CLAS45130: Leadership and Leaders in the Roman World

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• The module aims at discussing different aspects and characterisations of leadership in the Roman world. Focusing on a variety of leaders from the Republican and early Imperial age, in each session, students will read and analyse ancient texts in dialogue with material evidence with the support of secondary bibliography to assess good and bad examples of leadership. Classes will include students presentations and general discussions on core aspects of leadership representation in the ancient world in order to enhance students understanding of leadership theory (Burns 1978) and develop critical analysis of the sources. During the seminars, students will also evaluate whether the aspects discussed in regard to the ancient world could be applied to modern and contemporary leadership too.
• Some of the questions that will be considered during the module may include:
• How do leaders describe themselves?
• How are their actions evaluated by the sources?
• What different perspectives can we gather from different pieces of evidence (literature, coinage, inscriptions, statuary)?
• How is ancient leadership characterised?
• What characteristics make a good leader?
• What characteristics make a bad leader?
• Can we distinguish leaders from power holders?
• What virtues/vices of leadership do we infer from the ancient evidence that could still be applied today?

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• An understanding of different examples of Roman leadership and its development in Roman history (from the Republic to the imperial age)
• An understanding of the different stylistic features of leadership representations in Roman literature and material culture
• A broad understanding of the interplay between history, processes of constructing memory and political power under Rome
• A broad understanding of scholarly trends on Roman leadership and its representation

Subject-specific Skills:

• Ability to assess ancient sources of diverse nature with sophistication (from historical texts written by different authors and genres to material and visual sources, such as coinage, statuary, inscriptions)
• Capacity to evaluate key-themes related to the discourse of leadership in the ancient world
• Critical skills in the analysis of classical scholarship
• Ability to make proper use at the appropriate level of reference and bibliography.

Key Skills:

• Capacity to handle and analyse a wide range of different sources with sophistication
• Development of hermeneutical and exegetical skills in relation to a variety of interdisciplinary source materials
• Ability to synthesise and critically evaluate scholarship and produce independent research appropriate to Masters level, and to communicate its results with sophistication

• Teaching will be by fortnightly seminars, centred around student presentations on the topic for the week, and studying in detail a specific set of questions and relevant source materials. This method will contribute to the development of skills related to the articulation of arguments, and it will ensure, through independent research and group discussion, that opportunity is provided for enhancing analytical, hermeneutical and imaginative skills. Students will be expected to reflect critically on each others contributions and on the relation between ancient and modern models of leadership, and to discuss these views in a sophisticated manner. The seminars are every two weeks and last two hours, to allow extensive independent engagement with existing research and subsequent significant presentation and discussion.
• Formative assessment will be based on the seminar presentations during the year and one 2,000 word essay. This will support the summative assignment by helping to promote proficiency in producing clearly written, sophisticated, and sometimes original interpretations of relevant source materials and engagement with critical scholarly literature. It will also enable students to work within the parameters of proper academic conventions, and in general contribute to research carried out at the appropriate level.

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