Teaching Delivery: This module is taught in 10 weekly lectures. 

Content:  The module aims to introduce students to the principal issues, ideas and methods involved in studying the reception of the classical world across a range of periods, societies, and media. It will provide key illustrations of different responses to classical cultures in action and demonstrate how later cultures have viewed and made use of the classical world from their own historically situated standpoint. It also aims to equip students with the tools for further research in the reception of the classical world by developing their critical and conceptual understanding in this field. The module is taught by a range of experts in classical reception. It addresses theory, the history of reception (from within antiquity to the twenty-first century, from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean). The module also explores the engagements of classical antiquity throughout the centuries with issues of gender, class, race, politics and national identity.

In term 1, ‘reception studies’ and its theoretical approaches are introduced. Case studies of reception are then explored within antiquity and beyond up to the Renaissance, with a focus mainly on literary reception. In term 2, case studies of reception are explored from the Renaissance up to the present day, with an emphasis on material culture, art, museums, performance, film and political thought (and includes tours of the Petrie and the British Museums). MA Reception students are required to take the whole module (40 credits). Other MA students may take the whole module or just term 1 as a half module.

Skills: By the end of the module, students will be expected to have acquired: (1) an understanding of different methodological approaches to studying the reception of the classical world, and an ability to implement those approaches in practice; (2) an awareness of the various historical and contextual factors (including religion, politics, gender and sexuality) that contribute to different receptions of classical cultures in different historical periods, different societies, and different media; and an understanding of how these factors might have affected responses to the classical world in any given case; (3) a knowledge of core research techniques (including use of bibliographical, archival and digital resources) for studying reception of the classical world, and an understanding of how these techniques can be applied to a range of materials; (4) a knowledge of different receptions of classical cultures over a range of historical periods, and an ability to analyse those responses critically from an historical and cultural perspective.

Suggested preliminary reading: Beard, M. and Henderson, J. Classics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 1995); Goldhill, S. Love, Sex and Tragedy: How the Ancient World Shapes our Lives (London, 2004); Hardwick, L.  Reception Studies (Oxford, 2003); Silk, M., Gildenhard, I. and Barrow, R. The Classical Tradition: Art, Literature, Thought (Chicester, 2014); Willis, I., Reception (Routledge, 2018).

Interested MA students who have further questions should contact Miriam Leonard at m.leonard@ucl.ac.uk