Fall 2013 Season

[hanbran]

I couldn't get into Spartacus. Is Agora the one about Hypatia of Alexandria?

[ciistai]

Agora is indeed about Hypatia - it's quite good, sadly wasn't showing in many theatres. Rachel Weisz is magnificent.

[hanbran]

I once went to a conference which had a panel on the Ancient World in popular culture, and a woman gave a presentation on that movie. It led to a wonderful conversation on Neo-Platonism in the later Roman Empire. But the movie seemed a bit hokey. Maybe she just presented it in a hokey fashion.

[ciistai]

I once went to a conference which had a panel on the Ancient World in popular culture, and a woman gave a presentation on that movie. It led to a wonderful conversation on Neo-Platonism in the later Roman Empire. But the movie seemed a bit hokey. Maybe she just presented it in a hokey fashion.

 

I'm of the opinion that any film or TV show about the ancient world is hokey Although I'm not sure if they're getting better or worse lately... Clash of the Titans (the recent remake) was definitely cringeworthy. I never ever say this about films but I really did want my money back for that one.

Edited January 20, 2013 by ciistai

[videro]

Yeah, it was pretty awful. The costumes are always great, though! I never look at these films and think their visually unconvincing. It's just the ethics and the character development that are off. 

 

 

--

So, what would everyone say was the most painful piece of the graduate application package? 

[ciistai]

Personal statements, by far. I'm not very good at saying good things about myself! I'm worried enough that I won't get anywhere and it's resulted in a lot of difficulties in writing something to convince a group of strangers that I'm qualified for their programs...

[hanbran]

Application and GRE fees. Diversity statements were rough too. And some schools capped the writing sample length really low.

[Fockatar]

The statement. I mean its always difficult to know what to exclude/exclude and the length was so...restrictive. I mean, 200 more words could have made a massive difference. I guess everyone else is similarly handicapped.

Films: I automatically assume any film/series on the ancient world is going to be iffey. Its the nature of things, the popular imagination is far removed from academic discourse. Even on the academic side, very few academics have made ample use of anthropology etc to actually get a decent handhold on what the ancient world's cultures *could* have been like anyway. So its not like we have an absolute measure from which we can spot deviations. Unfortunately this means that most film makers feel they can fill the huge cultural gaps....with sex. Remember the series Rome? Hahaha. Honestly, put in the directors chair, I'd do the same. Depending on who I've got cast, obviously.

Actually, visually, I don't think I've ever seen accurate dress or military gear. Agora stands out visually for a) coming close in parts despite odd uses of leather and bracers and being so....visually pretty. Yes, it could have been more colourful but in ggeneral the images were so evocative. It was a pretty film.

[hanbran]

Video games are even worse than movies.  Has anyone ever played Shadow of Rome for the PS2?  They just made everything up.  At one point, Octavian and Agrippa actually translate Latin into English...

[ciistai]

Video games are even worse than movies.  Has anyone ever played Shadow of Rome for the PS2?  They just made everything up.  At one point, Octavian and Agrippa actually translate Latin into English...

 

I tend to be pretty forgiving about films about the ancient world - especially since my interest in ancient history came from watching The Mummy when I was 10, of all places, so I have to thank Hollywood for potentially drawing in the next generation of Classicists and archaeologists - but most video games are absolutely atrocious, especially Roman-themed ones. Drives me mad!

Although I do enjoy the Civ games... the only exceptions!

[videro]

Application and GRE fees. Diversity statements were rough too. And some schools capped the writing sample length really low.

I understand where your coming from with the sample length, nothing that you're a history person. I do ancient philosophy, so 15-20 pages was a nice Goldilocks range for me.

 

I actually defend the fees, because their representative of that graduate school is — a financial risk. They're an easy way to cut out anyone who isn't seriously interested in the programs, which saves the departments a lot of time with needless consideration for half-baked applicants. Similarly, I defend the GRE as a whole because it provides an independent task for the applicant to complete, and in this sense it imitates processes like modern-language acquisition, independent research, etc, that graduates need to do.

 

I think it's absurd that the GRE is administered by a for-profit corporation, and I fully realize that the GRE measures competency in a particular form of 'testing-language,' rather than measuring general intelligence, but I still feel this replicates particular features of graduate life.

 

For me, the most absurd portion of the application was letters of recommendation. Unlike every other feature of the application, which can be assembled at any time during or before the application season, letters of recommendation, if they're going to be good, need to be assembled from a history of good relationships with the right professors, and these relationships aren't something you can 'pick up' on the go in your final year of undergraduate work, if you only then decide you want to do graduate work. This isn't a problem I have in particular, but I can see where it would arise and put certain applicants at an unfair disadvantage.

Edited January 21, 2013 by rsmease

[hanbran]

Letter of Recommendation are very annoying to procure.  I'm finishing an MA at the moment too, so I literally just asked people to write letters for me, and I had to do it again.  Most professors understand that it's all part of "being an academic mentor," but I feel like they have far more important (and compelling) things to do.  It's very unsettling when someone (everyone) waits until a few days before the deadline to submit a letter as well.

 

I have nothing against the concept of the GRE, but $25 to send a score report is ridiculously steep, after paying over $100 to take the test.  I'm honestly not against application fees either, but when you only make $18k a year, $1k in app fees is a lot of money.  I know that fee waivers exist, but they're very difficult to obtain, at least, in my experience.

 

Do you prefer to study ancient philosophy from a philological, historical, cultural, or philosophical angle?

[videro]

I'd like to make more headway on the oral features of Socratic dialogues. I'm interested how Plato and Xenophon use sound (repeated patterns, rhymes, clausulae, etc.) to draw their arguments, and how a vocal argument would factor into audience reception. I'm also excited by the possibility that we could further characterize Socratic characters orally. (i.e. do they have any catchphrases, or any consistent and distinctive speech patterns, and might this make them more 'historical' representations of their real-life counterparts)

 

I would call my work a mix of history and phonology, though my knowledge of linguistics is still fairly nascent.

 

How about everyone else? Hobby horses?

Edited January 22, 2013 by rsmease

[hanbran]

Clash of the Titans (the recent remake) was definitely cringeworthy. I never ever say this about films but I really did want my money back for that one.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-who-willingly-rented-wrath-of-the-titans-feels,30969/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=standard-post:headline:default

[hanbran]

I've read some wonderful articles on phonology in Aristophanes, Plautus and Menander, but I've never read anything on phonology in prose. That sound like a wonderful project. My admiration for Plato's creative brilliance rises each time I read a new dialogue. I have never read more than a few passages of Xenophon though. Any recommendations?

[videro]

None whatsoever. He's Plato's appendix, unless you're an aristocratic Athenian male, in which case he's full of arrogant chuckles. Seriously though, I only read him for the articles.

Edited January 22, 2013 by rsmease

[Fockatar]

I don't know what you mean in terms of phonology in prose, the pronunciation in general was the same as they spoke, if you mean accentuation etc then there's a decent amount of work done on the prosody of Greek speech, I think Devine's is the most accessible introduction. As for Xenophon, no, we did in our first year Greek class and that's all I know I'm afraid.

I don't really go for philosophy, as for my area its anthropological/socio-cultural in approach with a heavy dash of traditional philology, I guess in that sense I'm a pretty typical exponent of the British contextualising school and will focus on semantics, lexicopgraphy etc. Or as my girlfriend refers to my work "its lemmata and dead bodies!".

[hanbran]

For the scholarly articles, or for the grammatical articles?

[videro]

I saw the semantic space for that joke the second I hit post. 

 

Also, some good/bad news for y'all. A friend of my heard back from both UMich and Yale today. She had an interview/acceptance respectively. Congrats for her! (I didn't apply to either place, so this is just a general heads up to the rest of you.)

 

It's starting...

Edited January 22, 2013 by rsmease

[hanbran]

Do you know to which division of UMich she applied? Classics, IPGRH, or IPCAA?

[Fockatar]

Articles? I mean studies in academic journals/books. You say you've read for Aristophanes, I'm guessing that's Andreas Willi's stuff? (easily one of the biggest philology lecturers I've ever seen, I love his bad jokes, most things will be similar to be honest.

Ah its started? Good luck fellows. We can keep ourselves in good spirits, surely? What's everybody reading? watching? etc etc

[ciistai]

GAH. I've applied to IPCAA. My nervous level has just skyrocketed...

[hanbran]

Ah its started? Good luck fellows. We can keep ourselves in good spirits, surely? What's everybody reading? watching? etc etc

 

Good luck to all indeed.

 

I'm reading Cleon's speech in book III of Thucydides.  "οἱ μὲν γὰρ τῶν τε νόμων σοφώτεροι βούλονται φαίνεσθαι τῶν τε αἰεὶ λεγομένων ἐς τὸ κοινὸν περιγίγνεσθαι..." brings to mind soooo many people XD.

 

 

 

GAH. I've applied to IPCAA. My nervous level has just skyrocketed...

 

I know that some schools only interview some candidates whom they later admit, so don't be nervous.

[videro]

I'm not sure which division. I know she does history.

[hanbran]

Apuleius is terribly under appreciated. I was very glad to find him in Pagel's most recent book.