Discuss a memory or memories of something(s) cool you learned in a Greek/Latin/Classics class.
This was a tough one -- especially on the Greek and Latin side. Greek and Latin did not come 'easily' for me (still don't if I'm not well-caffeinated; I can't do languages first thing in the a.m.) so a lot of the time (especially in first year) I was struggling just to grasp the languages and wasn't cognizant of anything 'cool'. After the first year stuff, we went into Virgil -- I found the Aeneid dull at the time, but love it now. I'm still not a big fan of the Eclogues or Georgics. The 'cool' did come, however, later on when we started dipping our collective brains into Catullus and started thinking about things like what Lesbia's sparrow really represented. Then later (at Queen's), when I still was struggling with Latin, it was amazing to sit in Ross Kilpatrick's class reading Horace's Satires and Epistles and pondering how they provided pretty good guidelines for 'how man should live' today. And we could all identify with poor Horace when he had to deal with that guy in Satire 1.9. What I mostly remember, though, about all the Latin and Greek classes at Queen's was how talented all the undergrads were at translating -- grads and undergrads sat in the same classes but had different 'expectations' (I suppose that's the word). I often wonder what happened to all of them (and my fellow grad students -- I know that at least one went on to pursue another degree and is at some university in the U.S.). The other thing I remember about Latin at Queen's was Dr. Kilpatrick's tests -- we'd be in the room writing the exam, and he'd come in and write more questions on the board! He was (in)famous for that, but they were good tests.
On the Classics side of things, there were just too many cool things to mention -- they are, of course, the main reasons I pursued the degree(s). I remember Dr. Heckel talking about the Odyssey (this was a first year course ... I took it after the second year course, oddly enough) and part way through the lecture he says, "Hold on" and he ran down the hall. We were all wondering what the heck was going on, of course, then he reappeared with this giant eye pasted to the middle of his forehead and told us the story of the Cyclops! I also remember one of Heckel's exams -- this was for his Alexander the Great course and he gave us a copy of something which was supposedly found left behind in a washroom somewhere (it was actually a translation of the Metz Epitome) and we had to do all the source criticism stuff on it and figure out what its sources were etc.. It was a take home exam and was probably one of the most unique learning experiences I ever had in university (yes, I learned from the exam). Another cool memory was writing a paper implicating Claudius in Caligula's murder (for John Humphrey ... this was before Barbara Levick's book came out) and being told it was the best undergrad paper he had read -- that was pretty heady stuff for a guy trying to get into law school.
This was a tough one -- especially on the Greek and Latin side. Greek and Latin did not come 'easily' for me (still don't if I'm not well-caffeinated; I can't do languages first thing in the a.m.) so a lot of the time (especially in first year) I was struggling just to grasp the languages and wasn't cognizant of anything 'cool'. After the first year stuff, we went into Virgil -- I found the Aeneid dull at the time, but love it now. I'm still not a big fan of the Eclogues or Georgics. The 'cool' did come, however, later on when we started dipping our collective brains into Catullus and started thinking about things like what Lesbia's sparrow really represented. Then later (at Queen's), when I still was struggling with Latin, it was amazing to sit in Ross Kilpatrick's class reading Horace's Satires and Epistles and pondering how they provided pretty good guidelines for 'how man should live' today. And we could all identify with poor Horace when he had to deal with that guy in Satire 1.9. What I mostly remember, though, about all the Latin and Greek classes at Queen's was how talented all the undergrads were at translating -- grads and undergrads sat in the same classes but had different 'expectations' (I suppose that's the word). I often wonder what happened to all of them (and my fellow grad students -- I know that at least one went on to pursue another degree and is at some university in the U.S.). The other thing I remember about Latin at Queen's was Dr. Kilpatrick's tests -- we'd be in the room writing the exam, and he'd come in and write more questions on the board! He was (in)famous for that, but they were good tests.
On the Classics side of things, there were just too many cool things to mention -- they are, of course, the main reasons I pursued the degree(s). I remember Dr. Heckel talking about the Odyssey (this was a first year course ... I took it after the second year course, oddly enough) and part way through the lecture he says, "Hold on" and he ran down the hall. We were all wondering what the heck was going on, of course, then he reappeared with this giant eye pasted to the middle of his forehead and told us the story of the Cyclops! I also remember one of Heckel's exams -- this was for his Alexander the Great course and he gave us a copy of something which was supposedly found left behind in a washroom somewhere (it was actually a translation of the Metz Epitome) and we had to do all the source criticism stuff on it and figure out what its sources were etc.. It was a take home exam and was probably one of the most unique learning experiences I ever had in university (yes, I learned from the exam). Another cool memory was writing a paper implicating Claudius in Caligula's murder (for John Humphrey ... this was before Barbara Levick's book came out) and being told it was the best undergrad paper he had read -- that was pretty heady stuff for a guy trying to get into law school.