Introductory Demotic (Modern) Greek
Ohio University Course Listing: Greek 251 (undergrad) / 551 (grad)
Instructor: This course is taught by a highly skilled tutor fluent in modern Greek. In 2005 that tutor was Christophoros Dunne, who holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Athens. We hope Christophoros will be able to join us again in 2008. In addition, both Bill Owens (Ph.D., Yale) and Steve Hays (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin), who persist in trying to learn Demotic, will help drill students during the course of the trip.
Texts:
- Our normal textbook for Demotic Greek is Ellenika Tora, supplemented by newspapers, street signs, business signs, etc.
- Students will also want to search out a pocket Greek-English/English-Greek dictionary from a bookstore in Athens.
Content: Students typically learn enough Demotic Greek to engage in simple daily exchanges: buying food, checking travel schedules, renting rooms, changing money, etc.
Contact Hours: at least 45.
Procedure: During the first 3 weeks of the course there are daily classes of at least 3 hours. In addition, students are given assignments to read newspapers, Demotic poems, etc. And, lessons continue during site tours and museum visits, during which the Demotic tutor will help them with vocabulary, tell them about cultural issues, and challenge them to practice their Greek with locals.
Grading: The tutor assigns a grade based on written and oral work.
CLAS 351X: On-Site Survey of Greek History
Weeks 1-5 (4 credits)Instructor: Bill Owens (Ph.D., Yale)This course focuses on site visits to historically and archaeologically important sites in Athens, Attica, Delphi, the Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, and Thira. A more detailed description of this course will be posted as soon as we can get to it.
Readings from Homer’s Odyssey
Ohio University Course Listing: Greek 311 (undergrad) / 511 (grad)Instructor: Steve Hays (Robert S. Hays), Associate Professor, Department of Classics, Ohio University. Ph.D. Texas @Austin, 1983.Texts:
- Owen & Goodspeed, Homeric Vocabularies (Univ. of Oklahoma).
- A Homeric lexicon
- Odyssey, Books 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 16.
Contact Hours: at least 72. (Details below under “Procedure.”)
Content: Reading and translation of 7 books (ca. 3600 lines) of Homer’s Odyssey.
Rationale: I selected these particular books of the Odyssey because the are rich in materials that will resonate with the students’ experiences in Greece: Telemachos’ dinner and a bath at Nestor’s palace (which they will visit); the splendor of Menelaos’ megaron (whose counterpart they will visit at Mycenae); scenes that involve traveling, eating, and hospitality.
In the weeks prior to the class, students are expected to learn the first 525 words (Verbs, Nouns, and Others occurring more than 50 times in Homer) in Owen and Goodspeed in order to establish a baseline Homeric vocabulary.
Students will be examined on this vocabulary at the beginning of the course.
Readings from Plato
Ohio University Course Listing: Greek 313 (undergrad) / 513 (grad)Instructor: Steve Hays (Robert S. Hays), Associate Professor, Department of Classics, Ohio University. Ph.D. Texas @Austin, 1983Texts:
- Plato, Erastai, Lysis, Phaedrus 227a-257b. The Department will (for a modest cost) provide students with photocopies of the Greek texts, arranged in dialogical fashion (with narrative material assigned to a “Narrrator.”) Using the text formatted in this fashion facilitates reading the dialogues aloud in dialogical form.
- A Classical lexicon.
- A reference grammar.
Contact Hours: at least 72. (Details below under “Procedure.”)
Content: Reading and translation of 2 1/2 Platonic dialogues (ca. 57 Stephanus pages).
Rationale: I chose these three dialogues because they all deal with the inherently interesting topic of eros. The Erastai may be spurious, but if it is, it’s a pretty good imitation of Platonic language and thought, and it makes a useful, fun, and easy introduction both to Plato and to the topic of eros in Plato. The Lysis and the first half of the Phaedrus continue this topic, and the latter shows Plato at his literary best.
Procedure for both reading classes: In anticipation of each day’s assignment each student will be assigned the task of looking up vocabulary for one section of the material to be read the next day. That student will be the responsible resource person as we read his/her section and will be expected to have his/her material prepared. More advanced students will be given larger responsibilities; less advanced students will be give smaller responsibilities.
The actual class will commence each morning after breakfast. We will find a reasonable place to read –a veranda, a shade tree on a beach, the ruins of a Crusader castle, a student’s room –and we will begin reading aloud. After someone reads a sentence or two the entire group will work together to translate it. Obviously, the more advanced students will tend to speak up with the answer and the less advanced students will tend to listen and learn. Sometimes I will call on less advanced students to make sure that they don’t feel too left out or grow too dependent on the more advanced students. At other times I will let the advanced students move on and let the less advanced be dragged along in their wake. As we read, we will morphologically analyze difficult forms and point out important syntactic, stylistic, and vocabulary issues.
On a typical day we read like this for 3-4 hours in the morning and 3-4 hours in the afternoon, and dinner is often spent discussing what we have read. After several days of reading, I try to find an appropriate time (often a quiet evening on a ferry) for the group to re-read the material we have already read. This re-reading doesn’t involve translating except where people speak up to say they don’t remember some meaning or form. Students are generally amazed to find that they really do comprehend over 50% of the material this second time through without asking any questions at all.
Occasionally as a change of pace I ask students to prepare quasi-dramatic readings of a passage of their choice.
Students will organize themselves into small groups and present a passage that lends itself to dialogical presentation or that is dramatic enough to involve some acting out. Students have a surprising amount of fun doing these little presentations,
and they often surprise themselves by memorizing the lines the are presenting and recalling them from time-to-time during the remainder of the trip.
Grading: I assign grades in these reading courses without written exams. Grades are based exclusively on daily preparation, participation, and progress.
