Mar 28, 2024  
OHIO University Undergraduate Catalog 2021-22 
    
OHIO University Undergraduate Catalog 2021-22 [Archived Catalog]

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CLAS 2390 - Ethnicity in the Ancient World


This course introduces students to ancient thinking about ethnicity and race. It studies the ways ancient Greeks and Romans conceived of ethnic, cultural, or racial difference, and how these ideas of similarity and difference were constructed. The course also considers how, and to what extent, ancient thinking about ethnicity and race influences modern thinking. The course uses primary and secondary texts to explore how ethnicity was defined by ancient peoples, what traits identified a person as being similar or different, and how the recognition of difference influenced an individual’s life and opportunities in the Greco-Roman world. The course examines different ways that race, ethnicity, and difference were constructed in the ancient world, and compares and contrasts this with modern constructions of these ideas.

Credit Hours: 3
OHIO BRICKS Bridge: Diversity and Practice
General Education Code (students who entered prior to Fall 2021-22): 2HL
Repeat/Retake Information: May be retaken two times excluding withdrawals, but only last course taken counts.
Lecture/Lab Hours: 3.0 lecture
Grades: Eligible Grades: A-F,WP,WF,WN,FN,AU,I
Learning Outcomes:
  • Students will be able to evaluate a wide range of ancient texts representing a diversity of cultures and social situations, and describe the ways in which gender, class, and race are used through literary analysis.
  • Students will be able to explain the theoretical, methodological, and/or ethical issues involved in encountering cultural differences.
  • Students will be able to evaluate and critique those texts and other types of evidence on ancient thinking on ethnicity within their proper social and cultural context.
  • Students will be able to identify the fundamental ways that ancient Greeks and Romans constructed ideas about ethnicity and identity.
  • Students will be able to apply comparative historical thinking to explain how ancient concepts of ethnicity persist in, and shape, modern thinking on these topics.
  • Students will be able to compare and contrast the ways in which different authors and peoples spoke and about perceived cultural identity and the fundamental assumptions which underlie cultural differences.
  • Students will be able to analyze and critique modern scholarly arguments.
  • Students will be able to produce written work that demonstrates interpretive skills.



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