This course focuses on the formation of cultural identity in the West from Antiquity to the early medieval period through the imagined and actual encounters of the Greco-Roman world with so-called “barbarians.” We will examine the ways in which Greek and Roman epic, romance, philosophy, history, travelogues, and drama evaluated, misinterpreted, and sometimes appropriated foreign ways of life. Our readings will also include several texts originating in cultures distinct from the Greco-Roman world, but in crucial contact with it.
