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Royal Holloway MA courses 2017-18

The Classics department at Royal Holloway, University of London, takes part in the Intercollegiate MA programme in partnership with KCL and UCL. You can find out more about how the programme works on our pages for prospective students. This page lists courses that will be available to intercollegiate students and which are running in 2017-18. You will shortly be able to view a provisional timetable for RHUL course, although please note that these arrangements are subject to change.

Intercollegiate courses being run at UCL are listed for consultation here.

Intercollegiate courses being run at KCL are listed for consultation here

Intercollegiate courses being run at the Institute of Classical Studies are listed for consultation here.

There are more details about the registration process for RHUL MA students on our MA joiners' welcome page. If you have any queries about the modules or would like further details, please e-mail Dr. Liz Gloyn, our Director of Postgraduate Taught Studies, or Sue Turnbull, our postgraduate administrator. 

CL5090 - Research Training in Classics

This is the core course for the Intercollegiate MA in Classics; all students on this degree programme will automatically be enrolled on it. Please ensure that you complete an intercollegiate registration form if you are a student at KCL or UCL so that you can be given access to the course Moodle as quickly as possible.  

The core course provides support for students as they prepare to undertake theid dissertation. The individual seminars draw on the expertise of academics at RHUL, KCL and UCL. The module will acquaint students with the range of sources available, and methods required, for the advanced study of Classical languages, literature and thought. Thereafter, students are trained to undertake independent research, and to present their findings clearly and coherently.  

Course convenor: Professor Ahuvia Kahane.
Teaching: autumn term, with a colloquium day in the summer for students to present on their dissertation research.
This course is taught in the Royal Holloway Bedford Square building in central London.
This course carries no credit weighting.

CL5182 - Understanding Pompeii and Herculaneum - 40 credits

This course provides you with the opportunity to engage in an-depth study of the material remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum (and the villas at Stabiae, Oplontis and Boscoreale) and assess their special value – but also their limitations – as primary sources of evidence for archaeologists and cultural historians. We analyse general issues of preservation, excavation, chronology, and presentation of the sites to the public as well as a range of topics relating to the specific types of evidence for which the Vesuvian sites are renowned. Some of the topics covered include domestic structures, economics, food and drink consumption, baths and theatres, politics, and burials. A trip to the Bay of Naples allows for first hand interaction with the sites and their remains.

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the archaeology of Pompeii and Herculaneum
  • demonstrate understanding of the value of the material evidence from the Vesuvian sites in the study of urban society in Roman Italy of the 1st century AD
  • demonstrate ability to evaluate and deploy different forms of material evidence in historical enquiry
  • demonstrate competence in gathering, memorizing, organizing and deploying evidence from a range of primary (archaeological, epigraphic and literary) and secondary sources in response to a particular issue concerning the culture and society of Pompeii or Herculaneum
  • demonstrate ability to express the results of individual research in an appropriate written and illustrated form


Course tutors: Dr. Ben Lowe and Dr. Erica Rowan.
Assessment: two essays of 5000 words each.
Teaching: autumn and spring terms.
This course is taught on the Royal Holloway Egham campus.
This course involves a compulsory field trip. MA students are strongly advised to participate in the field trip which takes place in the reading week of the spring term unless they have compelling reasons to do otherwise.
Due to intercollegiate teaching patterns, in the autumn term MA students will be given some off-timetable teaching; details of this will be agreed with students over e-mail in advance.

Places on this module will be allocated in the first instance to those students from any College who are following the MA Classical Art and Archaeology degree programme. Any remaining places up the maximum size of the class will then be distributed proportionately between Colleges.

CL5195 - City of Athens - 40 credits 

The urban centre of ancient Athens was a modest town from antiquity until the nineteenth century when it became the capital of the newly independent state. The city has grown phenomenally over the last two centuries and the preservation of the archaeological remains is varied.  The course will combine classroom teaching with an excursion to Athens where the relationship between the modern city and the primary material at the archaeological parks and museums can be studied at first hand. The lectures and seminars will provide a methodological and chronological framework for studying the material remains of the ancient city. Several themes will run through the course and they include, for example, the following: How are the religious and burial customs reflected in the archaeological record of Athens? What types of manifestations did the administration and politics of the polis have in architecture? How did the city prepare for war? What was the urban environment like?

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • use archaeological evidence with the appropriate critical approach;
  • locate the relevant archaeological remains in their historical context and understand how using archaeology can contribute to studying historical phenomena;
  • identify and analyse the chronological differences in the archaeological record of Athens;
  • grasp how the fragmentary nature of the available archaeological evidence influences our understanding of a past society;
  • apply modern scholarly methods in the study of archaeological remains.
  • use different types of material evidence in the analyses of particular archaeological problems.

Course tutor: Professor Jari Pakkanen.
Assessment: two essays of 5000 words each.
Teaching: intensively in the spring term.
This course is taught on the Royal Holloway Egham campus.
Please note that this course includes a compuslory fieldtrip to Athens in the Royal Holloway reading week.

Places on this module will be allocated in the first instance to those students from any College who are following the MA Classical Art and Archaeology degree programme. Any remaining places up the maximum size of the class will then be distributed proportionately between Colleges.

CL5305 - Greek Law and Lawcourts - 40 credits 

In the autumn term the lectures and seminars will focus primarily on the political role of the People’s Court in matters concerning policy making, its control and monitoring of active participants in the running of the democracy, and on the structure of Athenian legal procedures.  
By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • Understand the operation of the Athenian courts within the wider framework of the direct democracy of the fourth century and explain the reasons for the current scholarly controversies surrounding the reconstruction and interpretation of the Athenian legal system.
  • Identify a range of legal procedures, private and public, and explain how they were applied in individual cases, displaying detailed knowledge and understanding of the relevant primary evidence.
  • understand the intimate connection between Athenian direct democracy and the Athenian administration of justice, including from a comparative perspective.
  • Understand the rhetorical strategies adopted by Athenian litigants in a wide range of contexts, including complex legal disputes relating to proposals and ratification of laws and decrees in Council and Assembly.
  • Discuss aspects of Athenian constitutional and social history on the basis of detailed knowledge of surviving statutes and their application in practice.

Course tutor: Professor Lene Rubinstein.
Assessment: three essays of 3500 words each.
Teaching: autumn and spring terms.
This course is taught  in the Royal Holloway Bedford Square building in central London.

Places on this module will be allocated in the first instance to those students from any College who are following the MA  Ancient History degree programme. Any remaining places up the maximum size of the class will then be distributed proportionately between Colleges.

CL5815 - Homer - Iliad - 20 credits 

To provide a forum for reading and discussions of Homer’s Iliad in original Greek; to  consider critical issues in the study of Homeric poetry, oral poetry, and the tradition of early Greek epic; to develop students’ familiarity with ancient Greek, Homeric dialect, stylistic, metrical and other philological issues. Reading of selected pre-prepared sections and passages, secondary texts and themes, including

  • Homeric Biographies: Lives as Traditions.
  • Biographic Attributes and Poetic Traditions.
  • Authorship and Transmission.
  • Formulae.
  • Transmission.
  • Metre, Colon, Enjambment.
  • Type Scenes.
  • Speech, Narrative, Characterization.
  • Characterization, Simile
  • Signs and Symbols: Portents, Funerary Signs, and Song.
  • Plot, Emplotment and Closure
  • Memory and Mortality: Hero and Heroic Code.
  • Gender, Social Structure, Worldview.
  • Ethics.• Personality and Subjectivity
  • Gods and Afterlife.
  • Poets, Poetry, and Poetics.
  • Truth and Authority.
  • Historical Trajectories in the Ancient World and Beyond.
  • Histories of the World.
  • Troy, the Trojan War, and the Material Evidence.
  • The Social Worlds of Homer, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.
  • Epic and Modernity: Modernism.
  • Epic and Modernity: Class.
  • Epic and Modernity: Empire, Colony, Diversity, Race.
  • Epic and Cinema.
  • Epic as a Genre

We will explore in somewhat greater detail up to six books from the Iliad and problems associated with them. 

By the end of this module, you will have:

  • Read significant sections from selected books of Homer's Iliad in the original Greek and have a good grasp of the Odyssey as a text;
  • Understand a broad range of philological issues associated with the text (dialect, metre, grammar, style, formulaic construction, etc.);
  • Have a good grasp of key critical issues in the study of Homer and the Iliad.
  • Have a good grasp of general critical method in literary criticism, philosophy, anthropology, the study of oral traditions, etc., as these pertain to the study of Homer;
  • Improved written and oral presentation skills;
  • Improved ability to synthesize source materials and present an original scholarly argument and a stronger, more creative critical stance.

Course tutor: Professor Ahuvia Kahane.
Assessment: one essay of 4000 words
Teaching: autumn term.
This course is taught in the Royal Holloway Bedford Square building in central London.

Places on this module will be allocated in the first instance to those students from any College who are following the MA Classics degree programme. Any remaining places up the maximum size of the class will then be distributed proportionately between Colleges.

CL5816 - Homer - Odyssey - 20 credits 

The course will introduce MA students to Homer's Odyssey. Student will prepare assigned sections for class, which will be discussed in class along with general introductions to critical topics in the study of Homer. These topics include relatively technical, philological issues as well as aspects of higher criticism, including literary, philosophical and anthropological approaches and discussions of general critical theory pertinent to the study of the Odyssey.

By the end of this module, you will:

  • Read significant sections from selected books of Homer's Odyssey in the original Greek and have a good grasp of the Odyssey as a text.
  • Understand a broad range of philological issues associated with the text (dialect, metre, grammar, style, formulaic construction, etc.)
  • Have a good grasp of key critical issues in the study of Homer and the Odyssey.
  • Have a good grasp of general critical method in literary criticism, philosophy, anthropology, the study of oral traditions, etc., as these pertain to the study of Homer.
  • Improved written and oral presentation skills.
  • Improved ability to synthesize source materials and present an original scholarly argument and a stronger, more creative critical stance.

Course tutor: Professor Ahuvia Kahane.
Assessment: one essay of 4000 words
Teaching: autumn term.
This course is taught in the Royal Holloway Bedford Square building in central London.

Places on this module will be allocated in the first instance to those students from any College who are following the MA Classics degree programme. Any remaining places up the maximum size of the class will then be distributed proportionately between Colleges.

CL5120 - Advanced Latin A (for MA) - 20 credits 

This course is open to students studying any of the intercollegiate MA programmes who enter the programme with two years of Latin at university level or an equivalent qualification. This course is the prerequisite for Advanced Latin B (for MA).

The course will consist of study of one set text in Latin, in either prose or verse, to be selected annually; the focus will be on translation, context and understanding of grammar in this text. Students will also work on an independent project related to their own area of research expertise in order to refine their understanding of the issues posed by translation and interpretation in this area.

Assessment:
In course assessment – 40%

  • Two tests scheduled during class time over the term. The coursework grade will be the best mark of the two.
  • Tests consist of unseen Latin sentences; students are asked to answer grammatical questions about them, and to translate them. Vocabulary support will be given where appropriate, but credit will also be given for intelligent guesses. Dictionaries will not be permitted.

Independent project – 60%

Students are to identify a piece of Latin relevant to their research of a suitable length in consultation with the course tutor. They will:

  • Produce their own translation.
  • Compare at least one existing translation with the original Latin.
  • Discuss particular details of the Latin and why they pose problems for translation.   

The project should be 3,000 words long and will be submitted in January.

Students will meet individually with the course tutor at least twice to discuss their projects as they develop over the term.

Course tutor: Dr. Siobhan Chomse.
Teaching: autumn term.
This course is taught in the Royal Holloway Bedford Square building in central London.

Places on this module will be allocated in the first instance to those students from any College who are following the MA Classics degree programme. Any remaining places up the maximum size of the class will then be distributed proportionately between Colleges.

CL5121 - Advanced Latin B (for MA) - 20 credits

Prerequisite: Advanced Latin A (for MA). Advanced Latin B is not an alternative to Advanced Latin A.

This course is open to students studying any of the intercollegiate MA programmes who have completed Advanced Latin A (for MA).

The course will consist of study of one set text in Latin, in either prose or verse, to be selected annually; the focus will be on translation, context and understanding of grammar in this text. Students will also work on an independent project related to their own area of research expertise in order to refine their understanding of the issues posed by translation and interpretation in this area.

Assessment:
In course assessment – 40%

  • Two tests scheduled during class time over the term. The coursework grade will be the best mark of the two. 
  • Tests consist of unseen Latin sentences; students are asked to answer grammatical questions about them, and to translate them. Vocabulary support will be given where appropriate, but credit will also be given for intelligent guesses. Dictionaries will not be permitted.

Independent project – 60%
Students are to identify a piece of Latin relevant to their research of a suitable length in consultation with the course tutor. This selection must be different to the Latin used in the project for Advanced Latin A. They will:

  • Explain why the Latin of the passage is significant, interesting, challenging or otherwise worth examination.
  • Place the discussion of the Latin in the broader context of scholarship on the piece or similar pieces.
  • Place the Latin within its wider literary, social or political context as appropriate, with special reference to the language used.
  • Discuss how a close engagement with the language of the piece enhances their own research.

The project should be 3,000 words long and will be submitted at the end of April.

Students will meet individually with the course tutor at least twice to discuss their projects as they develop over the term.

Course tutor: Dr. Siobhan Chomse.
Teaching: spring term.
This course is taught in the Royal Holloway Bedford Square building in central London.

Places on this module will be allocated in the first instance to those students from any College who are following the MA Classics degree programme. Any remaining places up the maximum size of the class will then be distributed proportionately between Colleges.

  
 
 
 

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