OBJECTIVES
This Course has been conceived with the following objectives in mind:
• As a first necessary step, to introduce students whose Majors follow other itineraries, to the historical, cultural, and literary environment of the Ancient Greek World;
• To provide them with a schematic, yet thorough, awareness of the Ancient Greeks’ way of conceiving the world geographically, as well as of the essential features of geographical subject-matter taken up into the category of Greek Science and Thought with regard to Geography;
• To open up to students the idea of the West as an unique phenomenon within the framework of this same stream of geographic Thought, while highlighting the genesis and continuing survival of stereotypes traditionally associated with such regions, as well as their presence within the setting-up of Columbus’s adventure.
METHODOLOGY
Methodologically speaking, on the whole, it is explanatory classes which will be offered, while lecturers will always count on the back-up dossier, complete with a wide range of material, with which students would have been provided beforehand, containing the instruments (translated texts, maps, visual content, etc.) so as to enable theoretical explanations to be clearly followed, while also ensuring full comprehension. IT will also be on hand (a video-stream projector enabling visual power-point presentations, etc.). Lecturers will encourage the active participation of students during class sessions: the reading of, and group commentary on, certain key studies within this specialist field will be proposed; credit will be given to the undertaking of complementary assignments related to any aspect of the syllabus units; while monographical seminars will be set up with regard to subjects of special interest. Besides class sessions as such, lecturers will also carry out tutoring on a personal basis.
SYLLABUS
Keeping in mind the objectives aimed at, the following syllabus will be carried through:
1. Historical-Literary Introduction to the Ancient Greek World.
• The Major Phases of the History of Greece.
• An Overall Vision of Greek Literature and its Periods (the Archaic, the Classical, the Hellenistic, the Imperial).
2. Real Data concerning the West within the Greek Scenario: the Western ‘Adventure’.
• News obtained from Other Cultural Environments (Phoenician-Punic, Persian, Egyptian, etc.).
• The Experiences of the First Greek Travellers and Colonizers.
• The Great Exploratory Voyages of the Hellenistic Period.
3. The Idea of the West, according to the Image Bank of Collective Unconscious: the Far-Away Regions of the West as the Scenario of Fabulous Tales.
4. The West and the Concept of ‘Qualitative Geography’.
• The Hero-Voyager’s Common Western Destination.
• The Western Setting of the ‘Regions of the Beyond’: the Next World and Island Eschatology.
5. The Conception of the West within the Evolutionary Process of the Cartographic Mapping of the Known World from the Standpoint of the Greeks.
• The Ioanian Chart.
• Herodotean Rationalization and Classic Geographical Thought.
• The Ideal World according to the Academy and the Lyceum.
• The Birth of Scientific Geography.
• The Model established by Eratosthenes.
• Sphere Theory and the Interpretation made by Crates of Mallus.
• The Known World according to Strabo.
• The Ptolemaic Synthesis.
6. The Greek Vision of the West and the First Sightings of the New World.
• Legendary Presuppositions: the Search for the Utopian ‘Western Haven’ and the Supposedly Perfect Isles.
• Scientific Presuppositions: Theoretical Deductions concerning the Existence of hitherto Unknown Continents.
• Ancient Theoretical Precedents for Columbus’s Undertaking.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Only titles of a general nature are specified below. Besides these, lecturers will provide students with a detailed bibliography regarding each unit of subject content.
Antonelli, L. I Greci oltre Gibilterra. Roma: L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1997.
Aujac, G. La géographie dans le Monde Antique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1975.
Berger, E. H. Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen. Leipzig: Veit,1903.
Bunbury, E. H. A History of Ancient Geography among the Greeks and Romans from the Earliest Ages till the Fall of the Roman Empire. London: J. Murray, 1879, 2 v.
Carpenter, Rhys. Beyond the Pillars of Heracles. The Classical World seen through the Eyes of its Discoverers. New York: Delacorte Press, 1966.
Cordano, F. Antichi viaggi per mare. Pordenone, 1992.
Dilke, Oswald A. W. Greek and Roman Maps. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.
Gómez Espelosín, F. J. El descubrimiento del mundo. Geografía y viajeros en la antigua Grecia. Madrid: Akal, 2000.
_____. Pérez Largacha, A. y Vallejo Girvés, M. Tierras fabulosas de la Antigüedad. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, 1995.
Jacob, Ch. Géographie et ethnographie en Grèce ancienne. Paris : Armand Colin, 1991.
Jouan, F. y Deforge, B. (eds.). Peuples et pays mythiques. París : Les Belles Letres, 1988.
Pédech, P. La géographie des Grecs. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976.
Ramin, J., Mythologie et Géographie, París, 1979.
Roller, D. W. Through the Pillars of Herakles. Greco-Roman Exploration of the Altantic. Nueva York ; Londres: Routledge, 2006.
Romm, J. S. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Thomson, J. O. History of Ancient Geography. New York: Bilo and Tannen,1965.
COMPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES
Plans will be made to visit some of the especially relevant places connected with the syllabus content of the Course, e.g. the zone of the Straits of Gibraltar (The Pillars of Hercules), or the Marshlands of Huelva (the Lake of Erebus), both of key significance within both the real and the fabulous outlying West of Ancient Times; not forgetting the Marshlands of the Guadalquivir River (Doñana), supposed resting place of Tartessos; other places to visit being those associated with Columbus which are linked with La Rábida (Huelva), highly relevant, moreover, with regard to the final syllabus unit. Other related visits will be organized to Sevilla’s Museum of Archaeology and to the Colombine Library.
ASSESSMENT
The requirements by which a successful grade may be obtained in this Course are the following:
• Regular register-based class attendance.
• The assimilation of the theoretical content as explained, which is to be accounted for in two compulsory exams, one mid-way through the semester and the other at its close. The exams will include both theoretically and practically based questions, exam content as such taking in all the back-up material included in the student dossier as used in class sessions, as well as any other similar material accessed. These examinations will cover 70% of students’ final grades.
• The carrying out of assignments in relation to certain areas of syllabus content, some of which will be compulsory, others voluntary, these latter being considered as complementary as far as grading is concerned. The compulsory assignment(s) will contribute to 20% of each student’s final grade. Those which are optional will contribute to 10% of each of these.
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