MCL 360 - CATASTROPHES AND CALAMITIES IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD AND AFTERWARDS

College of Arts & Sciences

Credit(s): 3

The participants in the course will get acquainted, by reading the ancient sources in English translation, with some of the greatest catastrophes and calamities in the Greco-Roman world as described by ancient authors. These events will be considered in the historical and cultural context in which they have occurred. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which ancient people reacted to, explained, and tried to accept these calamities. Course participants will also explore, using archival material mainly from newspapers and periodicals, similar calamities that happened in the modern and indeed in the contemporary world. They will reflect on modern and contemporary reactions to adversity, and analyze disasters in the light of different conceptualizations of the moral and cosmological contexts of such events. This will involve discussion of distinct and opposing interpretive perspectives and schools of thought. Comparing the ancient and the modern attitudes will be an important part of the course. The course will also take in consideration human approaches to calamities represented in some motion pictures.

Meets UK Core: Global Dynamics. Meets UK Core: Intellectual Inquiry in the Humanities.