Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Course Description

Demokratia, the idea that people have the power to rule themselves, took root in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE. Underlying this movement were the principles of freedom, equality, and justice. Those same principles provided the conceptual foundations for modern democracies beginning with the United States in the late 18th century. Yet, now in the third decade of the 21st century, democracy as a viable political system is threatened all over the globe. In this course we will take a deep dive into the past. Through the discipline of archaeology, which brings together evidence from excavation, works of art, and ancient texts, we will explore the origins of democratic thought and the institutions that those ideas created. From the early Greek poets and playwrights, such as Homer and Aeschylus, to historians and philosophers, such as Thucydides and Plato, we will consider what liberty, equality, and justice meant in a society that restricted citizenship, excluded women from participation in politics, and in which a significant part of the population was enslaved. Through careful study and analysis of the monuments of the Athenian Agora and Acropolis, we will look at how visual rhetoric reinforces particular political ideologies. Most importantly, we will ask, what did Demokratia mean in the ancient Mediterranean world, and to what extent is contemporary democracy dependent on that past? By examining Democracy’s past, this course will grapple with its present and consider its future.

Student Outcomes

At the end of this course, students will be able to….

  • analyze and interpret primary source material (text and image) from ancient Greece.
  • understand, evaluate, and critique arguments in secondary sources.
  • identify key issues influencing the success (and potential failure) of democratic systems.
  • develop a research question about the rhetoric of democracy.
  • develop confidence in expressing their ideas in both written and oral form.

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