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Crosslistings: WMST 268 |
Along with the invention of "homosexuality" as both word and concept came an historical evaluation of expressions of sexuality in various civilizations, including ancient Greece and Rome. Beginning with the late
Victorian
classicists J.A. Symonds and the circle of Oscar Wilde (trained at Oxford in Classics, or, as it was called at the time, "Greats"), this scholarly enterprise has enjoyed a renewed flourishing in the last thirty years.
Many
Second-Wave Feminist scholars have studied the roles of women in both ancient civilizations, including the possibilities for expressions of female desire and women's sexualities; many Classicists have studied the
expressions
of both male and female sexual experience in antiquity; meanwhile, other scholars have theorized the sex/gender systems of various cultures. In this course we shall read amongst these (all too often disparate) bodies of
scholarship, attempting both to understand the varieties of sexual experience in ancient Greece and Rome and also to understand the current state of these scholarly enterprises.
OBJECTIVES:
Designed for both
Classical
Studies majors and non-majors, this course takes as its over-arching objective the study of the history and theories of sexuality, as they apply to Classical Antiquity. For majors, the primary texts read may be
familiar,
but the analysis new; for non-majors, the tools of analysis may be familiar, but the cultural specifics and primary texts analyzed may be new. This course is designed, then, to broaden the intellectual horizons of all
students,
be they Classical Studies majors or not.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA CLAS Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-30-2006
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459