Click on the link below to download a copy of the full syllabus for this class. This provides a synopsis and spells out the goals of the class, specifies student responsibilities, lays out a class-by-class outline, and states the basis for grading of student performance in the class. Or, read the syllabus laid out below.

CLAS 0810A Alexander syllabus Fall 2014.doc

 

 

Instructor: Prof. John F. Cherry

Lecture Hour: MWF 11-11:50 am    Place: Rhode Island Hall Room 108

Office: Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World (RIH 105)

Office Hours: Tuesday 2-4 pm, and by appointment

  

Synopsis and Goals of the Course

This course has a deliberately tight focus on a single historical figure, Alexander the Great; but it uses him as a point of departure for exploring a wide range of problems and approaches that typify the field of Classical Studies. You will be encouraged to think critically about a variety of sources of evidence from the ancient world (e.g., textual, archaeological, artistic, numismatic), and from later tradition too (e.g., literature, legends, and representations from all over the medieval world). Some of the topics we will consider include, for example:

•   the historiographical problems of establishing his actual deeds and intentions (the “real” Alexander — if there can be such a thing)

•   the geographical and logistical factors involved in his military campaigns

•   the lasting effects of his image upon ancient artistic production and royal iconography

•   his long-term impact on the varied peoples incorporated, briefly, within his empire.

But the course will take us far beyond Alexander's own world, to examine his legacy and impact:

•   what the Romans made of him

•   the Medieval Alexander tradition

•   his importance in post-renaissance western art

•   his appeal to novelists and Hollywood movie-makers such as Oliver Stone

•   his powerful and very real significance in modern Greek and Macedonian geopolitics

How knowledge of Alexander has been transmitted and distorted, used and abused, provides a fascinating case study in the formation and continuous reinterpretation of the western classical tradition. Alexander's story is wonderfully romantic, and the impact he had upon his world was profound. Yet his importance and interest stem just as much from the perennial fascination he has exerted over the ages. He is a powerful symbolic figure because he can be (and has been) taken as "meaning", or "standing for", so many quite different things, and thus continues to be culturally contested. Not many individuals in world history have assumed this guise of "Man for All Seasons": you should reach the end of this course with some appreciation of why Alexander did so.

In other words, this course aims to provide a detailed approach to the legacy and impact of one of history's most incomparably famous, epoch-changing figures. Its focus is not so much on the historical “facts" about the Alexander (although you will need to know them), as on the Alexander-traditions that developed in Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, and early modern times, and which continue to have real salience in the geopolitics of our own times. These serve as ways of approaching significant issues concerning the reception of Antiquity, the malleability of traditions, the agency of "Great Men" versus collective entities in the writing of history, and the various forms of cultural production generated from the image and achievements of such a powerfully symbolic figure as Alexander.

 The course is based around illustrated lectures, supplemented by occasional excerpts from documentary films and movies, and by in-class discussions. You will read about Alexander in selections from several ancient historians and biographers, an early medieval romance-legend, modern scholarly studies, and a novel about Alexander. Grades will be assigned on the basis set out below.

Requirements and Grading

Your final grade will be based on your performances in the following:

•   15% Hourly Exam 1

•   20% Hourly Exam 2

•   10% Writing Assignment #2

•   15% Writing Assignment #3

•   30% Writing Assignment #5 (Term Paper)

•   10% Participation, attendance, office hours, Assignments #1 and 4

 

Assignments

#1     Use the maps in your various textbooks to complete the blanks maps of the East Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds with the list of toponyms provided. (Due Monday 15 September)

#2     Write a short (~3 pages) review, of the kind you might read in a newspaper or magazine, of Oliver Stone’s movie Alexander. Several copies of the movie on DVD will be available for you to borrow. (Due Friday 3 October)

#3     Write a short paper (~5 pages) reviewing any historical novel about Alexander (see the wiki for a list of possible novels from which to choose (Due Friday 3 November)

#4     Choose an individual painting, from any period after ca. AD 1400, depicting a scene from the life of Alexander.  Provide a digital copy of it for projecting in class.  Come to class prepared to talk very briefly about your chosen image — what it shows and what is interesting about it. (Due Friday 15 April)

#5       Write a term paper (~10-12 pages) on a topic dealing with an aspect of the “afterlife” of Alexander — i.e., the Alexander tradition. (A list of possible topics from which you might choose, with some suggested sources to get you started, will be posted to the course Canvas site.)  (Due Monday 15 December)

 Syllabus

 

Preliminaries

9/3                Organization of the course, goals, and student responsibilities

9/5                Introduction: Alexander's life—and afterlife

 

I: Introductory Historical Background

 9/8                State and society in Classical Greece

9/10              The Greeks and "the other"

9/12              The Persian Empire and east-west relations

 

II: Macedonian Origins: Where the Legend Began

 9/15              The rise of Macedonia       Assignment #1 due

9/17              The life & death of Philip II.  The young Alexander.

 

III: The Surviving Sources: What kind and how reliable?

 9/22              How the sources survived: books and libraries in the ancient world

9/24              The historical Alexander-sources I: the primary sources & transmission

9/26              The historical Alexander-sources II: lost histories, letters etc.                                                                             

Readings:        Cartledge, Appendix

                         Briant, pp. 130-137

                        [Recommended additional reading: L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World]

 

9/29              Visual sources: Portraiture and the genesis of Alexander's image

10/1              Arrian: Who was he, and how reliable a source?

10/3              Class discussion on your readings in the extant Alexander-sources       Assignment #2 due

 Readings:     Romm (all): read prior to Friday 3 October

 

IV: Alexander’s Immediate Aftermath

 10/6              Alexander's successors & the Hellenistic Age 

 

V: Alexander the Man... What Kind of Man?

 10/17            Plutarch as a historical source and the nature of ancient biography

10/20            Biography and psychology: conflicting views of Alexander's character

10/22            The enemy within: Alexander the alcoholic?

10/24            The sexuality of Alexander

10/27            Military genius or dumb luck? The logistics of Alexander's campaigns

 

Readings:        Plutarch, The Life of Alexander [available as a pdf on the class Canvas site] — the lively biography of Alexander by Plutarch (ca. 46-120 AD), one of the 50 Parallel Lives he wrote about famous Greeks and Romans (Alexander's "pair" was Julius Caesar).

                        Cartledge, Chs. 7-10

 

VI: The Development of the Legendary Alexander

 10/29            The so-called "divinity" of Alexander

  10/31            Alexander and the (supposed) "brotherhood of man"

11/3              Alexander magnus: Roman responses to Alexander      Assignment #3 due

 Readings:        Cartledge, chs. 11-12

                          Briant, 149-158

 

VII: The Medieval Alexander-Romance: from Antiquity to the Modern World

 11/5              The Alexander Romance: origins and diffusion

11/7              The Alexander Romance and the ancient novel-romance. Discussion.

11/10            Some Tall Tales: I, Alexander's Ascent to Heaven; II, Alexander and the Faithless Lady; III, Gorgons and Neraïds (the Romance and modern Mediterranean folk tradition)

11/12            Re-presentations of Alexander in the art of the West and East

11/14            Alexander in Persian, Indian and other non-western artistic traditions

11/17            Student presentations of individual artworks on Alexander themes     Assignment #4 due

 

Readings:        Stoneman, Introduction to The Greek Alexander Romance

 

VIII: Alexander and Modern Culture

11/19            Alexander in fiction: Kipling and The Man Who Would Be King [with video excerpts]

11/21            Alexander, the Macedonian Question, and contemporary Greek politics

11/24            Alexander goes to Hollywood: Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, The Black Stallion, etc. [with video excerpts]

                     [Recommended additional reading: L.M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World;

                     Rudyard Kipling, The Man Who Would be King (in R. Kipling, Collected Stories).]

11/26            No class: Thanksgiving Holiday  

 

IX: Wrap-up

 12/1              Final class discussion: Does Alexander really deserve to be called “the Great”? Why, or why not?

Reading:         I. Worthington (ed.), Alexander the Great: A Reader, ch. 11 [pdf file on the class Canvas site]

12/3              Class review for exam.

12/5              HOURLY EXAM 2 (Friday 5 December)

12/7-12/11    Reading Period. Prof. Cherry will be available to consult on your term paper.

TERM PAPER (Assignment #5) is due by 5 pm on Monday 15 December

 Required Reading

 Most (but not quite all) of the required reading for the class will be from the following books:

Pierre Briant, Alexander the Great: Man of Action, Man of Spirit (Harry N. Abrams, 1996)

A short introduction to Alexander for the general reader, with many figures and plates illustrating aspects of the Alexander-tradition. This is the best book to read first.

Paul Cartledge, Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (The Overlook Press, 2004)

The most recent scholarly account, very reliable and sound in its judgements, by the Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University. Accessibly written, too — perhaps because it was timed to coincide with the release of Oliver Stone's movie Alexander.

James Romm, Alexander the Great: Selections from Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius (Hackett, 2005)

Just what it says: selections from four of the five main surviving ancient written sources on Alexander, with introductions and annotations to provide context. This book provides a quick taste of the very different styles and purposes of these key authors.

Michael Wood, In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great: A Journey from Greece to Asia (University of California Press, 1997)

Tie-in to the BBC-TV series in which the (then!) dashing young historian Michael Wood follows along the route of Alexander's expedition to the east, encountering peoples, customs, and landscapes not much changed since Alexander's time — as well as some distant memories of the man himself. Lavish illustration in color.

Richard Stoneman (trans.), The Greek Alexander Romance (Penguin Books, 1991)

Translation, preceded by a very informative Introduction, of the entertaining and (largely) legendary account of Alexander's adventures. One of the most widely-disseminated and influential works of late classical Greek literature, and the chief source of knowledge about Alexander during the Middle Ages.

 Copies of all these books have been ordered for you at the Brown University Bookstore.

 

Recommended additional reading:

P. Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography (University of California Press, 1991).

      The classic historical biography.

 Internet Resources

Alexander the Great has a very extensive presence on the Internet — and, as you might expect, these Alexander sites display both the best and worst aspects of the Web. You can find texts of original ancient sources, images of Alexander, scholarly articles, sites concerned with the legend of Alexander through the ages, maps, timelines, information on novels and movies about Alexander, etc. But you will also encounter highly partial sites that you should treat with caution — especially those dealing with issues such as whether Alexander "belongs" to modern-day Greece or Macedonia (FYROM), his sexuality, and other matters reflecting what Alexander has come to mean for different people today.

The most useful website is called Alexanderama. It gathers in one place many hundreds of links to Alexander-related resources (some of them dead, and not all of them useful or even serious!). This site has become so large it has now been split in two, with separate areas for text and image resources.   http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/Alexanderama.html

Pothos is another generally reliable website dedicated to Alexander, including a very active blog: http://www.pothos.org/content/

Obviously, there is a complex network of articles relating to Alexander and his enduring legacy to be found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_great

Also helpful is the home page of the Perseus Project which you’ll find especially useful for classical texts, maps, images, time-lines, etc.: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/