Greek 380B
(Greek Historians on Persian Barbarity and Medizing)
– Spring 2015 – Prof. John H. Starks, Jr., Binghamton University SUNY
Course
Objectives:
This course fulfils
expectations for courses addressing the Humanities-“H” General-Education
requirement, which reads: “By taking courses in this area, students gain an
expanded sense and understanding of culture and a greater appreciation of human
experience and its expressions. . . .
Humanities (H) courses enhance students’ understanding of human experience through
the study of literature or philosophy.”
The course also fulfils requirements for Harpur-College
Writing-“W” courses. Students in this Harpur W course
will hone their composition skills in expository writing about literary,
historical and cultural questions in the ancient Greek and adjacent worlds.
They will also hone skills in ancient Greek vocabulary, morphology and syntax,
literary and socio-historical analysis, and ethnographic theory.
Requirements, Grading, Assignment Descriptions, and other Essentials
Course Requirements and Rules:
Class
Participation: ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED. Beginning the first week
of class, you will receive a daily grade for participation in class that
suggests your level of preparation on material covered (A, B, C, D or 0) and
your involvement in class activities. It is important to understand that
participation can include informed questions, requests for further explanation,
offering to answer specific questions, or any contributions that foster
learning in the classroom environment. An absence from class for ANY REASON
must be counted as a 0 since you cannot participate if you are absent. Two (2)
absences or your lowest participation grades will be dropped, no questions
asked, at the end of the term allowing 1 week of class days for illness, family
matters, etc. In general, I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused
absences for purposes of daily participation grades, but PLEASE always contact
me by email or phone before class if you MUST be absent on a given day. I want
to know when and why you need to miss class, and make sure that you
don't get behind.
Be prepared to spend AT
LEAST 2-4 hours outside class for every hour in class to complete the
assignments for this course. You are reminded that your IN-CLASS time per week
is nearly three hours, but you receive 4 credit hours for the work you do in
this course. The additional credit hours awarded recognize the rigor of your
coursework OUTSIDE the classroom, your reading, writing, and critical thinking
which should amount to at least double the amount of time you spend INSIDE the
classroom. That means you are expected to fulfill a minimum average of 12-13
hours of work per course, per week.
Please look ahead on your syllabus. Some of the readings are
very dense, and you will need to take notes as you read. Do NOT wait till
the last minute to do all readings. Many of the readings lend themselves to
note taking as outlines or highlighting of significant passages. Use outlining
to your advantage for understanding and later studying.
DAILY HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT
TYPE OF WRITTEN WORK ON WHICH I ENCOURAGE YOU TO WORK WITH OTHERS, BUT MAKE
SURE YOU UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING FOR YOURSELF.
Exams: 1) Critical essay of 5-10 pages on a topic
selected in consultation with instructor and peers. Subject: assessment of an
area of stereotyping
in Greek observations on Persian ethnicity from Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. Written with secondary and primary citation outside class.
2) Final examination on Herodotus – passages for
translation with comprehensive content question to follow. To be completed at
time chosen by student during exam week.
Oral
Report:
Choose and
read a modern scholarly article on Herodotus and Persian ethnicity, then report
to the class on the author's argument, evidence, and conclusions, NOT on the
student's opinion of whether s/he agreed with the author. These reports will be
15 minutes or less on days determined by instructor and student. You may use
any of the databases available through the library under Classical Studies, but
the most useful will be L’Anneé Philologique
– I’ll show you how to use this.
A new, stricter policy for final examinations, end of
semester tests and quizzes being administered during final exam week ONLY is
now mandated for all instructors. The reports due the final week for this class
do not fall into this category, but please, should you have any instructors
announce tests of any kind during the last week of class in lieu of
administering that exam during final exam week, please report that to the
department office for that instructor as soon as you can so it can be
corrected. This is a serious infringement on proper completion of other
coursework and should be reported appropriately.
This oral presentation is designed to help improve your oral
skills and allow you ample opportunity to improve and expand your oral
presentation methods. You may use any combination of audio-visual aids that
might best suit you, or you may experiment with different methods each time you
present. Reports can be interactive, not just lectures. You may design projects
that include your fellow-students, so long as you keep them informed of what
you are doing. Feel free to consult with me about your needs for the classroom
presentations and approaches you would like to try. If you plan to use A-V be
sure you have practiced with it before the time of your presentation. It will
eat into your time.
Grade Distribution:
30% = Exam 1: Xenophon
30% = Exam 2: Herodotus
15% = Oral Presentation
25% = Participation/Preparation
I must insist on a firm grade scale as
follows: 93-100 A, 90-92 A-, 87-89 B+, 83-86 B, 80-82 B-, 77-79 C+, 73-76 C,
70-72 C-, 60-69 D, 0-59 F. I especially reserve the right to consider
borderline grades as falling on either side of the divide that seems most
appropriate given all grading circumstances (i.e., a 92.5 or even a 92.9 cannot
automatically be assumed to round up, though I may determine that a student's
overall performance may warrant such rounding). Consult me about your progress
in seemingly nebulous areas such as class participation, etc. I am always
available for questions about your grade, even though you may not see it posted
in the Blackboard grading system.
ACADEMIC HONESTY AND
WRITTEN WORK – I cannot stress enough (and you will see more mentioned about
this below) that every piece of work you turn in for a grade must be yours and
yours alone. Cheating, whether in class or out of class, is a punishable
offense at Binghamton University, and will be addressed very seriously in
accordance with university policy.
Suggestions for Success:
1) ALL written work to be turned in
for a grade must be pledged with an affirmation of your adherence to the
Student Academic Honesty Code as described at
this site.
2) Make sure that you regularly consult your binghamton.edu
email and Blackboard, as these are the most efficient ways for me to
disseminate information to everyone enrolled in this class.
3) My only real pet peeves in classroom demeanor are cell
phones and other devices used to access social networking sites (turn them
off), chronic tardiness, sleeping in class, and not informing me and others
affected if you have a schedule problem.
4) I guess the next closest thing to a peeve is my
frustration with being unable to read the minds of completely silent
students. Part of the joy of studying Greek at a more advanced level is
sharing what you think about it - whether good or bad. There's always something
that deserves discussion, and the whole class can benefit from your insights.
And (this is the lesson I've had to learn over time), if you're a natural talker,
know when to balance your contribution with that of those around you. Be
sensitive to the silences that sometimes occur - someone may be thinking
deeply. I have toyed with the idea of using other media to help out those who
are more inclined to silence, but I continue to believe that oral human
communication is a most valuable gift and tool for all aspects of modern life,
just as it was for the even more orally oriented cultures of the ancient world.
5) Keep on your syllabus. This class will allow little time
for catching up if you fall behind. The syllabus daily assignments are a
guide and a goal. If you find yourself unable to get through the assigned
readings and exercises, let's discuss it as a group or individually - work with
others, divide the load and then make sure you teach each other. I prefer to
have a plan, and try to find the best way to get there. CHECK YOUR SYLLABUS
FREQUENTLY FOR ANY CHANGES I MAY NEED TO MAKE ALONG THE WAY.
6) Bring
all the appropriate books and/or printouts of online texts each day they are
required by the syllabus – DO NOT bring your written translations into class
with you and read from them (I had to be broken from this habit first term
freshman year by being called down in class. It worked). Show that you understand
what you read or that you have questions about what you read, and don't mark up
your original texts too badly - keep it clean. Make vocabulary and grammar
notes while you read, and you can bring that to class with you if necessary.
Rereading through an assignment shortly after leaving class is the absolute
best way to see if you really understood what was going on with the changes
suggested there. Nothing is worse than recalling the incorrect interpretation
that you worked so hard on before class better than the corrected
interpretation or deeper interpretation that you take away after class simply
because you spent so much more time on the former and not enough time on the
latter.
____ * Binghamton U Classics Department Corollary to Starks Suggestion 6: You
have probably figured out that someone else has already translated many
passages you are translating for class. There are two useful and honorable ways
to use someone else’s translation:
a) Read the entire work in English, including the parts we don’t cover in
class, to have a fuller understanding of the context for your passages.
b) After working on a translation on your own, with all the help that
dictionaries, commentaries, grammars, and your own good sense can provide, if
you get stuck on a sentence, you may refer to a translation to get a sense of
what the sentence says and to get unstuck. Then you must put away the
translation and translate the sentence yourself to guarantee that you
understand the grammar and syntax, especially since most translations are not
written to help you get through the assignment. Ideally, you will not use
someone else’s translation at all. But I would much rather you do so very
occasionally than have you get frustrated or spend a whole evening on one
sentence.
7) Extra Credit - fuhgedaboutit!! (Someone burned me long ago abusing extra
credit. I'm afraid there is no antidote for my allergic reaction to requests
for extra credit). On the other hand, you get personal extra credit for every
thing you learn above and beyond the call of absolute duty, so look at the
bigger picture.
8) Final Grades are an assessment of your whole performance.
I like to create many components to a grade as an evaluation of a complete
student. I tend not to curve (unless something is clearly wrong with the
grading apparatus) in order to preserve my overall sense of student performance
and aptitude for the assignment of the more important final grade. I do
consider improvements in problem areas as part of what shows your increased
aptitude.
9) Enjoy learning Greek. Let's make our time in class
productive, but also, as often as possible, interesting, enjoyable and thought-
provoking. We will talk frequently about the way Greeks (and try to discern
through their observations how Persians) thought and lived to try to understand
what they are saying to us. We will not sit in a dull translation session 2
days per week. We will change exercises and engage in discussion of ideas
often.
Pursuant to this end, please feel free within reason to
bring coffee or other legal stimulants for our meetings - we will agree to meet
in locations other than the room when weather and lesson needs permit - Latin
and Greek schools often met in a stoa/basilica or
under a tree, in the open air - we should do no less, though the need for
internet may bind us to the room rather frequently.
10) One day there may be a suggestion 10, but right now, I
don't have one and there were 9 Muses, so we will leave an ennead of sage
Starks suggestions for student success - maybe suggestion 10 should be to
practice saying that 10 times fast.