Greek and Roman Mythology @ FIX University Campus

Greek and Roman Mythology

Peter Struck

This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations.


Dear FIX,

Looking forward to our class in two weeks!

A few words as we get ready.

Getting Started on Readings:
For the first week of class, there will be NO assigned readings. For weeks 2-4 we will be reading the Odyssey, so if you'd like to get a jump on class, read that.

Updated List of Strongly Recommended Translations:
If you have already purchased copies from our earlier list, you're fine! Every year publishers change their inventories slightly, and this year a couple of our books are affected. Here is the current list of the "strongly recommended" translations for our class:
Greek Tragedies, Volume 1, ed. by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
Greek Tragedies, Volume 3, ed. by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, M. L. West, trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 or 2009)
Homeric Hymns, Sarah Ruden, trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005)
Homer, The Odyssey, Robert Fagles, trans. (New York: Penguin, 1997 or 2006)
Virgil, The Aeneid, Robert Fitzgerald, trans. (New York: Vintage, 1990)
Ovid, Metamorphoses, David Raeburn, trans. (New York: Penguin, 2004)

Why These Translations?
Two reasons: they are a pleasure to read (not all are, and most of those freely available on the web aren't); and we'll be using the page / line number systems from these editions to refer to the texts in our class. It will be somewhere between a minor and a major annoyance not to have these, as page- and line-numbering vary from translation to translation. The best freely available translations are on the Perseus web site: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu

What's the best way to get my questions answered?
Once our course is up and running, you will find our discussion forums to be your best source of information. Crowd sourcing, it turns out, works pretty well; and if there are issues that come up for you, posting a note to the forums will be the quickest way to get your questions answered. This will almost always happen from others taking the class, since our teaching team of four can't begin to answer direct queries from a class of this size -- there are 50,000 of you out there! We'll be monitoring the forum as best we can to see what needs fixing.

See you in class!
We're about to read and talk about some pretty amazing stories. Just be patient with us as we work through how to do this best, and most of all please be sure to give the readings the time they deserve for you to get everything you can out of them. There are wonders waiting for you!

See you all soon,

Peter Struck

Greek and Roman Mythology Course Staff