Class meetings: Tuesday and Thursday 9:00 - 10:20 am, Rhode Island Hall Room 008
Instructor: Jeffrey Becker
Email: Jeffrey Becker
Office Hours: Tuesday 11:00- 12:00, Wednesday 13:00-14:30 or by appointment.
Office: Rhode Island Hall 009
Course Description:
The place called Troy has captured the human imagination for millennia. The story of its fall and the tales of both its inhabitants and besiegers have caught the attention of artists and their audiences from the bard Homer to Homer Simpson to Brad Pitt and back again. It seems we are drawn to the struggle that is Troy and the Trojan War, to the paragons of virtue, and the archetypes of other, less noble human traits. The idea of the siege seemingly without end, the feuds among defenders and besiegers alike, and, perhaps above all, the story of deities intervening in human events grant a certain universal (and timeless) appeal to the story. It is not surprising, then, that the search for Troy has been a long one – where did these events take place? Did Homer’s Trojan War really take place? What links might there have been between the end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean and the time of Homer? This first-year seminar will engage the archaeology of Troy from a number of perspectives, with the ultimate goal being to contextualize the events and the place in such a way that students will emerge from the course with a contextualized view of Troy, the Trojan War, and its place in Western culture.
