Correspondence Directory

Majors and Courses of InstructionHumanities-ClassicsHumanities–ClassicsMajors and MinorsProfessor LateinerAssociate Professors Fratantuono, MerkelAssistant Professors Livingston, SokolskyHumanities-Classics offers students a unique opportunity to pursue courses in western and nonwesterncomparative literatures and cultures, often combined with a study of visual and other arts.The department offers an array of courses with varied focus: for example, thematic courses (folkheroes, love, gender, rites of passage), genre courses (tragedy, comedy), and period courses (AncientRome, Medieval, Modern, and Post-Modern) in the traditional Great Books and in other creativemasterpieces (architecture, art, and music). The Hellenic, Roman, Hebraic, and Italian Renaissancetraditions are fundamental to this study of Western civilization. The lasting achievements of Homer,Sappho, Cicero, the Bible, and later writers such as Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Kafka,Calvino, and Cixous continue to provoke, stimulate, and challenge contemporary thought.In the non-Western tradition, Humanities-Classics embraces the extraordinary wealth of ancientand recent texts from India, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia that have becomeessential for an educated citizenry in the world today. Courses are therefore structured to encouragestudents to compare the values and artistic strategies of different traditions, and to observe differentformulations of enduring questions regarding freedom and constraint, love and sexuality, selfknowledgeand duty. Works from India, from Africa, from Latin America, and Asia extend ourknowledge of world literature. We offer comparative literature courses in which topics, perspectives,and problems in various ethnic and literary traditions widen the field of vision. Many of thesecourses question traditional canons and hierarchies constructed both long ago and in recentdecades.Humanities-Classics also offers instruction in Greek and Latin languages and literatures at all levels,from elementary to advanced. Within the first two years, the student may read the epics of Homer,the tragic lyrics of Euripides, the dialogues of Plato, the works of Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid, etc., inthe original languages. The study of Greek or Latin provides a basis for independent insights intoancient Mediterranean languages and societies, which are significant sources of current Americanconcepts in social and political thought.Humanities-Classics courses in archaeology and cultural history extend the student’s reach into theancient Mediterranean world. Related courses in antiquity are also offered by the departments offine arts, history, philosophy, and religion.Majors and minors in this department confront the past and the present, and analyze American andmany other cultures. The past shapes the present through its fiction, non-fiction, images, art, music,and perceptions of humans and their societies. As an integral and fundamental part of the liberal artscurriculum at Ohio Wesleyan, the Humanities-Classics curriculum prepares our students for all areasof humanistic study in the university and beyond.The Major in Humanities-Classics is interdisciplinary, requiring 10 courses distributed as follows:(1) three courses in Humanities-Classics numbered 100-230; (2) three courses in Humanities-Classics numbered 231-299; (3) three courses in Humanities-Classics numbered 300-399; and (4)one course in Humanities-Classics numbered 400 or above.155