Academics/Field Trips
At the Center you will be required to take four courses per semester. Each course is valued at one Duke credit, which has a suggested value of four semester credit hours, and meets for a minimum of 35 contact hours. All students must take the Mediterranean Cultures Course, as well as Italian. Your third course must be drawn from the following: Intermediate or Advanced Latin, Intermediate or Advanced Greek, or an ICCS elective. If you are concentrating in Classics, we urge you to take at least one ancient language course. Your fourth course may be chosen from Latin, Greek (in other words, you may take two ancient language courses), or other elective courses*. You may click on the course title for a course syllabus.
Mediterranean Cultures, CLST 147
This will be the core of the ICCS-Sicily program, covering a wide historical context, from pre-history to the imperial period, and focusing on a wide variety of materials, including temples, settlements, statues, vases, coins and poems. There will be a weekly field trip to sites in eastern and central Sicily, such as Megara Hyblaea, Naxos, Syracuse, Piazza Armerina, and Morgantina, and the course will also include two extended field trips (of three to four days each), the first to sites in western Sicily (Agrigento, Selinunte, Motya, Segesta, Palermo and Himera), and the second to Tunisia (Carthage, Tunis, Dougga and Bulla Regia).
Additional field trip details below.
Requirements: class preparation and participation; 4 analyses of artworks/buildings/sites; final examination; class presentations.
Baroque Art and Architecture, ARTHIST 160.69
The aim of the course is to explore the development of Baroque art, focusing on the historical, social and cultural aspects of the artistic production of the period. The first part of the course will focus on the main artists (painters as well as sculptors and architects) who worked in Rome, and on the relevant Baroque monuments of Catania. The second part, besides an outline of other Italian artists of the XVII and XVIII century, will give special attention to Baroque art in south-eastern Sicily, as it developed in the Val di Noto district after the earthquake of 1693. Detailed lectures in situ will be done in order to comprehend the specificity of the connections between human constructions and natural setting.
Intermediate Latin, LATIN 76B
This course seeks to inspire students with the excitement of reading primary sources in Latin, and
with the satisfaction of translating the language confidently. Toward these ends, the course encompasses various goals. First, building upon the foundation laid in the basic language course, intermediate students will expand their understanding and use of Latin grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. Second, constant practice in reading intermediate-level prose will develop students’ facility in translation from Latin to English and will prepare them in turn to address more challenging genres in succeeding semesters. The course will also examine carefully an historical period that is important to the Roman state in general, and of specific interest to Sicily. Finally, students will be challenged to interpret the perspectives of various ancient writers as applied to a single broad topic, the end of the Republic.
Advanced Latin: Cicero: In Verrem 2.4, LATIN 102B
This course seeks to inspire students with the excitement of reading primary sources, and to raise their skill in translation and comprehension of the Latin language to an advanced level. Students are expected to have a comprehensive, secure, and confident understanding of Latin grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. In short, this means feeling like they have complete control of a basic Latin course (such as Wheelock, Moreland and Fleischer, or similar) or a comprehensive grammar (such as Allen and Greenough, or similar). To this they have added a year of practice in translating basic authors such as Caesar or Cicero or Catullus at a moderate rate.
Intermediate Greek: Xenophon’s Anabasis And The Greeks Abroad, GREEK 63B
When Odysseus tells the Phaeacians of his travels in books 9-12 of the Odyssey, we see a particular sort of geography of the Mediterranean that responds to the interests and concerns of the wider colonization movement in the late archaic period. In reading two books from this section, books 9 and 11, we shall not only build on the linguistic facility developed in the first half of second-year Greek by reading and internalizing a significant quantity of the Odyssey, but also consider what we can learn about the experience of colonization from this text. In addition, we will examine some of the major issues in the interpretation of Homeric epic generally: the relationship between oral composition, authorship and evaluation; the context of production and the ideology of epic; the role of the gods, the monstrous and the magical; the relation between the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the differences in their notions of heroism; and the larger epic cycle. Translation; secondary reading; class discussions; a research paper, together with a statement of topic and a short, annotated bibliography; two midterms and a final examination. Evaluation: exams 40%, translation 20%, class participation 10%, topic statement and bibliography for research paper 10%, research paper 20%.
Advanced Greek: Thucydides GREEK 102B
In this class we will read portions of books six and seven of Thucydides’ (T) unfinished and incredibly stunning History of the Peloponnesian War. Books six and seven will focus our attention upon the island of Sicily in general and upon the city of Syracuse in particular so that we may attempt to set the Sicilian Expedition’s narrative function within the larger framework of T’s historical work. To that end, we will examine the prose style of T, his historical method, and his rhetorical strategies. Though the aims of our inquiries are manifold, the primary objectives are: to translate T without doing undue damage to the English language and to translate his prose with a certain amount of ease; to demonstrate an understanding of T’s strategies as a historian; and to integrate these readings with your understanding of Syracusan, cultural topography as experienced in the field.
Italian Language, ITAL 11, 2, 63, 76
Italian is taught at various levels by University of Catania instructors.
*Courses are subject to change based upon class size.
ICCS-Sicily Field Trips
The Sicily program offers numerous field trips, including weekly field trips as part of the “Mediterranean Cultures” class. There are visits to two of the best preserved early Greek colonies at Megara Hyblaea, famous for its almost orthogonal plan, and Naxos, famous for its wine and Silenus-face temple decorations; the Doric temples on Ortygia in Syracuse, including the beautiful Temple of Athena, incorporated almost whole into a church, which was then converted into a mosque, and then converted back into a church by the Normans, who also raised the roof; the large Hellenistic theater, quarries, Roman amphitheater and the Euryalus fort of Syracuse; the Sicel, i.e. indigenous native site of Morgantina in the center of the island, which was always a center for mixture between Greeks and Sicels, and in the third century developed an ambitious Greek-looking urban design; the museums of Syracuse (fabulous kouroi) and Gela (wonderful coins and vases). The Roman part of the semester takes us to the theater at Taormina, perched high on a rock spur, overlooking Naxos and Etna; the intense mosaics at the luxury, 4th-century villa at Piazza Armerina in the center of the island; and the Roman baths, amphitheater and theater of Catania itself.
There are also two extended trips: the first, short one, to the two of the four most impressive collections of Greek peripteral temples in the Mediterranean, Agrigento, with 3 in good shape, and good remains of 3 or 4 more) and Selinunte (with 4 in good shape and 3 more in less good shape). The two rivaled each other in building, but Agrigento is also home to a modern city, whereas at Selinunte the whole original site can be explored, from the earliest sanctuary buildings to the later Carthaginian housing built over its temples. Agrigento also boasts a wonderful museum with some beautiful statues, temple terracotta roofing and vases.
The second longer trip takes us to Africa for four days, to the amazing Roman remains in Tunisia: the wonderfully preserved Roman town of Thugga, complete with temples, baths, cisterns, arches, houses and roads; the underground houses of Bulla Regia, many with their mosaics still in place; the marble quarries, theater, forum and bridge at Chemtou; the Roman baths and amphitheater of Carthage, as well as its Punic burial grounds and harbors; and the mosaics and statuary of the Bardo museum in Tunis. When we return to Sicily we complete the sights of the west of the island: the Punic settlement on the island of Motya, with the famous Motya Youth sculpture; the Roman town of Lilybaeum; the native settlement of Segesta that built a Greek temple and theater up in the hills; the museum of Palermo; the Punic, Greek and Roman town of Solunto and the early Greek colony of Himera, site of the great Syracusan-Agrigentine victory over the Carthaginians in 480 and the remains of a fine temple.
Finally, through our partnership with CET, ICCS-Sicily also makes available a number of additional, voluntary field trips to other sites/events of interest (obviously partly dependent on what is showing and one or two with a co-pay fee). In the Spring of 2009, these sites included Mount Etna, the migrating bird sanctuary of Vendicari, the Aeolian island of Lipari (famous for its sun, volcanoes and archaeological museum), and performances of the Medea in the Greek theater at Syracuse and of Verdi’s Ernani in the Bellini Opera House in Catania. All in all, there will not be much in this fascinating country that you do not see!
