2010-2011 Academic Year

Classical Culture and Western Tradition (20007)

Degree/study: Degree in Humanities
Year: 1st
Term: 2nd
Number of ECTS credits: 6
Hours of student dedication: 150
Teaching language or languages: Spanish
Teaching Staff: Alberto Nodar

1. Presentation of the subject

The concept of Humanities itself comes from a long tradition of Classical Culture in Europe, that has its roots in the experience of the Graeco-Roman world from the first centuries of this era. Because of that, Classical Culture and Western Tradition constitutes one of the basic pillars of the Humanities: the Greek and the Roman established the basis upon which Western culture is still sustained; the works by classical authors and their fundamental principles have worked as a model or a starting point for posterior productions and are still valid.

The subject suggests the study of Greek and Latin literatures as models of our literary tradition. Thus, it is structured around the literary genres that still nowadays are used as a referent in Western literature. From the study of historical, social, political or religious circumstances that explain its development we progress towards its interpretation in Roman culture, which, through the political and military expansion in Rome, responsible for the development of a common cultural area in Europe, establishes the basis for the way of understanding literature in the West.

2. Competences to be attained

General competences

Specific competences

Instrumental skills

1.      Being able to communicate properly, both in spoken and written language, in any of the two official languages in Catalonia, both for expert and inexpert audiences.

2.      Mastering the computer tools and the main applications essential to regular academic activity.

Personal skills

3.      Developing skills in autonomous reasoning, and in analytically distancing one-self in controversial issues.

4.      Having consolidated habits of self-discipline, self-exigency and rigour in the elaboration of academic work, as well as in organisation and in appropriate timing.

Systemic skills

5.      Having developed an inclination for curiosity, as well as a desire for knowing the unknown, essential in any formative process and in any perspective professional activity. 

6.      Being able to apply and adapt the acquired knowledge to the new contexts and situations with flexibility and creativity.

Disciplinary knowledge

1.      Knowing, situating and interpreting the main episodes of the historical and cultural human evolution, focusing especially on its impact on the understanding of the contemporary world.

2.      Knowing, situating and interpreting the main literary works and schools, focusing especially on the Catalan and Spanish traditions, as well as on the English, French and German ones.

3.      Knowing and completely controlling the basic linguistic and rhetorical resources of the two languages official in Catalonia (Catalan and Spanish), as well as those of the English language and those of a second foreign language (French or German), or else those of Latin.

4.      Knowing, situating and interpreting the main periods and structural elements of the Classical Civilization (Greece and Rome), in its social, political, symbolic and spiritual aspects.

5.      Knowing first-hand the main documentary textual or iconographic resources that have given rise to the previous knowledge.

6.      Knowing and managing the monographic studies and the bibliography essential to approach well-reasoned interpretations.

Professional skills

1.      Being able to interpret, reasonably and competently, written texts, iconographic evidence, statistic data and cartographic documents, in prospect of developing a conveniently justified opinion.

2.      Being able to make a personal, well-founded judgement or to emit expert, well-reasoned reports in the case of a controversy.

3.      Managing the available computer tools and applications, to obtain and process information, as well as to present and publish one's own work.

Academic skills

1.      Being aware of the transversal nature of knowledge and of the need to cross the borders between academic specialities, and particularly of the need to overcome the division between the so-called two cultures, humanistic and scientific.

Basic competences

1.      Applying knowledge to work and to vocation in a professional way, and having the skills usually required in the making and defence of arguments, and in problem resolution within an area of study.    

  

Learning goals

  1. Recognising the differences between the concept of literary genre in the modern and contemporary Western tradition and the concept of literary genre in Classical Antiquity.
  2. Identifying the formal characteristics and the ways of production defining literary genres in the Antiquity.
  3. Relating literary genres from the Antiquity to the political, economic and socio-cultural circumstances determining its rise and developing.
  4. Placing, spatially and temporarily, the main characters and works setting out the classical cannon of the studied genres.
  5. Contrasting the cultural and literary experience of Greece with that of Rome.
  6. Recognising Classical Tradition in the roots of Western literary production.
  7. Analysing a classical text from a literary perspective.

  

3. Contents

Content block 1: Greece

  • Unit 1: Homer, epic poetry and oral tradition.
  • Unit 2: Ancient Greek lyricism: occasionality and social function.
  • Unit 3: Athenian theatre: dramatic form and cultural context.
  • Unit 4: Politics, rhetoric and oratory.
  • Unit 5: Hellenistic Greece. Hellenistic Rome.

Content block 2: Rome

  • Unit 6: In latinum vertere: theatre.
  • Unit 7: The Republic and rhetoric.
  • Unit 8: Cultural Revolution and lyric poetry.
  • Unit 9: Epic and empire.

 

*The full version with the sections 4. Assessment, 5. Bibliography and teaching resources, 6. Methodology, and 7. Planning of activities is available in the original version.