King's College, Cambridge Classics Reading List

King's College, Cambridge

Classics Reading List For prospective students

https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/reading-lists/classics-reading-list

Those who study Latin and/or Greek at school characteristically study a small number of texts primarily for the purpose of construing the language. Close analysis of texts is an essential part of Classics – but it is not the only part, and some of the features of particular passages only be come clear in the context of the whole of a text, or indeed of other texts. So if you are doing Latin and/or Greek at school it makes sense for you to read in translation the rest of the work you are studying.
If you are studying Classical Civilisation then you are likely to be reading a number of whole texts, but often in a limited number of literary genres. If that is the case then you will find it useful to sample a range of other genres, and in particular a range of prose texts. If you have not read them already, look at:

• Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (especially books 1–2): Thucydides’ reflections on the problems of discovering what happened and working out why it happened have been immensely influential.
• Plato's Republic: An extraordinary work which makes clear the link s between political actions, moral judgments and what it is to know something.
• Tacitus' Annals: (especially books 1–4) A gripping analysis of the problems for an absolute ruler in securing elite and popular support to run an empire.

Classics at Cambridge involves the study of philosophy, history, art and archaeology, and philology as well as of the classical languages and literature. To get an impression of what the advantages are of such integrated study, take a look at M. Beard and J. Henderson Classics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 1995). One of the best ways of discovering about Classics is to read Omnibus, the journal produced twice a year by the Classical Association specially for sixth-formers. Every issue contains a dozen or so short articles on aspects of Classics, written by those who teach in universities. It costs only £3 and both the current number and back-numbers are available from the Classical Association website.

For offer holders

One of the things everyone is surprised by is how much reading you are expected to do as a Cambridge Classics student. Whatever college you have got a place at, you will find yourself being expected not only to get up to speed reading Greek and Latin texts on your own, but to read widely in classical literature in translation and in what modern scholars have said about it.
Your ability to take advantage of the academic possibilities Cambridge offers you will be much increased if you also do some basic orientation before you come to Cambridge. This is particularly true at King's, where we are impatient to get on with the amazing things one can dig out of Latin and Greek texts - but one can only begin digging once one has read those texts. So before you come you should get some of the most central texts under your belt, and begin to explore the sorts of things that scholars do with them.
Here is a very short reading list, in three parts.
The first part lists some central classical texts. Read them in English translation, but, if you can, read the suggested parts in Greek (if you have A level or equivalent Greek) or Latin. The second part lists some introductory works good for orientation (and as it happens with quite heavy King's connections!). The third part lists some classic works of scholarship which offer ways in to Classics which you may not have yet come across.

Part I

• Homer Iliad (books 1–3 in Greek) - If you think this is all boys toys, start by reading Iliad 14 with its guide to seduction...
• Sophocles Oedipus the King
• Plato Republic (book 1 in Greek)
• Virgil Aeneid (books 1 and 2 in Latin) - Read this after you have read the Iliad and marvel at how Virgil reworks the earlier epic in Books 7-12. Books 1-6 rework the Odyssey.
• Tacitus Annals (book 1 in Latin)
• Juvenal Satires (1, 3 and 6 in Latin) - about as vicious as you can get, and not at all pc. Make sure you get an unexpurgated translation.

Part II

• S. Goldhill Love, Sex and Tragedy: how the ancient world shapes our lives (London, 2004)
• C. Kelly The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2006)
• C. Osborne Presocratic philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2005)
• R. Osborne Greek History (London, 2005)
• R. Osborne Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Oxford, 1998)

Part III

• R. Buxton Imaginary Greece: the contexts of mythology (Cambridge, 1994)
• J. Davidson Courtesans and Fishcakes: the consuming passions of classical Athens (London, 1997)
• E.R. Dodds The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951)
• D.C. Feeney Literature and Religion at Rome: cultures, contexts and beliefs (Cambridge, 1998)
• S. Hinds Allusion and Intertext: dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry (Cambridge, 1998)
• G.E.R. Lloyd Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the origins and development of Greek science (Cambridge, 1979)
• B.A.O. Williams Shame and Necessity (Berkeley 1993)

For more information, please consult the Faculty of Classics website.

Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep39589

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe?fbclid=IwAR01T8yk5h-CnEIuhFil_-boTLu87JTGT9M5oH6VBou_ggFloR5Gh-05L-o

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/senior_year

Neoliberalism and its definition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Nationalism and its definition

http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/breuilly.htm

John Breuilly's book Nationalism and the State is a classic discussion of the politics of nationalism in a comparative and historical perspective.

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"The term 'nationalism' is used to refer to political movements seeking or exercising state power and justifying such actions with nationalist arguments.
"A nationalist argument is a political doctrine built upon three basic assertions:

1. There exists a nation with an explicit and peculiar character.
2. The interests and values of this nation take priority over all other interests and values.
3. The nation must be as independent as possible. This usually requires at least the attainment of political sovereignity." (p.3).

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"So the definition employed here can avoid the danger of being too vague and all-embracing and, among other things, draws attention to the modernity of nationalism.
"The definition also excludes from consideration political movements which demand independence on the basis of universal principles. The term 'nationhood' is often used to describe the achievement of such independence, as, for example, the creation of the United States of America. But the leaders of the independence movement did not refer to a cultural identity to justify their claims. They demanded equality and, failing that, independence, and justified the demand by an appeal to universal human rights. Parts of North America were simply the areas in which these rights were being asserted. Admittedly a sense of national identity developed after the achievement of independence but by then nationalism had a rather different and less distinctive function." (pp. 6-7).

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"These general remarks have served to define and narrow down the area of investigation. I am concerned with significant political movements, principally of opposition, which seek to gain or exercise state power and justify their objectives in terms of nationalist doctrine. This still covers a large number of political movements and it is necessary to subdivide them. To do so one requires some principle of classification.
"Classifications are simply sets of interrelated definitions. Utility is their justification. There are numerous ways of classifying nationalism....
"The concern here is with nationalism as a form of politics, primarily opposition politics. This suggests that the principle of classification should be based on the relationship between the nationalist movement and the existing state. Very broadly, a nationalist opposition can stand in one of three relationships to the existing state. It can seek to break away from it, to take it over and reform it, or to unite it with other states. I call these objectives separation, reform and unification.
"In addition the state to which such a nationalist movement is opposed may or may not define itself as a nation-state. If it does, conflict may arise between governmental and opposition nationalisms, conflict which cannot occur when the state does not define itself as a nation-state. The position of a nationalist opposition having to counter governmental nationalism is fundamentally different from that of one which does not.
"These distinctions yield six classes, which are set out here with examples for each class:

	(Opposed to) Non-nation states a	(Opposed to) Nation states 1
Separation	Magyar, Greek, Nigerian	Basque, lbo
Reform	Turkish, Japanese	Fascism, National Socialism
Unification	German, Italian	Arab, Pan-African

"(a) A rather clumsy term but I can think of nothing better" (pp. 11-12).
 1) EDITOR'S NOTE: The bracketed text was added in the Second Edition of Breuilly's text (1992). I have included it here in the hope that it will make the author's distinctions a little more clear. The remainder of the text quoted here is drawn from the 1985 edition.

Breuilly, John. Nationalism and the State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Scientific research on how to teach critical thinking contradicts education trends

https://hechingerreport.org/scientific-research-on-how-to-teach-critical-thinking-contradicts-education-trends/

Critical thinking is all the rage in education. Schools brag that they teach it on their websites and in open houses to impress parents. Some argue that critical thinking should be the primary purpose of education and one of the most important skills to have in the 21st century, with advanced machines and algorithms replacing manual and repetitive labor.

But a fascinating review of the scientific research on how to teach critical thinking concludes that teaching generic critical thinking skills, such as logical reasoning, might be a big waste of time. Critical thinking exercises and games haven’t produced long-lasting improvements for students. And the research literature shows that it’s very difficult for students to apply critical thinking skills learned in one subject to another, even between different fields of science.

download report PDF here
How to Teach Critical Thinking