CLAS 253 Gender and Sexuality in Classical Antiquity

The title of this course is “Gender and Sexuality in Classical Antiquity.” The phrase Classical Antiquity is daunting in that it covers a period of nearly 2000 years. For our purposes we will cover only a small portion of that time period, staying mainly in the 5th and 4th Century (B.C.E.) Greece and in the Roman Empire from the beginning of the 1st Century B.C.E - the 3rd century C.E. Most, though not all, of our sources will be literary and were written by men. Academic studies of gender and sexuality have only existed since the mid-20th century, and studies of gender and sexuality in Classical Greece and Rome for an even briefer period. The field is very much in its initial phases, consequently there is much to discover. However, the evidence is extraordinarily skewed towards one end of the spectrum, a fact that we must always remain aware. This course will be broken into two units centered around artificial categories that are then subdivided further: 1) Male/Masculine 2) Female/Feminine. The subdivisions are of gender and sexuality for each primary category, which are then further divided into the differences between Greek and Roman Culture. The units are laid out in this way for organizational and comparative reasons. While we will progress from unit 1 to 2, etc. There will be much blending of the subjects in each category. For example, a poet might challenge traditional notions of Roman masculinity by exploring what they perceive as Roman femininity. The goal of this course is to gain a better idea of what gender and sexuality might have meant for Greeks and Romans in the ancient world, and to see if the categories laid out above are as rigid as we might expect.

OWU Units: 1.00. Crosslisting(s): None. Prerequisite(s): None. Corequisite(s): None. Antirequisite(s): None. Fee: None. Core Competency: Examine Power and Inequities. Offered: TBD.