About

About the course: In this course graduate and advanced undergraduates explore how the genre of historiography (the writing of history) first develops in early Greece, with focus on Herodotus and Thucydides. The course is deliberately designed to accommodate a range of ability in the reading of Greek, with a structure that allows everyone to read the “purple patches” while more advanced students read much more deeply in one or more of these authors. Students should expect to come away with a good grasp of historiography in this period of its early development, including a synoptic view of recent scholarship, much improved facility with reading these two styles of ancient Greek prose, and a more in-depth grasp of one specialized area with a view to future study.

About the instructor: William A. Johnson is Professor of Classical Studies, with a range of specialities that include early historiography. Among his books is a newly published volume, The Essential Herodotus (Oxford, July 2016). Follow the link to his web page here.