The final installment ...
Consider your view of the future of the discipline, based on how you see its present state, and your place in it. How would you promote/have you promoted the study of Greek/Latin/Classics in your professional and non-professional spheres?
Although AM later recast this question (to emphasize promoting teaching) I think the original is better for my purposes. To paraphrase dead white male's tombs: Si promotio requiris circumspice. Everything I do online is about promoting Classics. I have long, long, long felt that professional organizations such as the APA and CAC long ago dropped the ball and totally missed the impact of the internet on the promotion of Classics to 'the next generation'. Sure, they have their websites and their outreach publications like Amphora, but I'm willing to bet that far more 'non-professionals' know about their existence from MY efforts than the APA's. But we should be realistic, I suppose, and recognize that the folks who run the big professional organizations tend to be those who do not, e.g., watch the Simpsons three or four times a day. They are not 'in touch' with the constituency they would like to reach out to and in such cases, it is necessary for those of us on the outside to pick up the ball. That's what rogueclassicism is all about. That's what Explorator is all about (although it grew beyond the Classical world). That's what my Ancient World on Television listings are all about. That's what teaching Latin online via the LatinStudy list is all about.
The latest 'evolutionary' phase of this personal outreach program has been the ClassiCarnival. As folks have probably noticed, rogueclassicism generally isn't about me (thank the gods) and you really don't know how much self-absorbed posts such as this one make me want to gag. As folks have probably also noticed over the past while, Classics-related blogs are popping up regularly and piles of new Classics resources are hitting the Internet and really were not being made aware to the Classics community (this, I would have thought, would be what the APA or CAC sites would have been doing). And so, while I was pondering updating my blogroll (which will actually disappear in the next day or so), it occurred to me how silly blogrolls are -- they are much akin to my students' bragging about how many addresses they have in their MSN Messenger address book. But hardly anyone ever goes to a blog or website from a blogroll (those of you with blogs who analyse the logs will probably confirm this). People will, however, go somewhere if they know why they're going there ... that's the whole idea behind Carnivals (collections of the best posts), and so the promotion via rc continues.
Now as mentioned above, AM recast the question to have it take into account teaching as opposed to study. I don't think, however, that there is necessarily a distinction to be made in the case of my promotion efforts via rogueclassicism. I know for a fact that piles and piles of teachers at every level are making use of material from rogueclassicism, whether it be the daily features, some snippet of an archaeological discovery, or whatever. I'd like to think that knowledge that there are resources such as rc available (along with other things like the LatinTeach list, of course ... I'm not claiming exclusivity by any means) which provide things which are useful if you are a teacher help contribute to making teaching (and studying) Classics/Latin an attractive prospect.
Now I think it's time for a trip to the vomitorium (no ... not really, but you get the point).
Consider your view of the future of the discipline, based on how you see its present state, and your place in it. How would you promote/have you promoted the study of Greek/Latin/Classics in your professional and non-professional spheres?
Although AM later recast this question (to emphasize promoting teaching) I think the original is better for my purposes. To paraphrase dead white male's tombs: Si promotio requiris circumspice. Everything I do online is about promoting Classics. I have long, long, long felt that professional organizations such as the APA and CAC long ago dropped the ball and totally missed the impact of the internet on the promotion of Classics to 'the next generation'. Sure, they have their websites and their outreach publications like Amphora, but I'm willing to bet that far more 'non-professionals' know about their existence from MY efforts than the APA's. But we should be realistic, I suppose, and recognize that the folks who run the big professional organizations tend to be those who do not, e.g., watch the Simpsons three or four times a day. They are not 'in touch' with the constituency they would like to reach out to and in such cases, it is necessary for those of us on the outside to pick up the ball. That's what rogueclassicism is all about. That's what Explorator is all about (although it grew beyond the Classical world). That's what my Ancient World on Television listings are all about. That's what teaching Latin online via the LatinStudy list is all about.
The latest 'evolutionary' phase of this personal outreach program has been the ClassiCarnival. As folks have probably noticed, rogueclassicism generally isn't about me (thank the gods) and you really don't know how much self-absorbed posts such as this one make me want to gag. As folks have probably also noticed over the past while, Classics-related blogs are popping up regularly and piles of new Classics resources are hitting the Internet and really were not being made aware to the Classics community (this, I would have thought, would be what the APA or CAC sites would have been doing). And so, while I was pondering updating my blogroll (which will actually disappear in the next day or so), it occurred to me how silly blogrolls are -- they are much akin to my students' bragging about how many addresses they have in their MSN Messenger address book. But hardly anyone ever goes to a blog or website from a blogroll (those of you with blogs who analyse the logs will probably confirm this). People will, however, go somewhere if they know why they're going there ... that's the whole idea behind Carnivals (collections of the best posts), and so the promotion via rc continues.
Now as mentioned above, AM recast the question to have it take into account teaching as opposed to study. I don't think, however, that there is necessarily a distinction to be made in the case of my promotion efforts via rogueclassicism. I know for a fact that piles and piles of teachers at every level are making use of material from rogueclassicism, whether it be the daily features, some snippet of an archaeological discovery, or whatever. I'd like to think that knowledge that there are resources such as rc available (along with other things like the LatinTeach list, of course ... I'm not claiming exclusivity by any means) which provide things which are useful if you are a teacher help contribute to making teaching (and studying) Classics/Latin an attractive prospect.
Now I think it's time for a trip to the vomitorium (no ... not really, but you get the point).