First-Year Seminar: Ancient Literary Journeys

3 units

Recent social histories exploring Greek childhood have emphasized the reconstruction of the ancient child's agency. Such studies have been interested to illuminate the lived experience of children and to apprehend their voices so often silent in the sources. While such inquiry has clearly widened our understanding of ancient children's lives, the present course is designed instead to explore explicitly the representation of children as particularly rich reservoirs of cultural values. Drawing upon a range of art historical and archaeological sources and literary genres, we will examine the ways in which children were presented to mirror back social mores, thus capturing the aspirations of ancient Greek society. As figures of future potential, children continue to offer social historians one of the most striking lenses through which to explore the question of our humanity. The protean answer to this question at once reveals the proximity and vast distance that stands between our modern society and the ancient Greek one.