Classical California
CLASSICS 17SC
If you started counting the places ancient Greece and Rome still surface in everyday life, where would you stop? In the words we use without thinking, the stories and films that recycle old plots, the columns and domes we pass on the street, the political vocabulary we inherit, the styles that seem timeless, the myths that keep being retold, the texts we read and reread. This course is an invitation to take that abundance seriously.
Our fieldsite is California: its architecture, its museums, its private and public collections, its styles of display. We’ll read together (and argue in class) as we run a kind of guided treasure hunt: beginning with Stanford’s collections and then moving farther afield. We’ll visit the Getty Villa in Malibu, one of the world’s major collections of ancient art, staged inside an imposingly reconstructed Roman villa. Here questions of authenticity, atmosphere, and desire are impossible to avoid.
As we go, we’ll build our own archive. Each student will collect their own set of texts, objects, spaces, images, or moments—some obvious, others delightfully obscure—and we’ll assemble them into our own digital museum. This will be our record of what we found, how we found it, and why it matters.
The point is not to congratulate the classical on its survival, but to learn how it works: as a category, a claim, an inheritance, sometimes a weapon. What does “classical” actually mean? How should we weigh it against other traditions and other genealogies of value? Which ancient voices are amplified, and which are routinely left out? To whom do Greece and Rome belong? What are the ethics of collecting and possessing antiquities? And what happens when we notice that antiquity does not only get read by us, but also helps to read us: individually, institutionally, collectively?
All are welcome—whether you’re new to ancient studies or an old hand. Newcomers will get an experiential entry into Greek and Roman worlds through things, texts, spaces, and practices. More experienced students will have room to push deeper into selected topics. Everyone will leave with a broad overview of Greco-Roman pasts; a sharper sense of the range of modern engagements with antiquity (especially local and regional ones); and a more critical understanding of “the classical” in relation to other artistic traditions, ethical questions, and enduring human concerns.
Examples of Field Trips and Guest Speakers
Same-day flight to the Getty Villa in LA with dinner in Venice Beach. Museum visits include the Legion of Honor and Filoli historic house and garden. Past classes attended Antony & Cleopatra at the SF Opera and Hadestown at the Orpheum Theater. On-campus activities have included museum and library visits, an archery lesson, a weaving workshop, and re-creating classical mosaics.
Sample Student Projects
Museum of Classical California (digital website created as a joint project)
What Comes After SoCo?
Students have gone on to a wide variety of humanities courses in the Department of Classics and beyond. The class helped one alum see the connections among fields as far apart as poetry and physics. Another class alum leads tours of Greek and Roman art at the Cantor Arts Museum. Some added classics as a major and found a major advisor through the class.
Meet the Instructor
Grant Parker
Associate Professor of Classics and of African and African American Studies
Grant Parker has taught at Stanford since 2006. He teaches in both the oldest and newest departments of the university. His publications include The Making of Roman India; The Agony of Asar: a treatise on slavery by the former slave, J.E.J. Capitein and, as editor, South Africa, Greece, Rome: classical confrontations. His current research focuses on monumentality, both ancient and modern. He is co-RF at Toyon Hall.
SoCo-Classical California Course Gallery
