Module CLAS3901: Geography, Environment and Travel in the Ancient Mediterranean

Department: Classics and Ancient History

CLAS3901: Geography, Environment and Travel in the Ancient Mediterranean

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To critically examine the relationship between the ancient Greeks and Romans and their environments through a wide range of literary, philosophical, and material sources.
• To develop an understanding of how geographical knowledge informed ancient imaginations of the world alongside discourses of travel, identity, and empire.
• To critically examine ancient and modern examples of geographical and environmental thought, from cartography to ecology.

Content

• This module offers a survey of literary and documentary sources from the Greek and Roman world, with the goal of examining how geographical knowledge shaped discourses of identity, empire, religion, and philosophy. By combining class readings with the analysis of material culture, archaeological remains, and visual representations, we will study how Greeks and Romans perceived the world around them, how they travelled through it, and how geographical understanding intersected with philosophical, scientific, military, and political knowledge.
• Students will be able to make connections with other modules, and get a better sense of discourses on science, material culture, imperialism, and identity.
• Topics of the module may include, but are not limited to:
• Origins and evolution of ancient cartography: from Babylon to Al-Kwarizmi
• Geography as ethnography: Herodotus, Ps. Hippocrates, Ctesias, and beyond
• (Not so) imaginary geographies: from the Book of the Dead to Atlantis
• Cadastral maps and land measurement, from ancient Mesopotamia to the Forma Urbis Romae
• Ancient practices of seafaring, shipbuilding…and shipwrecking
• Ancient Mythologies and Ancient Ecologies
• Did Rome fall because of climate change?

Learning Outcomes

• Critical understanding of how ancient Greek and Roman sources conceptualised information about the world through geography
• Knowledge of key textual and material sources on ancient geographical thought and practices of travel
• Awareness of the intersections between geography and other aspects of ancient civilisation, including philosophy, medicine, politics, astronomy, and geometry.
• Awareness of how geographical information interacted with specific agendas, including imperialism, ethnocentrism, and environmental exploitation.

• Ability to apply interdisciplinary methods of analysis to the study of texts and artifacts.
• Ability to interpret geographical information which appears in written and material sources.
• Ability to assess the differences between ancient and modern modes of spatial representation, landscape understanding, and travel, and make critical epistemological considerations.
• Engage in close reading and interpretation of both canonical and lesser-known ancient texts and artifacts.

• Better spatial literacy through the critical analysis and comparison of modern vs. ancient presentation of geographical information
• Critical awareness of how different material affordances, infrastructures, and media can affect spatial and world understanding, and contribute to depict very different images of the world people inhabit.
• Ability to analyse and meaningfully combine evidence from diverse types of sources, including literary and documentary texts, but also material, visual, and archaeological evidence.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Weekly lectures form the core module: they will provide an overview of the material, engaging closely with relevant documents and secondary scholarship.
• Seminars will give students the opportunity to practice manipulation and analysis of spatial information. We will examine ancient and modern modes of spatial representation, from ancient cartography, to travel simulation, to modern mapping methods, and discuss their affordances and their impact on the construction of a particular image of the world. Seminars will also be employed for formative work, revisions, and feedback sessions, as appropriate.
• Summative assessment: A project that will normally contain a write-up from one or two of the six seminars (depending on technical difficulty): the student will submit the artifact (digital, material, or other) created by using knowledge acquired in the seminars, and a write-up of max. 1,500 words evaluating the chosen techniques and their implications in engaging with the ancient world. An essay of 3,000 words, selected from a list of thematic and analytical questions.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.