Three Things Thursday: Books, Photography, and Teaching

It’s on the verge of midterms and I felt like I had a bunch of little things going on that are worth sharing. So it felt like a good time for a Three Things Thursday.

Thing the First

I just received in the mail the first volume of the new Levantine Ceramics Project (LCP) Handbooks Series (LCPH) which I edit with Andrea Berlin and Matt Adams. It’s a new initiative designed to make the data published through the Levantine Ceramics Project, more accessible to a wider audience. Initially, these handbooks were imagined as field guides, but as the first volume of this new series took shape, it became clear that they are more intensive studies of particular classes of pottery.

The first volume, authored by Samuel Grady Gillet and Veronica Iacomi, focuses on Late Roman 1 amphora. These amphora are ubiquitous in the Mediterranean (and beyond) and offer a particularly important window into the Late Roman administrative economy.

Thing the Second

I’ve been playing around more with black and white photography and trying to capture some scenes from everyday life. This weekend, I grabbed these two snapshots of my desk while working on the final edits on Shawn Graham’s book, Practical Necromancy. The photos have a wide range of technical problems, of course, but I enjoy how the slight shift in angle transforms the photograph. The first photo is effectively at my eye level while I push back in my office chair. The second is a view that I get as I stand up. 

Thing the Third

I just finished teaching my last Cornerstone class this semester. As I’ve blogged about before the Cornerstone program was a month-long 1-credit addition to our standard English Composition II class. The class focused on reading, talking, and thinking about how education changes us and our relationships to the world. The readings were short, but provocative (culminating with Ralph Elision’s “Battle Royal”) and stimulated a good bit of discussion in the 16-student classroom.

At the end of class today, the students ask me what classes I’m teaching in next semester. (I responded: depends who’s asking). They also just hung out and chatted. What the hell was that about? 

It’s the first time in years that I felt like I had genuine rapport with students in the class that extended beyond simple appreciation of my instruction and their grasp of material. This class seemed to actually have a sense of camaraderie to it that emboldened them not only to chat with one another before, after, and during class, but also with me. It was a truly remarkable experience that’ll take time to process.