagination ever since it was rediscovered beginning in the 1700s. This course will uncover the urban fabric of the city. We will look at its layout, at public and private buildings and their decoration, and at the wider cultural, geographical and historical contexts. Using physical remains alongside texts in translation, we will explore aspects of the lives of the inhabitants, including entertainment, housing, religion, economy, slavery, political organization and expression, roles played by men and women inside and outside the family, and attitudes towards death.