Unit information: Theories and Approaches in 2012/13

Unit name	Theories and Approaches
Unit code	CLASM0040
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. O'Gorman
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of Classics & Ancient History
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit provides a theoretical and methodological framework for the programme. This unit also attempts to familiarize you with, and offer critical perspectives on, a range of academic practices and conventions, e.g. utilising and acknowledging the work of other scholars, integrating text and image, or writing for different audiences. Topics covered will include:Visual and Material Culture; Reception and Translation; Historiography; Feminism; Structuralism and Post-structuralism; Marxism and Ideology.

Assessment Information

1 essay

Reading and References

• James I. Porter. 2005. “What is ‘Classical’ about Classical Antiquity? Eight Propositions” Arion 13. 27-61.
• Michael Cronin. 2006. Translation and Identity. London: Routledge. 6-33.
• Lawrence Venuti. 2008. “Translation, Interpretation, Canon Formation” in Alexandra Lianeri and Vanda Zajko, eds. Translation and the Classics. Identity as Change in the History of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 27-51.
• Joy Connolly. 2005. “Border Wars: Literature, Politics, and the Public” Transactions of the American Philological Association. 135. 103-134.

Elizabeth Prettejohn. 2006. “Reception and Ancient Art” in C.A. Martindale and R.F. Thomas. eds. Classics and the Uses of Reception. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 227-249.

• Neville Morley. 2004. “Decadence as a Theory of History” New Literary History 35. 573-585.
• Paul Veyne. 1971. Writing History. Essay on Epistemology. trans. Mina Moore-Rinvolucri. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. 117-143.

Hélène Cixous. 1986. from “Sorties” in Hélène Cixous & Catherine Clément The Newly Born Woman. trans. Betsy Wing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 63-78, 100-121.

• Brooke Holmes. 2012. Gender. Antiquity and its Legacy. London: I.B. Tauris. 126-150.
• Jonathan Culler. 2006. “The Linguistic Basis of Structuralism” in Jonathan Culler. ed. Structuralism. Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. 84-98.
• Bonnie Honig. 2009. “Antigone’s Laments, Creon’s Grief: Mourning, Membership, and the Politics of Exception”. Political Theory. 37. 5-43.
• Jacques Derrida. 1991. “Différance” in Peggy Kamuf. ed. A Derrida Reader. Between the Blinds. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. 59-79.

Kennedy, Duncan F. 1992. “‘Augustan’ and ‘Anti-Augustan’: Reflections on Terms of Reference” in Anton Powell (ed.) Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. 26-58.

• Sigmund Freud. 1913. Totem and Taboo. translated under the editorship of James Strachey. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth Press. vol. 13. 132-161.
• Victoria Wohl. 2013. “The Mythic Foundation of Law” in Vanda Zajko & Ellen O’Gorman eds. Classical Myth and Psychoanalysis. Ancient and Modern Stories of the Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 165-182.
• Louis Althusser. 1972. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press. 127-186.
• Sara Elise Phang. 2012. Roman Military Service. Ideologies of Discipline in the Late Republic and Early Principate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Phiroze Vasunia. 2001. The Gift of the Nile. Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander. Berkeley: University of California Press. 248-275
• Ika Willis. 2007. “The Empire Never Ended” in Lorna Hardwick and Carol Gillespie eds. Classics in Post-Colonial Worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 329-348.

Case studies

1. Livy 34.1-8 on the repeal of the Oppian Law; Tacitus Annals 3.32-37 on provincial commands and sumptuary laws.
2. Aeschylus Eumenides.