Mapping the Ancient World

TRAVEL AND ENCOUNTER by MARCO POLO

After reading the text and the fact that I myself and the main character in this Tale (IBN BATTUTA) share the same religious belief. I would love to focus or center my discussion with the class on “The coexistence of different religion in a perfect harmony, and the open minded characters of IBN BATTUTA himself). Knowing that IBN BATTUTA is a Muslim scholar as he was announced in the text, therefore I have to admit that I’m very impressed of the admiration that he was displaying toward these people who had different religious believe from him. Such a behavior says nothing but how open minded he was.

I believe that this article is mainly focused in one hand on the description of Jerusalem and its surrounding regions and the description of the city of Contantinople (Istanbul) and Monks in the other. However, we also have the fact  in the text that even with different religious believe, people can still live together in perfect harmony.

John Mandeville is written about a exploration written by a Christian native point of view. John Mandeville first discusses about the customs in the Isle of Lamory and explains how the earth is round by the angle of the Antarctic Star and based on ancient astronomers and philosophers. He ends off by explaining about another custom of kings on the isands near Prester John’s Land. I will like to bring up the relation and connection of Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta and John Mandeville have in common. How Mandeville discusses the geographical and cultural aspects of the places he has visited. I will like to also discuss about the trustworthy-ness we have for this writing and how believable his writing came to be.

MARCO POLO:

• Brief on what happened in the story of Marco Polo:o   Goes out with his father and uncle to The Great Khan to deliver goods from the priest. When they get there, Polo realizes that Khans men don’t know how to analyze what they say when they went on “embassies”

  o   He begins doing the embassies and says the stories very well, that is why they love and appreciate him.

• Tells stories:
  • Lesser Java-island made up of 8 kingdom and 8 crowns
  • Ferlec

    Basma

    Sumatra

    Seilan

  • Marco Polo was respected by Great Khan and his people because of the knowledge he had through his experiences of different places. Polo was able to analyze how the other places functioned and took lessons from it.

Franco Moretti

• Mitford and “Our Village”- 5 volumes, ideology
• • Mitford and “Our Village”- 5 volumes, ideology
  • John Barell in Idea of Landscape and sense of space explains circular perspective (like mitfords)
  • Walter Christallas who wrote “central places in southern Germany”- Geographical distribution of urban centres
  • Darcy Thompson- internal and external forces

  Moretti also studies patterns to learn from history

  • Moretti, according to Annals of the association of American Geographers, “sets the goal of shifting focus…from story to setting”.

   

Remember that you need to respond to one student’s post by the end of the day Sept 30 (which marks the end of Unit 1). You are welcome to respond to posts previously published. This is going towards your participation grade so don’t forget!

Hi every one , for some reasons I don’t’ find my original  introduction post , thus I repost my introduction .

My name is Han li  and  I am computer information system. My favorite book is The journey to the west which is Chinese ancient literature.

We will be watching this in class today, but if you happen to miss class – here are the instructions for how to use TourBuilder (for your assignment due Oct 7)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYiOmQeClvk

In books 21-24 of the Odyssey, we finally get to the moment we have all been waiting for. Odysseus achieves his homecoming. Although Odysseus returned disguised as a beggar in the previous books, he tackles a few obstacles that stop him from making his homecoming complete. During our discussion today we will address and elaborate on Odysseus’ final interactions with the suitors, the massacre, Penelope’s test, and the ending of the book overall. Also with the help of a scholarly article, I would like to talk about a theme we had discussed in the previous class which is the host-guest relationship and how it relates to the suitors.

Citation for Scholarly Article:

 The Odyssean Suitors and the Host-Guest RelationshipAuthor(s): Harry L. LevySource: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 94 (1963),pp. 145-153Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/283642 .Accessed: 15/09/2014 00:08

In the final stretch of the epic – The Odyssey, Homer describes the calm before the storm. Odysseus, the protagonist of the poem disguises himself as a beggar, to tests his servant’s loyalty and the suitors’ corrupted tactics. The main points I want to address on tomorrow’s lecture will be the reasoning behind Odysseus’ testings as well as the omens being described throughout the chapters. In the scholarly article I have come across, the author is arguing that the omens of the book are an essential technique to foreshadow future events. The journalist relates back to the omens that were represented in the earlier chapters and connects it with the omen that was depicted in Chapter 20. With all this being said, I hope to give everyone a further insight on the events that take place before Odysseus’ vengeance on the malicious suitors.

Citation for scholarly article

Podlecki, Anthony J. “Omens in The Odyssey”. Second Series. VOL14. JSTOR. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. < ttp://www.jstor.org/stable/642463>

Referring to books 12 through 16, I thing that Odyssey’s persistence in hiding his identity when he returned home could be an expression of skepticism. We have seen how Odyssey struggled during his journey and all the hardship he endured; how he faced adversity from human and spiritual beings who fought him with no mercy. Now, after being away from home for so long Odyssey did not know what to expect from his people and how their sentiments towards him had changed; so staying under cover for a while was necessary.

Hi, my name is Boran Kim majoring in Finance. This is my first semester in Baruch. My favorite books are Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and all Bernard Werber’s books.