Week-by-Week Agenda for CIV 150W
Greek and Roman Private Life

Agenda for Week 3:

Tuesday 9/15: Research Orientation: Meet in Swem library lobby

For 9/17: Read Aristophanes' _Wasps_ in your photocopied packet. For general background, click here, and also read _World of Athens_ 7.35 (beginning on p. 300) & 7.53-62

Read the play not only for entertainment, but for information about the lives and thoughts of the more-or-less ordinary people its characters represent. ASSIGNMENT: pick out two passages that you think are particularly interesting in this regard and come to class prepared to discuss them.

ASSIGNMENT for 9/22: Brief research report on Aristophanes: Using the library's research tools, which you are now so adept at using, find an article about Aristophanes, one that was NOT one of the ones I asked you to find for the Library Scavanger hunt. The article should be at least ten pages long (if the periodical has very large pages and/or very small type, I'll listen to pleas for exceptions to this requirement).

In choosing your article you might want to find one on the Wasps (or another play you are familiar with), but this is not a requirement. Avoid articles that have lots of untranslated Greek in them, or which seem in other ways geared to a more technical level than you can understand.

Once you have picked out an article, read it and write a ca. 2-page critique. Your critique will follow a classical rhetorical form which you can observe even in the speeches and ancient essays you read in this class. Briefly, this form has four sections which can be referred to as 1) exordium 2) narration 3) argumentation 4) peroration. For the present purposes, this is how your essay should be arranged:

• --exordium: Introductory paragraph which identifies the article and the author and describes, in a sentence or two, the contents and the aims of the article. You should also state here whether or not the article acheives its aims effectively from your point of view.
  
• --narration: One or more paragraphs summarizing the main points of the article and describing the sort of evidence and argumentation used. Don't criticise the article at this point, just describe.
  
• --argumentation: One or more paragraphs assessing the success of the article in making and defending its points clearly and convincingly. If you notice any errors of fact or logic in the article, this is the place to bring them up. You may comment here on matters of style, if anything struck you positively or negatively, but avoid completely subjective observations ("I found it boring" is unhelpful, whereas something like "sentences such as 'blah blah blah...' could be written more simply and clearly" might be worth saying).
  
• --peroration: One paragraph summing everything up and presenting your estimation of the overall worth of the article.

Ancient rhetoricians advised the use of different styles in these different sections: make the beginning and the end lively and stirring to grab the reader's attention and leave him/her with a lasting impression. Use a plain, clear just-the-facts-ma'am style in the narration, and a clear, concise, confident and incisive style in the argumentation.

On citation: Preface your critique with a full bibliographical reference to your article, e.g.:

John Doe, "Humor about Cheese in Aristophanes' Wasps," American Journal of Philology 29 (1968) 33-57.

Where the numbers at the end are, respectively, the volume number, the year of publication and the page numbers. If you can find the abbreviation for the periodical in _L'Année philologique_, use the abbreviation instead of the full title (for this journal the abbreviation is AJP. When you refer to a specific point in the article in the course of your paper, you need only make reference to the page numbers in parentheses, thus: (29) or (29, n. 7) for a footnote. If you refer to some other work of modern scholarship, you should give complete bibliographical information (i.e. author, title, periodical title and volume, place of publication (for a book), date of publication, and page number(s). If you refer to the text of Aristophanes (which you may want to do to refute or support a point the article makes), use the standard abbreviation "Ar.", together with the name of the play and the line number (or the page number if you are using our edition of the Wasps), e.g.: Ar. Lysistrata 205-216. If you make subsequent references to the same play, you need only give the line number(s) in parentheses.

A word on pronouns: it is not necessary to go to great lengths to avoid the pronoun "I". When what you are expressing is your own point of view, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that openly by saying "I think..." or "it seems to me...." Do this sparingly, however. Unless you're writing autobiography, the reader is more interested in your subject than s/he is in you. Also, as mentioned above, avoid totally subjective first-person statements: where you express your opinion, give reasons and evidence for it. Generally, stay away from second-person pronouns (you, your); many readers find them manipulative and react negatively ("don't tell me what I think!")

ASSIGNMENT for Tuesday, Sept. 1.

• Read Syllabus Carefully
  
• Read World of Athens, Introduction (pp. 1-61). Take note of the most important events and trends mentioned there.

Tuesday, September 1:

• QUIZ on Syllabus
  
• QUIZ on World of Athens, Introduction
  
• Afterwards, I will talk on the historical background of Ancient Greece

ASSIGNMENT for Thursday, Sept 3.

• Read World of Athens, Chapter 2, "The Metaphysical Environment"
  
• Come prepared to describe and discuss TWO items from the readings you found interesting or confusing.
  
• OPTIONAL: Read Chapter 1, "The Physical Environment"

Thursday, September 3:

• I will talk about the environment, economy and religion of Ancient Greece

WRITING ASSIGNMENT due Tuesday, September 8.
Imagine yourself teleported to a city in Ancient Greece. Describe what you see and what the people you encounter are doing. Assume that you know ancient Greek and can communicate with the people.