1. I.Systems of Writing and the Development of the Alphabet
   

Introduction to early scripts in the Mediterranean, and to writing as a cognitive

system; stories of the transfer of the alphabet, with emphasis on both the facts and the ideologies.

Week 1                    Typology of Writing Systems

F    Jan. 14   

Introductory class

Week 2

W  Jan. 19   

Read Powell on early scripts and the alphabet: pp. 163-74, 227-244

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

F   Jan. 21                   Writing Systems and Cognition

Read Olson on writing systems and cognition: pp. 65-114

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

2. Origins and contexts for ideas of the literary

Introduction to early Greek literary traditions. Homer & Hesiod & poetic beginnings. Historiography & prose beginnings.

Week 3

W Jan. 26                Early Greece and Literary Orality

Read carefully selections from Hesiod, Theogony (read lines 1-616 ONLY) and Hesiod, Works and Days (read lines 1-264 ONLY), thinking about what sort of poetry this is and how it relates to an audience; read QUICKLY book 8 of the Odyssey, concentrating on the figure of the bard, Demodocus (what is his social status? what sorts of songs does he sing?) [For a quick introduction and summary of the Odyssey, follow this link]

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

First writing assignment due

F Jan. 28                Homer’s Iliad: Early Greece, poetry, and society  

Iliad: Read carefully books 1-5, skimming however the end of Book 2 (from Fagles line 584 = pp. 116-127) and Book 5; learning points should concentrate on  books 1, 2, 3, 4

To help with our study of the Iliad, follow this link to the Iliad summaries and guides

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points. Think as you read about the values and hierarchies implicit in the poem.

Week 4

W    Feb. 2  

Iliad: Read through to book 9; read carefully books 6 &  9

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points (concentrating on books 6 & 9)

Second writing assignment due (reaction paper: Homer as “encyclopedia”)

F    Feb. 4                 Homer’s Iliad: reception and meaning for the Iliad

Iliad: Read through to book 18, skipping books 10-12 (read summaries for those); read carefully books 14, 16, 18

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points (concentrating on books 14, 16, 18)

Week 5

W    Feb. 9  

Iliad: Read through to Book 22; read carefully books 21, 22

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points (concentrating on books 21, 22)

Third writing assignment due (short essay: manhood)

F    Feb. 11       

Iliad: Read through to end; read carefully books 24

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points (concentrating on book 24)

Week 6       The origins of “history”: from mythos to logos?

W   Feb. 16 Herodotus, the “Father of History”

Herodotus Books 1 & 2 excerpts: pp. 29-81 from M. I. Finley, The Portable Greek Historians (one of your textbooks)

Class presentations -- Individual assignments for tales in the Lydian logos:

1. •Gyges and the wife of Candaules (Shreya);
   

2. •Arion and the Dolphin (Amy)
   

3. •Croesus and Solon (Randy)
   

4. •Cleobis and Biton (Lauren)
   

5. •Atys and Adrastus (Jess)
   

6. •Croesus and the testing of the oracles (Kristin)
   

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points.

Friday’s assignment is a longish one, so you might wish to read further into Herodotus (see assignment below) to front-load Friday’s work.

F     Feb. 18

Herodotus & Thucydides

Herodotus, excerpts from Books 7 & 8: Portable Greek Historian, pp. 81-100 (VII.1-60), pp. 140-157 (VII.201-239), pp. 172-199 (VIII.40-107)

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points.

Brief class presentation due (construction of history)

Week 7

W    Feb. 23

FIRST HOUR EXAMINATION  

3. Oralities and literacies in early Greece

Stories of the move from oral to literate and its cultural consequences (Goody,

Ong, Havelock); typology of oralities and literacies in early Greece (Thomas)

F    Feb. 25

General theories of orality and oral traditions: Read J. Goody, “The Consequences of Literacy” which is an old, classic article (from 1963!) which continues to be influential though often attacked and criticized; as you read, think about what sorts of criticisms you might level against the argument and evidence he presents. Then read the quick digest and overview, R. Thomas, LIteracy and Orality chap. 2, pp. 15-28 (NOT chap. 3, pp. 29ff)

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

Week 8

W    Mar. 2

Specific ideas of orality and oral traditions: Read R. Thomas, LIteracy and Orality chap. 3 = pp. 29-51 for a précis of scholarship on oral poetry and Homer; and Murray 1987 for an early take on orality and how it relates to Herodotus (Murray is not uncontroversial in its specifics)

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

F    Mar. 4

Medicine and the early uses of writing: the Hippocratic corpus. Read two early treatises from “Hippocrates”: the Airs, Waters, Places and On the Sacred Disease and a brief clip from the Epidemics (pp. 113-118), along with an excerpt from Rosalind Thomas, Herodotus in Context on Herodotus’ use of medical writings. You will see that pragmatic rationalistic inquiry develops in specific, interesting ways.

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

SPRING BREAK: W Mar 9, F Mar 11

4. Early ideas of intellectualism and philosophy

Development of notions of education (paideia) and intellectualism amid the rise

of rhetoric and philosophy (Isocrates, Plato) in classical Athens

Week 9

W    Mar 16 

Presocratics: a short reading on the Milesians and Parmenides, optional on Zeno & Melissus

Plato & Socrates: Read from the course book (Selected Dialogues of Plato) these two works: Ion, Apology

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

F    Mar 18

Short reading on Greek sexuality (Ormand): read this before reading the Symposium

Plato: Symposium (Selected Dialogues of Plato)

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

Week 10

W   Mar 23  

Xenophon: Apology (Defense of Socrates), Symposium

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points (brief, selective)

Fifth Writing Assignment due

F Mar 25 Plato on love and the written word: Phaedrus (Selected Dialogues of Plato)

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

Week 11

W    Mar 30  Popular views of intellectuals and intellectualism:

The Comic poets: Aristophanes, Clouds (concentrate on the front part having to do with “Socrates”; and on the argument between the characters “Philosophy” and “Sophistry”)

The Sophists: Read the beginnings of these three Platonic works, Protagoras, pp. 27-46 (only!) from the Selected Dialogues of Plato, Hippias (beginning, as posted), Gorgias (beginning, as posted); and a tiny clip from the sophist Gorgias, Funeral oration

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

F    April 1  

SECOND HOUR EXAMINATION

5. The insitutionalization of literate culture: Origins of Academy and Library

The ʺschoolsʺ of Plato and Aristotle; early archives and information systems;

stories and conceptions of the great library at Alexandria

Week 12  The rise of schools: Isocrates, Academy, Lyceum

W  April 6 Rival schools: Isocrates, Against the Sophists, Antidosis

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

F April 8  Successor schools: Aristotle. Intellectualism and tradition in Greek medicine. Generation of Animals (+Galen)

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

Week 13    Schools and Libraries

W April 13 CANCELLED (sickness)

F April 15  Aristotle’s Lyceum and encyclopedism: Aristotle’s Politics (selections), the Life of Aristotle and Life of Theophrastus by Diogenes Laertius

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

Sixth writing assignment due

W April 20  Archives and Libraries. The Library of Alexandria: readings from L. Casson (Libraries in the Ancient World, pp. 17-47) and R. Bagnall, “Alexandria: Library of Dreams” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146 (2002) 348-62.

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

Weeks 13-14   The Roman inheritance: Sociology of Reading

F April 22 W. A. Johnson on “Pragmatics of Readings” (from Readers and Reading Culture in the High Empire, Oxford Univ. Press, 2010); “Towards a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity,” American Journal of Philology 121 (2000): 593-627.

Bring to class and email to me (william.johnson@duke.edu) your learning points

W April 27 An example of the Roman inheritance: Lucian of Samosata. Lucian, a Syrian Greek, lived in the 2nd century AD, and wrote a great many satirical works that both lampoon his own time period (in which Greeks were living under Roman rule), and in certain ways look back to the glory years of Greece. We’ll explore what three of his most entertaining works imply about reading culture in imperial Rome: Ignorant Book Collectors, On Salaried Posts at Great Houses, The Carousal. We will concentrate in discussion and analysis on the first two; the Carousal should be read quickly.

FINAL EXAM: Thursday May 5  9:00 Plan for an exam of one to 1.5 hours, covering only the materials since the second hour examination. You will also bring to the exam the take-home essay, as a hard copy.