CLCS 235T Greek Civilizations and Their Discontents
This travel course will focus on the co-existence and forced movement of populations between present-day Turkey and Greece while grappling with notions of human rights as inscribed in the ancient ideas of citizenship and polis. The travel will trace a parallel trajectory in the ancient and modern worlds: moving from Athens to Thessaloniki, students will study the histories of cultural co-existence and the moments of violent dissolution in the modern world; the class will also visit ancient sites such as Corinth and Mycenae on the Peloponnese; Delphi; the ancient city of Vergina, whose modern instantiation became the home of Greeks who were expelled from Turkey during the population exchange in 1922; and Philippi, abandoned to the Ottoman empire in the 14th century. Throughout this course, students will study notions of human rights, forced migration, and the tensions inherent in encounters between East and West. Students will read a broad array of texts, ranging from historical accounts to human rights treatises and philosophical texts, novels and plays.