CIC and the Center for Hellenic Studies will offer the third in a series of seminars on Ancient Greece in the Modern College Classroom on July 14–18, 2008. Twenty-three faculty members from CIC member colleges and universities will participate in the seminar to be held on the Center’s Washington, DC, campus.

This year’s seminar, made possible through the generous support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, will focus on Homer and Hesiod. Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard University, and Kenneth Scott Morrell, associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Rhodes College, will lead the program. The seminar is open to faculty members in all fields and is designed primarily for those who have not had formal training in ancient Greek literature. Participants will work collaboratively on materials for their courses and have unlimited access to the Center’s renowned library. “One of the seminar’s goals is to help teachers in a variety of disciplines utilize ancient texts effectively, especially in general education,” said CIC President Richard Ekman.

While most people have a basic familiarity with the Iliad and Odyssey, the less well known Homeric Hymns, along with the poetry of Hesiod, are equally important to the Western poetic tradition. Through discussion of the Hymns and Hesiod’s two major poems, Theogony and Works and Days, the seminar will provide an overview of the ancient cultural landscape and explore the importance of these texts in the evolution of Mediterranean civilizations as well as their formative role in the development of artistic, political, religious, and even economic conventions of the Greco-Roman world. Participants will consider ways in which these poems can contribute to the development of courses in a variety of disciplines, informing discussions on topics including the cosmology of ancient Greece, the protocols of human-divine interactions, and the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

More information about the Ancient Greece Seminar is available here on the CIC website.