The Ancient World in the Modern Day

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• examples of how the ancient world has been presented in popular media
• examples of how a real or imagined link with the ancient world has been used to justify more recent political, social or cultural systems
• examples of how the ancient world has been interpreted through the lens of contemporary ideas

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• explain how sources from different disciplines can combine to allow greater understanding of the ancient world
• combine historical, archaeological and literary sources
• determine the importance or otherwise of key developments in how the ancient world has been viewed and written about

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• draw material together into cogent written assignments
• Reflect on your learning and understanding across the module
• gather and analyse diverse sources of information

The module will consider a different question each week. Topics may include:

• Africans in Roman Britain: the relevance of the ancient world
• Egypt in popular culture
• Centring and decentring Athens: the Greek polis
• Claiming Alexander
• Orientalism in the ancient world
• Were ancient democracies democratic?
• Modern empires and the Roman empire
• Comparing ancient empires
• Ideas of continuity and change
• Ancient religions in the modern world
• Ancient world and the modern state

Teaching and learning methods

Seminars

Independent reading

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Filippo Carlà-Uhink (Editor) (2021). Orientalism and the Reception of Powerful Women from the Ancient World. Bloomsbury.

Michael Woods (2005). In search of the Trojan War. BBC Books.

Eleanor Dobson (Anthology Editor), Nichola Tonks (Anthology Editor) (2020). Ancient Egypt in the Modern Imagination. Bloomsbury.

Alice Roberts (2022). Ancestors. Simon and Schuster.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External