Penn students will soon have an opportunity to study classical literature alongside students from Singapore.
Peter Struck, the chair of the classical studies department, is teaching a course on ancient epic poetry in the spring 2019 semester. An identical course will also be taught at the Yale-NUS college in Singapore, some 10,000 miles away from Philadelphia.
As part of this course, students from both universities will meet weekly via Skype to discuss their readings. For one week during the semester, students from each school will travel to the other country and meet students from the other school in person.
In the class, called Ancient Epic Poetry, students will close read five texts, including Homer's "Iliad," and an ancient Indian poem, "Ramayana."
Struck and Mira Seo, the professor teaching the course at Yale-NUS, developed the course based on their separate fields of expertise. “I know the Illiad and the Odyssey pretty well … and [Seo] knows Gilgamesh, the Ramayana, and the Aeneid, teaching them over many years," Struck said.
Admission to the class is application-based, and only 10 Penn students will be allowed to enroll. Among those applying is College junior Claire Huffman.
“I am a huge fan of all the ancient texts they’re going to be reading … and, obviously, it would be amazing to go to Singapore,” Huffman said. “Classes hardly ever do the Greek epics in conjunction with Gilgamesh and the Ramayana, but they’re all the most famous ancient epics from around the world. I think it’s really interesting to study them in comparison."
Struck said he is excited to analyze a text with students located in different countries, who are likely to bring a range of perspectives to class.
“The most exciting thing for me is to imagine a group of students that come from, now, really all over the world, in a meaningful way, engaging with this incredibly rich and important literature from antiquity, " Struck said. “We’re going to bring together perspectives and ideas that come from the already pretty international group of students at Penn and bring that together with another group of international students at Singapore.”
On the trip to Singapore, which will happen during spring break, Penn students will participate in a range of cultural events and meet their classmates at Yale-NUS. In addition to giving students a global perspective, Struck said he hopes students can make connections in Singapore that will help them later on.
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