Mapping the Ancient World

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. 

During Odysseus’ recounter of his travels to the Phacians, we are introduced to the Sirens, who attempted to lure Odysseus and his crew with their beautiful enchantments. (We will be discussing this in beginning of the discussion). Odysseus’s struggle with self-control, in my opinion, is something most people our age can relate to. Please be prepared to share a short story about having little or no self-control over a situation.

While exploring for a scholarly article I came across “The Pattern of Guest Welcome in the ‘Odyssey'”, written by Cynthia Shelmerdine.  This journal entry exposes a “motif” throughout the poem. Shelmerdine’s main focus lies within the initial four guest welcome instances. However, the pattern she discusses relates to the later Eumaeus’ welcoming of Odysseus. In the journal entry she identifies the pattern as welcoming the guest, sharing food and drink, and questioning the origins of the traveler. In today’s society, it is my opinion that people would not welcome a stranger into their home and offer food and a place to rest. Do you agree? Would you give food, drink, and a place to sleep of a random stranger knocking on your door?

These two discussion points caught my attention. We can talk about how human’s back in Ancient times either relate or differ from human’s in contemporary society.

Please keep in mind there will be more to discuss, such as the reunion of Telemachos and Odysseus.

**Disclaimer – I could not figure out the formatting (I’ve been trying to fix the citation for too long).

Citation for Scholarly Article

Shelmerdine, Cynthia W. “The Pattern of Guest Welcome in the ‘Odyssey'” The Classical Journal 65.3 (1969): 124. JSTOR. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3296256?ref=no-x-route:881881879999e69a84373a89d4207ec4>.

-Sam Kreisberg

Hey everyone,

My name is Sam Kreisberg. I am currently a Junior majoring in Finance. This is my second semester here at Baruch, I transfered from Indiana Uinversity. My favorite book is The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.

-Sam