This fall, professors Katerina Stergiopoulou and Jack Tannous launched a new class, HLS 222/HIS 222: “Hellenism: The First 3,000 Years,” the first required course for the new minor in Hellenic Studies.

The title may be tongue-in-cheek, but it captures the depth and breadth of Hellenic Studies at Princeton’s Seeger Center.

“The course offers a unique opportunity to study some of the most important texts written in forms of the Greek language over the last three thousand years, by people across what we might now consider national, ethnic, religious, and even linguistic boundaries,” said Stergiopoulou, an assistant professor of Classics and Hellenic Studies.

Through works including Homer’s Iliad and the poetry of C.P. Cavafy, students explored the meaning of speaking, writing, and reading in Greek in political communities from ancient Athens to the Roman Empire to contemporary Greece.