������

CLAR 541: Approaches to Latin Inscriptions and Graffiti

Spring 2025

T Th 2:30-4:20pm

Denny 257

knowledge of Latin is required

Prof. Sarah Levin-Richardson (you can call me Sarah, Professor Levin-Richardson, Professor L-R, or just Professor)

Pronouns: she/her/hers

sarahlr@uw.edu

Office Hours: Wednesdays 2:30-3:30pm and Thursday 1:30-2:30pm, and by appointment

Office: Denny 227; enter the main doors of Denny, pass the water fountain and elevator, and it’s the

first office on the left

Description:

In this course, we learn the basic elements of epigraphic research and survey some of the most recent trends in the study of Latin inscriptions and graffiti. Topics to be discussed include writing in the lives of (im)migrants, enslaved individuals, and freedfolks; curses; inscribed poetry; writing and sexuality; memory and protest; and multilingualism (among other topics). The course culminates with individual research projects (a research paper of 15- 20 pages, plus in-class presentation of the project during Week 10). Knowledge of Latin is required.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn the basic elements of epigraphic research (see “nuts and bolts” assignments)
2. Learn and discuss a range of methodological approaches to Latin inscriptions and graffiti
3. Conduct original research on an epigraphic topic

Grading:

• Preparation and Participation: 60% (see learnings objectives A and B above)
• Research paper preparation (meeting in week 5; topic and bibliography in week 7; presentation in week 10): 10% (learning objective C above)
• Research Paper: 30% (see learning objective C above)

AI/Chat GPT is not allowed for any assignment. Use of AI/Chat GPT will be considered an academic integrity violation and be reported to the Office of Student Conduct.

Supporting your learning and well being:

If you know of something that might affect your learning (technology problems; health or family crisis; religious observance) please contact me as soon as possible, ideally at the beginning of the quarter, so that I can make appropriate accommodations. Below you can find further resources:

• UW Counseling Center:
• Husky Health and Well-Being:
• Student Technology Loan Program:
• UW Food Pantry:
• ������ Graduate Student Accessibility Fund:
• Disability Resources for Students:
  • If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course.
  • If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to: mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), you are welcome to contact DRS at uwdrs@uw.edu or DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions.  Reasonable accommodations are established through an interactive process between you, your instructor(s) and DRS.  It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law.
• Religious Accommodations:
  • Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The ����’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at . Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the .
• Illness
  • Keep yourself and the rest of our community healthy! If you are feeling unwell, please stay home until you are better!
  • ����’s are as follows:
    • Masks are strongly recommended when resuming normal activities after having COVID-19 or another respiratory illness, indoors when around others, for the next five days.
    • Masks are strongly recommended after COVID-19 exposure,indoors when around others, until five days have passed from when you were exposed. In addition, follow the Public Health Flowchart for
  • Free masks are available at the information and circulation desks at
• Getting in touch with each other
  • Please check Canvas and your UW email daily; this is how I will communicate with you about pertinent information. You are responsible for all information disseminated over email and through the course website, in addition to information discussed in class.
  • I will respond to emails by the end of the next working day (which means that if you email me on Friday afternoon, I may not respond until Monday afternoon).
• Creating and supporting our community
  • All members of the class are expected to follow the established on the first day of class.

Schedule of Topics/Readings (all readings are on canvas unless otherwise indicated through a link):

Week 1

T April 1: Introduction (no readings)

Th April 3: Literacies

• Bodel, John. 2014. “Inscriptions and Literacy,” in The Oxford Handbook of ������ Epigraphy, ed. C. Bruun and J. Edmonson. Oxford. Pp. 745-763.
• Franklin, James L., Jr.. 1991. “Literacy and the parietal inscriptions of Pompeii,” in Literacy in the ������ World. Ann Arbor: Journal or ������ Archaeology Supplementary Series. Pp. 77-98.
• Levin-Richardson, Sarah. 2013. “fututa sum hic: Female Subjectivity and Agency in Pompeian Sexual Graffiti.” Classical Journal 108: 319-45. [read pp. 321-327 (stop before section on subjectivity)]
• Jensen, Minna Skafte. 2019. Review of Anne Kolb, ed. 2018. Literacy in Ancient Everyday Life. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review:

Week 2

T April 8: ������ization

• Lo Cascio, Elio. 2001. “The process of ������ization,” in The Epigraphic Collection, eds. Mariarosaria Borreillo and Teresa Giove. Trans. Federico Poole. Naples: Electa Napoli. 28-34.
• Benelli, Enrico. 2001. “The ������ization of Italy through the epigraphic record.” In Italy and the West: Comparative Issues in ������ization, S. Keay and N. Terrenato. Oxford: Oxbow books. 7-16.
• Solin, Heikki. 2012. “On the use of Greek in Campania.” In Variation and Change in Greek and Latin, eds. Martti Leiwo, Hilla Halla-aho, and Marja Vierros. Helsinki. 97-114.

Th April 10: (Im)migration and identity

• Ramgopal, Sailakshmi. 2018. “Mobility” In C. F. Noreña, A Cultural History of Western Empires in Antiquity. Pp. 131-152.
• Padilla Peralta, Dan-el. 2015. “ Eidolon Nov 9 2015.
• Padilla Peralta, Dan-el. 2015 “” Eidolon Nov 12 2015.

Week 3

T April 15: Ethnic Identity

• Nguyen, Kelly. 2022. “What’s in a Natio: Negotiating Ethnic Identity in the ������ Empire.” In L. Roig Lanzillotta, J. L. Brandão, C. Teixeira, and Á. Rodrigues, eds. ������ Identity. Turnhout: Brepols. Pp. 371-393.
• MacLean, Rose. 2023. “Nationesof Enslaved and Freed ������s.” In Elena Muñiz-Grijalvo, Rosario Moreno Soldevila, eds. Understanding integration in the ������ world. Leiden; Boston: Brill. Pp. 51-69.

Th April 17: Nuts and bolts I

• Do Nuts and Bolts I assignment in week 3 folder

Week 4

T April 22: Texts on enslaved bodies

• Trimble, Jennifer. 2016. “The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of ������ Slavery.” American Journal of Archaeology 120: 447-472.
• Baird, Jennifer. 2015. “On Reading the Material Culture of Ancient Sexual Labor.” Helios 42: 163-175.
• Kamen, Deborah. 2010. “A Corpus of Inscriptions: Representing Slave marks in Antiquity.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 55: 95-110.

Th April 24: Creative Approaches to Slavery

• Hartman, Saidiya. 2007: Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route, New York. [chapter 7: The Dead Book]
• Hartman, Saidiya. 2008: ‘Venus in two acts’, Small Axe 26, 1–14.
• Kamen, Deborah and Sarah Levin-Richardson. 2022. “Epigraphy and Critical Fabulation: Imagining Narratives of Greco-������ Sexual Slavery” with Deborah Kamen. In Dynamic Epigraphy: New Approaches to Inscriptions, ed. E. Cousins. Oxbow, 201–221.

Week 5: [individual research-project meetings this week]

T April 29: Epigraphic Poetry

• Schmidt, Manfred. 2014. “Carmina Latina Epigraphica,” in The Oxford Handbook of ������ Epigraphy, ed. C. Bruun and J. Edmondson. Oxford. 764-781. [read only section on The Carmina Latina Epigraphica on pages 5-7 of the document in the week 5 folder]
• Haley, Shelley. 2009. “Be Not Afraid of the Dark: Critical Race Theory and Classical Studies,” in Prejudice and Christian beginnings: investigating race, gender, and ethnicity in Early Christian Studies, ed. L. Nasrallah and E. Schüssler Fiorenza. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Pp. 27-50.
• Milnor, Kristina. 2014. Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in ������ Pompeii. New York: Oxford University Press. [read chapter 3 pp. 137-159, 175-189]

Th May 1: Epigraphic Poetry

• Funsten, Grace. 2024. “A Learned Dog: ������ Elegy and the Epitaph for Margarita.” The Classical Journal 119: 320-46.
• Nuts and Bolts II (see week 5 folder)

Week 6

T May 6: Binding Spells

• Gager, John, ed. 1992. Curse Tablets and Binding spells from the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [e-book available through UW library; read Introduction or see week 6 folder)]
• Breitenfeld, Sarah Brucia. 2023. “May the Thief Become as Liquid as Water: Persuasion and Power in a Curse Tablet from ������ Bath.” In Benefiel & C. Keesling, eds. Inscriptions and the Epigraphic Habit. Brill Studies in Greek and ������ Epigraphy. Leiden: Brill. Pp. 321–338.
• Huemoeller, Katharine. 2020. “Freedom in Marriage? Manumission and Marriage in the ������ World.” Journal of ������ Studies 110: 123-139.

NB: Bernadette Brooten talk this evening at 7pm in THO 101 (“Gender of Leadership in Ancient Synagogues”)

Th May 8:  Binding Spells

• Brooten, Bernadette. 1996. Love Between Women: Earl Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press [e-book available through UW library or through week 6 folder; read chapter 3, “Inflame her Liver with Love: Greek Erotic Spells from Egypt”, skipping the section on "interpreting cultural ideology" on pp. 96-105, and ending on p. 109 before the section on "The Erotic Spells, Magic, and Religion" begins]
• Nuts and Bolts III (in week 6 folder)

NB: Bernadette Brooten webinar at 4pm on “Jewish and Christian Women Desiring Women in the Early ������ Empire”

Week 7 [paper topic and bibliography due this week]

T May 13: Language and Culture Contact

• Mullen, Alex. 2012. “Introduction: Multiple languages, multiples identities.” In A. Mullen and P. James, Multilingualism in the Graeco-������ Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1-35.
• Ashby (as Bumbaugh), Solange. 2011. “Meroitic Worship of Isis at Philae.” In Egypt in its African Context, ed. K. Exell. Oxford: BAR International Series. Pp. 66-69.
• Trilingual Dedication by Cornelius Gallus at Philae
  • Read #22 in Gordon, Arthur. 1983. Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Read pp. 29-30 (section on Gaius Cornelius Gallus) in Kurth, Dieter. 2017. “Egyptian—Ptolemaic (Hieroglyphs).” In The Oxford Handbook of the Literatures of the ������ Empire, ed. D. Selden and P. Vasunia.
• Th May 15: Class Canceled

Week 8

T May 20: Resistance

• Zadorojnyi, Alexei. 2011. “Transcripts of Dissent? Political Graffiti and Elite Ideology Under the Principate.” In Ancient Graffiti in Context, eds. J.A. Baird and C. Taylor. Routledge. 110-133. [e-book available through UW library]
• Pandey, Nandini. 2014. “Reading Rome from the Farther Shore: Aeneid 6 in the Augustan Urban Landscape.” Vergilius 60: 85-116.

Th May 22: Sexuality

• Williams, Craig. 2014. “Sexual Themes in Greek and Latin Graffiti,” in A companion to Greek and ������ Sexualities, ed. T. L. Hubbard. Blackwell. Pp. 493-507. [start on p. 494 with “Most graffiti are…”]
• Loar, M. 2018. “Sexual Graffiti in the House of Marcus Lucretius in Pompeii (IX.3.5,24).” Classical World 111: 405-431.
• Milnor, Kristina. 2014. Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in ������ Pompeii. New York: Oxford University Press. [read chapter 4 pp. 196-206]

Week 9

T May 27: Memory

• Flower, Harriet. 2006. The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in ������ Political Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [read pp. 234-262 of chapter 9 [we're not reading the entire chapter], ; e-book available through UW libraries
• Optional materials/resources:
  • LaVaughn Belle, Nicholas Galanin, Dell Upton, Tsione Wolde-Michael, Tiffany Cain. “As the Statues Fall: A Conversation about Monuments and the Power of Memory.” Society of Black Archaeologists webinar, July 23 2020. [2 hours]:  
  • Zhang, Alex. 2020. “Damnatio Memoriae and Black Lives Matter.” Stanford Law Review September 2020.

Th May 29: Art and Text [CLASS CANCELLED TO GIVE YOU MORE TIME TO WORK ON YOUR PAPERS!]

• Bergmann, Bettina. 2006. “A painted garland: weaving words and images in the House of the Epigrams in Pompeii.” In Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World, eds. Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 60-101. [on canvas];
• Clarke, John. “High and Low: Mocking Philosophers in the Tavern of the Seven Sages, Ostia.” In The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and Freedmen in the ������ World, eds. E. D’Ambra and G. P. R. Métraux. Oxford. 47-57. [on canvas]

Week 10

T June 3: research paper presentations

Th June 5: research paper presentations

Research papers due by the end of the day (midnight) on Tuesday June 10 via uploading to Canvas