Subject: PHIL
Course Level: 100
Number of Bard Credits: 4
Course Title: Ancient Culture: Polis, Family, Personality
Max Enrollment: 22
Schedule: Mon Wed 4.10 – 5.30 PM Berlin (UTC + 2)
Distribution Area: Meaning, Being, Value
Сore Module I (BCB): Greek Civilization
Cross-Listing(s): Classical Studies
Language of Instruction: Russian

This course is devoted to the study of foundations of the ancient civilization and culture, which
determined the subsequent development of the humanities. Lectures and seminars will focus on
reading and discussing ancient histories, narratives of geographical exploration and travel,
tragedies and comedies, biographies, and philosophical treatises. How individual and polis;
individual, family and city; individual and history, collective and historical memory are connected
with each other? What are the cultural, political, religious, ethical, gender mechanisms of
identity formation, reconstructed through the texts of the ancient tradition (from Herodotus to
Plutarch, from Sophocles to Cicero, from Plato to Augustine)? Forming the basis of modern
ideas about the humanities and art, these works create a common basis for further study of
these fields form an idea of the logic of the development of knowledge and develop skills in
reading and analyzing texts of various kinds. The focus of the course will be concentrated on
texts, which make it possible to reconstruct ancient (Greek and Roman) reflection on group
(political, social, cultural) and personal subjectivity.