Description

The ancient Mediterranean was home to a diverse array of cultures in close contact with each other through trade, warfare, and colonization. This course will study a variety of Greco-Roman responses to other cultures through a series of case studies of contact between Greeks, Romans, and other cultures of the ancient world. In particular, we will examine questions of the applicability of modern concepts such as race and ethnicity, and explore the ways in which these shifting representations of other cultures are reflective of the ways in which Greeks and Romans perceived themselves. We will also reflect on the ways in which these ancient Greco-Roman conceptions of culture relate to our own modern understandings of cultural difference.