sounds great--and I do actually fit a thematic approach into a chronological one--I just pull up after the Renaissance, and bemoan all that has been left out. And that is the problem I see with what you would do--16 weeks. 
I might take you up on the backwards approach though. Start with the present, and perhaps could make it back to Rome.
 
>>> Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]> 09/01 11:01 AM >>>
Suppose the course were to take your colleague's timeline-based approach.
You could still have a great 'theme-centric' opportunity. Shakespeare and
the Discovery of the New World with The Tempest. Pound's Pisan Cantos and
WWII.  Wyndham Lewis _Blasting and Bombardiering_ and Robert Graves _Goodbye
to All That_ for WWI. The Anglo Saxon poem known as  The Wanderer and the
Viking invasion of Europe.  Beowulf and the Christianization of the Pagan
North.  Border Ballads and The Otherworld. Cultural syncretism in Islamic,
Jewish,and Christian music of medieval Spain. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and
the emergence of the Bourgeoisie.  Rediscovery of classical form in the
European Renaissance.  Blake and the Industrial Revolution. You could have a
lot of fun by giving in to your colleague. Only you should insist on doing
things in Reverse Chronological Order : start with the Balkan Conflict, say,
or the Emergence of Fundamentalist Islam, and work your way back to Greece,
making interesting pit stops along the way.
 
Tim Romano