FSEM 153   Elementary Latin I

Faculty Profile for Professor Stull

For more than a thousand years, Latin was the language of poets and philosophers, of historians and diplomats, of lawyers and scientists. From humble origins in central Italy, it followed the spread of Roman power across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, becoming the mother of all the Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, French, etc.) and the basis of literacy and education for countless millions. Its legacy can be found everywhere. In studying Latin one becomes, above all, more connected to other human beings and their ideas, past and present. This course, which assumes no prior knowledge, will cover the basics of Latin—focusing on grammar, style, and culture. It will fulfill Colgate’s language requirement while providing a gateway and foundation for intellectual adventure in many fields, from medicine to law to literature. Students who successfully complete this seminar earn credit for LATN 121 and can satisfy the human thought and expression areas of inquiry requirement or the language study liberal arts practice requirement.

William Stull is Associate Professor in the Department of the Classics and the Program in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He has always been fascinated by language, literature, and history, and by the manifold ways in which the Greek and Roman past has remained alive and relevant—studied, contested, reimagined—through the centuries and down to the present day.