Graduate Seminar: The Book

This seminar examines the relationship between ancient literary forms and the media in which they were presented. Specifically, it considers the connections between the ways in which ancient books were published and distributed--in papyrus rolls and bound codices, individually and in groups, privately and commercially--and the cultural conventions of reading and literary appreciation in antiquity. Chronologically the seminar focuses on the late Roman Republic and early Empire (ca. 100 BCE -200 CE), but attention is devoted also to new papyrological evidence for the development of poetry books during the Hellenistic period. A reading knowledge of Greek and Latin is required.