Application / Course Modules

I’m applying for a Teaching Fellowship at Birmingham. They’re looking for someone step step into their courses on Greek Religion. They also want a module to run as a 1st year project and a 2nd/3rd year seminar module. Below the fold are my entries for this. You’re welcome to either comment or lift material for your own stuff. The second semester isn’t so much planned because it’s a lot of work and it’s by no means certain I’ll get the job. The codes by texts are Birmingham Library codes. Behind the times (1st Year module)

Students in teams no greater than four will select a recent news story with classical interest to investigate. The aim will be to produce a project that researches the story in greater depth with background information that puts the story in context. Output will be analysed by a brief 500-1000 word magazine article as a Word File, a website on the topic produced by the group and a presentation as a group on what information they have found.

After taking this module students will: Be able to critically think about the reliability of sources. Draw together information from a wide variety of sources. Communicate and task manage within a team. Have a basic level of computer literacy.

Transferable Skills gained will include: Competence in formatting documents using Word or equivalent word processor The ability to search the internet for relevant texts or images The ability to produce charts from data with Excel Basic presentation skills for PowerPoint Basic XHTML formatting

Week 1: Selecting a topic. Organising into teams. Identifying targets Teams will be formed in groups of three or four to research a topic. They will think about this topic and decide what information needs to be researched to add more flesh to the story. E.g. the Grave of Odysseus. Where is it? Which people lived there? When? What was going on at the same time?

Week 2: Searching for information This will involve using the library catalogue, an abstract system (what’s an ‘abstract system’? via Athens and the Perseus Project.

Week 3: Word This week will examine formatting techniques for information for font sizes, text boxes, tabs and tables. Antioch?

Week 4: Excel / Graphs / Photography This will introduce Excel as a graphing tool. It will also show how to use Flickr and Stoa as sources for imagery and how to easily place these images into other files.

Week 5: A 500 word magazine article is due this week. This will form the basis of the individual’s contribution to the group website. Gathering information and collating information. This week will bring the disparate researchers into proper teams to begin thinking about how to produce a website between them. The site will probably be diffuse in form. “Recent discoveries from Greece” or similar. The website will be planned. A visit to a relevant specialist during office hours will be planned.

Week 6: XHTML Basic formatting. This will be a session when the students format their own contributions to the group website. p, em, strong, img and header tags.

Week 7: XHTML II Advanced formatting. Using links and a style sheet they will apply a uniform style to their website and connect it together. a, div, basic CSS and how to use a template

If feasible I would prefer to replace Weeks 6 and 7 with a short course on Dreamweaver MX.

Week 8: PowerPoint An introduction to how PowerPoint works and how to take screen grabs from an internet browser for use.

Week 9: Work Week A week for getting more information into the website and thinking about how the presentation will work.

Week 10: Presentation Week Each group gives a short 5 min presentation on their work.

Assessment: Individual Magazine article entry, Group Website and Presentation, Questionnaire.

Stars in their Eyes? (2nd / 3rd year seminars)

The aim of this course is to gain an appreciation of ancient cosmology and reasoning using Astronomy as a case study. The intention is not to examine which astronomical facts the Greeks got right in the light of modern science, but instead to see how their own view of the universe shaped reasoning in other aspects of their lives. The usual caricature of ancient Greece is of a man in a beard and toga reducing the universe to its component parts with triangles and algebra. How accurate is this? How else might astronomy have been used?

Semester One:

Week One: Introduction to the course. Film: The Cosmology and Cultures Project of OBU Planetarium. Stars over Ancient Babylon An introduction into why we might want to think about ancient astronomy and what sort of questions we could ask.

Week Two: In the Beginning… Reading: Hesiod Theogony, [PA 4010.E6] Homer, Iliad 18 483-9 [Provided] What did Hesiod’s Theogony explain? Why did certain events, like the birth of rivers have certain causes? Is there a common pattern to the causes? How likely is it that Theogony reflected beliefs at this time?

Week Three: Is a Calendar essential for planting crops? Reading: Hesiod Works and Days, [PA 4010.E6] Brief ppt presentation at start of session. What is heliacal rising? Is this a ‘scientific’ work? Would Works and Days make a good guide to agriculture? What things does Hesiod use to mark events? Does Hesiod use a calendar for agriculture? Is this a calendar?

Week Four: The Birth of Philosophy? Reading: Milesian Triad Fragments from Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy.[B 188/B and OLRC 182/BAR] How accurate are these fragments likely to be? What do they explain? How do these explanations differ from earlier works? Do they represent constant improvement in knowledge? What was going on at the same time as the birth of philosophy? Did this have any effect?

Week Five: The Sun and directionality. Brief ppt presentation at start of session. How do you map the heavens? Reading: Martianus Capella The Seven Liberal Arts I 45-60 [PA 6511.M2] Weinstock, S. 1946. Martianus Capella and the cosmic system of the Etruscans. Journal of Roman Studies. 36:101-29 [per q DG 11.J8] Krupp. E.C. 1997. Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings. Wiley. p18-19. [photocopy – not in library] Building on last week’s Greek view of the cosmos we look at Martianus Capella and examine what may be an alternative view of the heavens. How is the Etruscan system described different? What solar events could the ancients expect to be able to observe?

Week Six: Greek Calendars. Reading: Aratos 462-757. [PA 3873.A54] optional Geminus 8.25-33(?) [PA 3637.A7H4] in Heath’s Greek Astronomy. Herodotus II.4 [PA 4003.E3] Aristophanes Clouds [PA 3612.A8] What is the basis of the Greek calendar? Is the calendar precise? Is the calendar accurate? Were the Greeks aware of the limitations of their calendar? Why would an inaccurate calendar be useful?

Week Seven: Roman Calendars. Reading: Macrobius Saturnalia. Need to confirm lines [PA 6498.E6] Pliny the Elder Natural History Book 18 [need to examine library] What is the basis of the Roman calendar? Is the calendar precise? Is the calendar accurate? Why did Julius Caesar reform it? Does book 18 of Pliny’s natural history show that the reform was necessary?

Week Eight: Sundials. If possible I would like to produce a practical lesson. The sun would be unreliable in both the Autumn and Spring terms, so it would therefore require a high powered torch as a substitute sun. The aim would be to look at the differences between planar and spherical sundials without having to learn spherical trigonometry and then examine if Augustus’s sundial would have worked as is claimed.

Week Nine: What do we know about Pythagoras? Reading: Team Aries: Iamblichus on Pythagoras. [PA 4220.A3] Team Libra: Porphyry on Pythagoras [need to examine library] The students are splity into two groups who read differing texts. Putting the material together we shall try and unravel what we do know about Pythagoras and how likely some of the claimed ideas are to date back to his time.

Week Ten: The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Plutarch The Face of the Moon. 25 (940a-e) in Greek Science of the Hellenistic Era [DF 108] Democritos from Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy.[B 188/B and OLRC 182/BAR] or Lucretius [need to examine library] Lucian Vera Historia. [PA 1.M6-179] Did the ancients consider that there was life on other planets. Did such speculation have much significance on what they thought about their society? What assumptions did they build into their speculations?

Semester Two:

Week 11: On the Origin of Constellations. Aratos, Hyginus and Ps. Eratosthenes on The Bears, Orion, Argo Navis, Hercules, Libra and Scorpio and Cancer. Why did constellations happen?

Week 12: The Egyptian Influence? Stretching of the Cord ceremony, Opening the Mouth Decans as timekeepers Brief discussion of Pyramids and Orion’s belt.

Week 13: Confusion of Months. Delphi and Delphinus? Venus and the Olympics? The Spartans, the Moon and Marathon? How did Greeks cope with the confusion of months?

Week 14: Eclipses Thales on Lydia, Thucydides on Sicily Babylonian Eclipse diaries What did people think of eclipses?

Week 15: The Birth of Astrology Was Astrology a science? Is modern astrology like ancient astrology? What has changed?

Week 16: Astrology under the Empire Augustus – Tiberius’s use of Astrology – The Four Emperors

Week 17: How Flat Was the World? Experiment of Eratosthenes Herodotus on the Circumnavigation of Africa Strabo on Pythias

Week 18: The Omen Comets as harbingers of doom Observation of meteors in Sparta The Great Fire of Rome caused by Sirius?

Week 19: It came from Outer Space? The Rome (-2 seconds) meteorite Comets and the collapse of the Roman Empire?

Week 20: Unwritten Astronomy? Dinsmoor on Temples Van Murray (?) on Feet Blombergs on Crete How reliable is unwritten evidence? —–