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Living and Dying in the Roman World (ANCW20026)
Undergraduate level 2Points: 12.5Not available in 2024
About this subject
Overview
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What was it like actually to live in the Roman empire? How can we learn about the realities of life for ordinary Romans? How much has changed in two millennia?
This course is designed to make students aware of and deal with aspects of society and culture in the Roman empire. Generally the time period covered will be from ca. 100 BC to ca. AD 300, but some topics will necessarily go beyond this period because of the nature of the surviving testimony. Particular emphasis will be placed on ancient evidence, including inscriptions and archaeological and visual material.
Students who undertake this course are expected to have some prior knowledge of Roman history. Prof. Parkin will talk more about this in the first week, and provide some guidance to students on how to refresh their knowledge if they need to.
Intended learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of this subject, students should have:
- Acquired a thorough and detailed knowledge of certain aspects of Roman society and culture, and through this have come to appreciate the debt the modern world owes to Rome
- Developed critical skills in dealing with primary sources and solving the problems presented by such material
- Acquired considerable ability to carry out independent research, managing the information obtained, and communicating their findings in a coherent and scholarly way
- Participated in activities which involve group discussion as well as individual effort, and will have developed further their computer literacy.
Generic skills
The subject involves a large number of important generic skills, including:
- An ability to analyse and examine a large amount of often difficult information
- An ability to see both sides of an argument
- The ability to synthesise an argument in a cogent form
- The ability to retrieve information from complex sources and present it in a compelling and cogent fashion.
Last updated: 6 August 2024