Courses

Modern Greek Language Course Descriptions

EURO E100 Beginning Modern Greek I (4 cr.)

This course is designed to provide students with fundamental communication skills in Modern Greek. Students completing the course will emerge with a basic level of communicative proficiency that includes the kind of core vocabulary and grammatical skills that would facilitate basic communication for someone travelling to Greece. Classes will contain a mixture of structured conversation activities, listening exercises, and brief presentations that will highlight new vocabulary, syntax, and grammar.

(Credit in this course does not count toward the minor in European Studies.)

EURO E150 Beginning Modern Greek II (4 cr.)

Beginning Modern Greek II builds upon the foundation that was established in E100. The course is designed to expand fundamental communication skills in Modern Greek, allowing students to communicate in future and past time. Students completing the course will possess a level of communicative proficiency and cultural knowledge that will assist them in pursuing study abroad opportunities or living in Greece. Classes will contain a mixture of structured conversation activities, listening exercises, and brief presentations that will highlight new syntax and grammar. This course will also contain regular cultural knowledge components designed to help students explore different facets of life in contemporary Greece.

Prerequisite: E100 or equivalent. (Credit in this course does not count toward the minor in European Studies.)

EURO E200 Intermediate Modern Greek I (3 cr.)

This course, which is open to students who have completed E150 or who have achieved a similar level of fluency by other means, is designed to help intermediate students improve their communicative competency in Modern Greek. Students will learn vocabularies and acquire grammar skills and cultural knowledge that will allow them to begin to talk about more complex topics like family histories and social issues.

The last part of class will be dedicated to the class project: working in groups students will create either a photo novella or a short film that explores the impact of the economic crisis on two everyday Greek citizens.

EURO E250 Intermediate Modern Greek II (3 cr.)

This course, is intended for students who have completed E200 or who have achieved a similar level of fluency by other means. The course will continue the emphasis in E200 acquiring vocabularies and grammar skills that facilitate the exploration of Greek culture and social issues. Students completing the course will possess a foundation for future learning that will allow them to pursue increasing levels of fluency in situ through travel, study-abroad, and/or research opportunities. A course concludes with a group project in which students explore a topic of cultural or social relevance in contemporary Greece and, with the assistance of the instructor, create learning materials for their classmates.

EURO E300 Advanced Modern Greek I: Cultural Literacy and Current Events (3 cr.)

This course, designed for students who have completed E250, assists advanced students in developing their communicative competency in Modern Greek, their reading and writing skills, and their understanding of Greek culture and society. The course is focused on a variety of contemporary events such as the controversy over the proposed repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles, the Eurozone Economic Crisis and its effects on Greek society, the Eurozone Refugee Crisis, and Greek attitudes toward Smoking and Smoking Laws.

EURO E350 Advanced Modern Greek II: Literature, History, and Cinema (3 cr.)

This course, designed for students who have completed E300, assists advanced students in developing both their communicative competency in Modern Greek and their awareness of Greece’s culture and history. In particular, the course will focus on improving language skills by engaging Greek history through literature and cinema.

Prerequisite: E300 or equivalent. Carries A&H credit and Global Civilizations credit.

EURO E491 Elementary Modern Greek for Graduate Students (3 cr.)

This course, which meets with E100, is designed to provide students with fundamental communication skills in Modern Greek. Students completing the course will emerge with a basic level of communicative proficiency that includes the kind of core vocabulary and grammatical skills that would facilitate basic communication for someone travelling to Greece. Classes will contain a mixture of structured conversation activities, listening exercises, and brief presentations that will highlight new vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. Students are expected to do additional work outside of class in order to acquire graduate reading knowledge of Modern Greek by the end of E492.

(Credit for this course does not count toward graduate degrees.)

EURO E492 Readings in Modern Greek for Graduate Students (3 cr.)

This course, which meets with Intermediate Modern Greek II, builds upon the foundation that was established in E491. Students will learn vocabularies and acquire grammar skills and cultural knowledge that will allow them to begin to talk about more complex topics like cultural and social issues. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of reading skills. Students are expected to do additional work outside of class in order to acquire graduate reading knowledge of Modern Greek by the end of the semester.

Prerequisite: E491 or equivalent. (Credit for this course does not count toward graduate degrees.)

EURO E580 Advanced Modern Greek I: Culture, Literature and Current Events (3 cr.)

This course, which meets with E300 and is designed for graduate students who have completed E492, assists students in developing their communicative competency in Modern Greek, their reading and writing skills, and their understanding of Greek cultural and society. The course is focused on a variety of contemporary events such as the controversy over the proposed repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles, the Eurozone Economic Crisis and its effects on Greek society, the Eurozone Refugee Crisis, and Greek attitudes toward Smoking and Smoking Laws.

Prerequisite: E492 or equivalent.

EURO E581 Advanced Modern Greek II: Literature, History and Cinema (3 cr.)

This course, which is designed for graduate students who have completed 580, assists students in developing both their communicative competency in Modern Greek and their awareness of Greece’s culture and history. In particular, the course will focus on improving language skills by engaging Greek history through literature and cinema.

Prerequisite: E580 or equivalent.

EURO E582 Independent Study in Modern Greek (1-3 cr.)

This course allows graduate students who have completed E581 or achieved a similar level of fluency by other means to pursue a language program that is tailored to their research interests. Students will work with the instructor to craft a course of study.

Prerequisite: E581 or equivalent.

Modern Greek Culture Course Descriptions

EURO W405/W605 Greek Film Encounters Greek History (3 cr.)

This interdisciplinary course explores the issues surrounding the representation of history through the medium of film by examining a test case: the relationship between the history of modern Greece and Greek cinema. The course will begin with a historical overview that will introduce modern Greece’s fascinating and complex history. As this foundation is being put into place, the course begins to examine film representations of these historical events. Initially, discussion will be focused on questions of historiography and historical accuracy. From there, it will branch out to examine both 1) the process by which film texts create an aura of historical authenticity and, thus, engage in the process of “writing” history and 2) the way that film texts themselves function as historically situated events: as events, in other words, that reflect and shape specific political, social, and historiographical moments.

The undergraduate version of the course carries CASE S&H credit and Global Civilizations credit.

EURO W406/W605 Greek Food Cultures (3 cr.)

This course explores Greek history and culture through its food. It begins by exploring the dietary choices and food cultures of the inhabitants of the region that is today Greece during Classical antiquity and the Roman/Byzantine Empire, paying particular attention to the social dynamics of polytheistic, Jewish, and Christian food rites and rituals. The course next examines how the discovery of the Americas and the Ottoman conquest of Byzantium influenced the Mediterranean diet. The course’s historical overview concludes by investigating how more recent events—the population exchanges with Turkey of 1923, the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II, and globalization and neoliberalism—have altered Greece’s food culture. With this historical foundation in place, we will then explore the dynamics of food in contemporary Greece. Some of the topics will include: the Mediterranean diet, health, longevity, and modernity; Greece, the graveyard of American fast food restaurants; the curious story of Scotch whiskey, a Greek national passion; feta and the European Union; and food, protest, survival, and the crisis.

The undergraduate version of the course carries CASE A&H credit and Global Civilizations credit.

EURO W406/W605 The Politics and Play of Rap in Greece and Europe (3 cr.)

This course explores the cultural dynamics of rap music, a very familiar American cultural form, in Greece. We will begin by exploring the global origins of American rap music and then proceed to examine a segment of the global spread of this genre. In particular, students will be asked to examine the religious, gender, and class dynamics of rap in Europe. In the process of making this music culturally intelligible to students, they will be introduced to a broad swath of European history generally and Greek history in particular. Topics touched upon will include: colonialism and postcolonialism, Islam and Europe (including the Ottoman Empire and Europe), American influence in Europe (including the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine), the post-World-War-II European order and the European Union, the current Greek economic crisis, and commercial expansion and globalization. The broad, interdisciplinary focus of the course will allow students to emerge with both specific knowledge and analytical skills that will allow them to think critically in other contexts.

The undergraduate version of the course carries CASE A&H credit and Global Civilizations credit.

EURO W406/W605 Greek Cinema and the National Cinema Question (3 cr.)

Like most world cinemas, Greek cinema has been marked, since its inception, by a tension between the impulse toward cosmopolitanism and a perceived duty to represent the space of the nation. Though this tension has been a constant, it has not been uniform. The national mission of cinema in Greece has been affected—at times strengthened, at times attenuated— by both historical exigencies and more subtle shifts in cultural attitudes and social values. This course traces the historical trajectory of cinema in Greece, refracting films and film culture through both major historical events (the Occupation, the Civil War, the Truman Doctrine, the Junta, membership in the EU) and broader cultural, social, and economic trends (modernity, orientalism, the infiltration of consumer culture, immigration, the expansion of the tourist economy). Additionally, students will become versed in current debates about the possibility and desirability of using the nation as an analytical category for thinking about cinematic trends and movements, acquiring, in the process, a comparative basis for thinking about Greek cinema.

The undergraduate version of the course carries A&H credit and Global Civilizations credit.

Institute for European Studies

Courses

Modern Greek Language Course Descriptions

Modern Greek Culture Course Descriptions

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Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies

Courses

Modern Greek Language Course Descriptions

Modern Greek Culture Course Descriptions

Institute for European Studies social media channels

Additional links and resources

Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies