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Week 3
Friday night at 11:59 pm Central time.
Discussion Topic
This week’s main assignment will take a different approach, emphasizing images over text. Rather than write a standard 5-paragraph essay, show us five pictures on one particular theme or topic from our textbook and video materials this week. Your writing this week will be brief: you’ll want to caption each image, and you’ll want to tie your work together in an introductory paragraph.
Your introductory paragraph (roughly 6-8 sentences) will explain to us the theme you’ve chosen and how your pictures relate to that theme. A robust college paragraph should be roughly 6-8 sentences, so make sure that you use that full space to dig deep with your ideas.
Your five images will revolve around the theme you’ve chosen. Find at least two images from the period you’re looking at. Art and artifacts from your period are excellent choices. If you can’t find all five images from the period you’re examining, get creative with the remaining ones. This is a space to explore our material in an original way, so just make sure that you stay away from generic stock images.
Your captions should be a headline or phrase that briefly describes each image for your viewers.
You can pull your images and captions together in a slideshow with PowerPoint, Canva, or Google Slides, or you can put them into a Word doc or copy them directly into our discussion boards. The latter two options will look less polished, but I’m more interested in your content than the level of polish this week.
Your list of things to do this week:
Take a virtual field trip (optional).
Read Chapter 5 in our textbook.
Review the PowerPoint from the textbook publisher if that helps you as you read.
Watch three short videos that highlight topics in your readings.
Take the self-assessment for Chapter 5.
Participate in our weekly class discussions with your original post.
In ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
~Terry Pratchett
Readings
Please read the following chapter(s) in your course textbook and view any other listed resources:
Chapter 5, Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources
These optional PowerPoint slides are a handy way to see the main points as you read.
Please read the following chapter(s) in your course textbook and view any other listed resources:
Chapter 5, Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources
These optional PowerPoint slides are a handy way to see the main points as you read.
strayer5e_lectureslides_ch05.pptx
Videos
Web Link: http://digital.films.com.ezproxy.bellevue.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=56485
Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh_xvKLhZHg
Virtual Field Trip (Optional)
Do you have time to visit a museum? The British Museum has a blog entry with pictures of powerful women in ancient Greece and Rome. You might find something you can use in your discussions this week.
This virtual field trip is optional. Feel free to browse as your time permits.
Web Link: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/mary-beards-top-five-powerful-women-ancient-greece-and-rome
Chapter Overview
Chapter 5 Overview
An intriguing approach is to seek to draw together themes from Chapters 4 and 5 by exploring issues of popular religion only touched upon in the text. We can focus on the comparison of Greco-Roman polytheism and mystery religions to Chinese ancestor worship and Daoism and to Indian popular practices. We can start by exploring popular religion by comparison to the elite systems described in Chapter 4, and then we can consider what popular religion meant in social, class, and gender terms.
A suitable place to begin is with the Greco-Roman gods and goddesses, who are most likely familiar to us. From there, consider Hindu, then Chinese, polytheism, including the gendering of the divine: whether gods or goddesses are associated with various powers (the Indian/Chinese Guan Yin is particularly intriguing, since he was transformed over time from a male into a female figure), the role of religious festivals in controlling the masses, the role of holy figures and holy places (the stupas of India, containing relics of the Buddha, are an intriguing example), and the connection (if there is one) between popular religion and elite religious/cultural systems.
A closer look at Greco-Roman slavery helps us understand social issues in the Mediterranean world. Imagine a “slave society.” Note differences and similarities between ancient Mediterranean and relatively modern American slavery. Look for differences between classical Mediterranean society and other second-wave societies with regard to slavery.
Our textbook has figures for the approximate numbers of slaves in China, Athens, and Italy. Think about the use of slave labor for major state-building projects and the limitations of that use (e.g., Hadrian’s Wall was built by legionnaires, and much of the labor on Greek temples was undertaken by free skilled artisans, but Rome had large numbers of state-owned laborers to build aqueducts, palaces, and ports). Compare this to the Chinese use of slaves or “voluntary” peasant labor for major state projects. Compare the lot of slave gangs working on latifundia or in mines to that of household slaves. What did domestic slaves do? Artistic and dramatic portrayals of rich men’s slaves standing around looking respectful can give a false image of the average slave’s life. Stop and think about the casual attitude of Greco-Roman society toward sex and the likelihood that domestic slaves (both female and male) would be sexually used by their masters. Compare this to India, where laws existed discouraging such activity, and ask whether the caste system would allow such a degree of sexual freedom. An intriguing approach to help you gain insights is to ponder what slavery would be like in a society in which slaves worked side by side with free people at many crafts and where slaves were not clearly identified by race, clothing, or other markers.
Slow down and take time to appreciate the use of images as primary sources. They can deepen your understanding of the relative position of women and men in the ancient world. You can comparatively examine gender issues in several second-wave civilizations by using images as sources. A suitable place to start is with ancient Greece. Examine the kouros figures of Archaic Greece (undraped male figures), the caryatids of the Erechtheum (pillars carved in the shape of draped women), a scene from the Parthenon frieze (naked horsemen), and the Aphrodite of Cnidus (undraped female, Hellenistic). There were changes in male/female depiction over time. Different representations of a given time suggest different cultural values (admiration of the male body, female immobility, and a more open attitude toward the female form in the Hellenistic period).
Once you feel more confident with comparison, do the same for two or three other civilizations discussed in this chapter. The illustrations in the text are a useful starting point. Ponder the significance of whether the male or female figure is undraped, the relationship between women and men when both are depicted in an artwork, the coloring of male and female figures and what it might mean, and the representation of female deities.
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