CLAS 2300

This course was an amazing way to fulfill the college of arts and sciences history requirement and was definitely my favorite class that I took in my first semester at UVA. Professor Hays is clearly very knowledgeable and passionate about the course material, his lectures were consistently engaging, surprising, and interactive. I really enjoyed making connections between the history of the Roman empire, the film industry, and at times even American history. The homework consists of watching anywhere between 3-5 hours of movies/TV show episodes per week, and I ended up not liking most of the movies we watched, but I learned so much from analyzing and thinking about all of the movies we watched. I think my favorites were Gladiator and Carry on Cleo. Highly recommend the course! #tCFF23

This was a fun and engaging class! You watch a Lot of film each week (sort of implicit in the name) which can get a little overwhelming if it's a couple 3-4 hr movies per week, but still fun. There's also occasional readings from required books, but the focus of the class is on film, so that's most of what you do as 'readings' (plus regular readings from a textbook meant for film classes, which I actually loved reading bc it explained film techniques in an interesting way). It's important that you do watch/read the stuff for each class though, as discussion during class is important and Prof Hays does notice if you don't participate. The first few classes are primarily lecture-based, giving background history of Roman antiquity as portrayed in art over the years (and, eventually, film), then when the semester gets going, classes shift away from lecture into discussion. There's only three assignments - two short papers on assigned topics, and one longer final paper on a subject of your choosing. I would definitely recommend this class for anyone interested in learning more about film or with an interest in Ancient Rome/Rome's portrayal in film over the last century. Even though I didn't have a particularly strong interest in Roman history (and got a little sick of Roman movies by the end of the semester, haha) I really LOVED this class as a film class, and as a small discussion-based class in general. Prof Hays is a cool dude and the class was overall really enjoyable.