An introduction to the basic grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of Latin designed to enable students to read Latin prose and verse.

The course aims at increasing facility in reading Latin prose and poetry, and introduces students to Roman literature in its historical and cultural contexts. We will combine review of grammar and syntax with careful readings of selections from Catullus' poems and from Caesar's and Cicero's works.

What did it mean to be a woman in the late Republic and Imperial Rome? What social conditions, cultural attitudes, and lived experiences defined their identities? Can we hear their voices after two millennia? To answer these questions, we will analyze a wide range of primary material in Latin, from literary texts to inscriptions and graffiti. We will encounter representations of women from different socio-economic backgrounds and better understand the discourses (literary, religious, mythical, and medical) shaping their identities. Readings aim to improve students' flexibility with Latin across genres and media.

Extensive selections of Ovid's epic about change will be read in Latin and the entire poem in English. In addition, we will explore the visual and literary reception of Ovid's work from the Renaissance to the present day, and examine recent changes in the scholarship on Ovid's work, paying particular attention to ecocritical and philosophical readings of his text.