Although this suggestion is by no means a requirement, the research project will be likely to be more meaningful if the topic embraces some aspects of each student's major or minor. There is information available about classical antiquity involving both religion and most areas of study available at UVM in natural sciences, health, engineering, the environment, food supplies, transportation, business, fine arts, social sciences, education, and humanities.
Project topics must get approval from me to make sure that each one is appropriate in scope and that the necessary materials are available. I am happy to help students find the resources they need. An example of an unsuitable topic is to submit a biography of an ancient figure written primarily by synopsis of an existing ancient work, with no scrutiny or analysis, and perhaps with no modern scholarship cited. Modern scholarship must be peer-reviewed works, generally available in print even if also available online, both journal articles and books. Online resources such as wikipedia do not count as peer-reviewed works although they may offer bibliographies that include such materials.
A very quick way to unearth lots of modern scholarship is to find a good scholarly book or article, of recent date, on an appropriate topic and peruse not only its text but its bibliography and footnotes. Articles are generally better for specific topics as books must be less specific in scope. A search in L'Année philologique may prove more useful than one done through JSTOR.
How do you tell if a book is good? There are no guarantees, but some or
all of the following will give you an idea:
1. The book is by a refereed publisher (e.g. a university press)
2. The bibliography contains entries in a variety of modern languages
(thus indicating that the author has done the homework)
3. There are a lot of footnotes or endnotes
4. The author takes the trouble to describe what editions of the
ancient writers s/he is using
5. Reviews of the book are not uniformly hostile. You should read at
least two reviews, if they are available, of any scholarly book (this is
good advice for any field). You can find reviews in a number of ways; for
recent books you can try the Bryn Mawr Classical
Review on-line, and for both recent and older works look in
L'Année philologique.
PROJECTS are due, as it says on the syllabus, Wednesday 4 May. Please bring a printout of your project to class that day (or deliver it to me earlier). The latest time available for accepting projects is 2:30 p.m. that afternoon, when we leave campus. This allows less than 48 hours to get them read so that you can have them back when you come to the final on Friday. If you encounter a genuine printing problem , bring to my office in person a device containing the appropriate file so that it can be printed out at the Classics department. This also must be done prior to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday 4 May.
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Last updated: 30 April 2016 Send Comments to: Barbara Saylor Rodgers Copyright © 2016 Barbara Saylor Rodgers All Rights Reserved. |