Sophomore Excursion Course
HAA 100R
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
This course introduces HAA sophomore concentrators to on-site study of art and architecture through the case study of a particular geographic and cultural area.
Spring 2027 - Along the Via Egnatia: Layers of a Macedonian Landscape
Midway along the ancient Via Egnatia, Rome's storied land artery from the Adriatic to the Bosphorus, Thessaloniki emerges as a crossroads. This seminar invites students into Thessaloniki's layered story, from its founding by King Cassander of Macedon in 315 BCE to its vibrant present. Rather than treating the city as a static monument to the past, we approach it as a living mosaic, whose neighborhoods, monuments, museums, and everyday life pulse with centuries of encounters and transformation.
Walking its streets, students will trace Thessaloniki's evolution through its UNESCO World Heritage sites, which bear witness to the city's shifting fortunes: Macedonian ambition, Roman might, Byzantine splendor, Ottoman cosmopolitanism, and the dynamism of modern Greece. The itinerary also uncovers unexpected architectural gems, including Mitteleuropa buildings tied to the tobacco and textile trade and the Orient Express, adding new dimensions to the city's rich urban fabric.
Thessaloniki's story, however, is inseparable from Macedonia’s wider landscape, woven together by the Via Egnatia, one of Europe's oldest and longest roads and, for the better part of two millennia, the main connector between East and West. This seminar extends the journey to a constellation of sites strung along this historic route, each a node of memory and exchange. In the west, Vergina (ancient Aigai), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, preserves the golden age of the kingdom of Macedon in its royal palace and necropolis. To the east, Philippi, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, refounded by Philip II, reshaped by Rome, the site of Saint Paul's first European ministry, and later drawn into the orbit of Byzantine Constantinople, marks turning points in the story of empires and faith. Nearby, the ancient, medieval, and modern port city of Neapolis/Christoupolis/Kavala testifies to the region's late Ottoman tobacco economy, whose warehouses, merchant houses, and export networks reshaped Macedonia's commercial landscape well into the twentieth century. Its Imaret — the early nineteenth-century charitable foundation of Mehmed Ali Pasha, Kavala's most famous native son — and its Tobacco Museum illuminate the city's architecture, labor, and everyday life.
Read as one, these sites form a palimpsest: a landscape written and rewritten by ancient Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Ottomans, Sephardic Jews, and modern Greece, a microcosm of the empires, communities, faiths, and exchanges that the road carried.
Course Notes
Excursion is optional; not a requirement. Open only to HAA Concentrators.
Class Notes
"Your seat is not guaranteed until you complete enrollment into the course.
Being in good standing with the College is a prerequisite for entry into this course and to be permitted to go on the excursion.
Because of the logistical complexities of organizing the excursion component, only students who petition and enroll during pre-registration will be considered. Alongside your petition, please email the following details to Sean Fisher (seanfisher@fas.harvard.edu):
- Name (as it appears on your passport, including any middle names)
- Date of Birth
- Gender (as it appears on your passport)
- Citizenship
- Phone Number
Additional information from you may be required, and you will be responsible for responding to such requests via email before the end of pre-registration in order to be considered for a seat."
Not Available for Cross Registration
