Students

AHPG880 – Capstone Advanced Project

2017 – S2 Evening

General Information

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Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit convenor and teaching staff
Paul McKechnie
Credit points Credit points
4
Prerequisites Prerequisites
Permission by special approval
Corequisites Corequisites
Co-badged status Co-badged status
Unit description Unit description
This unit will be offered in the form of a research project on a set of approved topics relevant to ancient history. Students collect, assess, analyse and interpret relevant evidence in the light of current historical thinking. Students will write a research proposal and a bibliography of ancient and modern works, and at the end of the semester hand in a scholarly paper of postgraduate standard, 5000 words in length, which summarizes and extends knowledge and analysis relating to the topic selected.

Important Academic Dates

Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  • Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.
  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment Tasks

Name Weighting Hurdle Due
Minor essay 20% No 18 August
Major essay 30% No 2 October 2017
Advanced project 50% No 10 November 2017

Minor essay

Due: 18 August
Weighting: 20%

Write an essay (word-limit 1500 words including footnotes but not including bibliography list) on one of the titles given below.

 

 

1.

‘The claims entered on the university by von Humboldt were for the construction of civil society. The link between a conception of education (Bildung) and the research acts appropriate in a university (the creation of Wissenschaften) was beautifully articulated not merely because they were part of a coherent epistemological vision but also because the concepts were linked to the formation of the State itself.’ (Robert Cowen)

How did Wilhelm von Humboldt’s knowledge of the ancient world contribute to his plan for the University of Berlin, and his conception of the [post-Enlightenment liberal] State?

 

Consider studying these books and articles:

Aeschylus, Aeschylus Agamemnon, metrisch überstetzt von Wilhelm von Humboldt (Leipzig, 1816).

Anderson, Robert.  ‘Elite Formation and Excellence in Modern Britain’ Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa  Series 5 Vol. 3 (2011), 71-80.

Charle, Christophe.  ‘Elite Formation in the late Nineteenth Century:  France Compared to Britain and Germany’ Historical Social Research 33 (2008), 249-261.

Cowen, Robert. ‘The State, Civil Society and Economies:  the University and the Politics of Space’ in Jules L. Peschar and Marieke van der Wal (eds.), Education Contested: Changing Relations between State, Market and Civil Society in Modern European Education (Lisse, 2000), 93-103.

Elias, Norbert.  The Germans: Power struggles and the development of habitus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (edited by Michael Schröter and translated by Eric Dunning and Stephen Mennell; New York, 1996).

Grafton, Anthony. ‘The World of the Polyhistors:  Humanism and Encyclopedism’ Central European History 18 (1985), 31-47.

Hardcastle, John. ‘Von Humboldt’s Children: English and the Formation of a European Educational Ideal’ Changing English 6 (1999), 31-45.

Humboldt, Wilhelm von.  The Sphere and Duties of Government (translated by Joseph Coulthard; London, 1850).[1]

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature (edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton; Oxford, 2000:  first published 1738).

Schiller, Friedrich von.  ‘The Nature and Value of Universal History:  an Inaugural Lecture, 1789’ History and Theory 11 (1972), 321-334.

Sweet, Paul R. Wilhelm von Humboldt: a Biography (two volumes; Columbus, Ohio, 1978 and 1980).

 

[1] This book also known as The Limits of State Action:  written 1791-2.

 

2.

‘Everyone knows that man's amazing mechanical power is the product of a long evolution, but it is not commonly realized that this is also true of the social force which we call conscience - although with this important difference: as the oldest known implement-making creature man has been fashioning destructive weapons for possibly a million years, whereas conscience emerged as a social force less than five thousand years ago. ... May we not consciously set our hands to the task of further developing this new-born conscience until it becomes a manifestation of good will, strong enough to throttle the surviving savage in us? That task should surely be far less difficult than the one our savage ancestors actually achieved: the creation of a conscience in a world where, in the beginning, none existed.’ [James Henry Breasted, 1933]

Was Breasted’s belief in conscience as a social force which emerged less than five thousand years ago an ill-judged consequence of Breasted’s wish to show that the human race ascended towards civilization long before the rise of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome?

 

Consider studying these books and articles:

Breasted, Charles.  Pioneer to the Past: the Story of James Henry Breasted, Archaeologist (New York, 1943).

Breasted, James Henry.  The Dawn of Conscience (New York and London, 1933).

Breasted, James Henry.  Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (New York, 1912).

Breasted, James Henry. A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest (New York, 1905).

Carruthers, William (ed.).  Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures (London, 2015).

Thompson, Jason.  Wonderful Things:  a History of Egyptology (Cairo, 2015).

 

3.

‘It was good that primitive man in his youth should bear the yoke of conservative custom; from each man’s neck that yoke will fall, when and because he has outgrown it.  Science teaches us to await that moment with her own inward and abiding patience’ [Jane Ellen Harrison, 1909]

 

Was Harrison’s hope for the emancipation of the human race from [what she called] ‘conservative custom’ an excessively optimistic inference from her studies of the ancient world?

 

Consider studying these books and articles:

Beard, Mary.  The Invention of Jane Harrison (Cambridge, MA and London, 2002).

Harrison, Jane Ellen. ‘Reminiscences of a Student’s Life’ Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 4 (1965), 312-346. [originally published 1925.]

Harrison, Jane Ellen. Ancient Art and Ritual (London, 1913).

Harrison, Jane Ellen.  Themis: a Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion (London, 1977 [first published 1912]).

Harrison, Jane Ellen. ‘The Influence of Darwinism on the Study of Religions’ in Albert Charles Seward (ed.), Darwin and Modern Science (Cambridge, 1909), 494-511.

Harrison, Jane Ellen.  Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion3.  (New York, 1955 [first published 1903]).

Kenaan, Vered Lev.  ‘Who cares whether Pandora had a Large Pithos or a Small Pyxis?’ in Vanda Zajko and Ellen O'Gorman (eds.), Classical Myth and Psychoanalysis: Ancient and Modern Stories of the Self (Oxford, 2013), 97-113.

Paglia, Camille. ‘Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf’ Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics Third Series 1 (1991), 139-212.

Paglia, Camille.  Sexual Personae (New Haven, 1990).

Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison (Oxford, 2002).

Shelley, Arlen.  ‘“For love of an idea”: Jane Ellen Harrison, heretic and humanist’ Women's History Review 5 (1996), 165-190.

 

4.

‘[Mary Renault’s] work is a kind of dance with antiquity, a broad-backed renaissance from which ancient authors such as Euripides, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Plato, all frequently quoted, can speak to us. What she gets right is the sheer peacock-gaudy, drug-saturated, hardcore sensuality of this time and place.’ [Bettany Hughes, 2015]

 

Was Renault’s choice (in the second half of her career as a novelist) to turn away from writing novels with a contemporary setting a step forward or a step back?

 

Consider studying these books and articles:

Cartledge, Paul.  ‘The First of the Wine:  Drinking Deep from Mary Renault’ https://youtu.be/_6lKIP78VIk

Endres, Nikolai. ‘Horses and Heroes: Plato's "Phaedrus" and Mary Renault's "The Charioteer"’ International Journal of the Classical Tradition 19 (2012), 152-164.

Hoberman, Ruth. ‘Masquing the Phallus: Genital Ambiguity in Mary Renault's Historical Novels’ Twentieth Century Literature 42 (1996), 277-293

Hughes, Bettany. ‘Mary Renault’s Hardcore Classicism’ Daily Telegraph 25 May 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11606132/Mary-Renaults-hardcore-classicism.html

Mendelsohn, Daniel. ‘The American Boy’ New Yorker January 7, 2013. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/07/the-american-boy

 

Books by Mary Renault in the Macquarie Library:

The Nature of Alexander (1976): DF234.R46

The Persian Boy (1972): PR6035.E4.P47

Fire from Heaven (1970): PR6035.E55.F57

The Mask of Apollo (1966): PR6035.E4.M3

The Bull from the Sea (1962): PR6035.E4.B8

The Charioteer (1953): PR6035.E4 .C48

The Friendly Young Ladies (1943): PR6035.E4.F7/1984

 

5.

‘I was particularly pleased ... when a prominent Roman historian, who is not a Marxist, reviewing my book in a learned journal, ended by asking whether it was possible to find my “categories of analysis convincing without drawing disturbing inferences for contemporary society”, as I have done’. [Geoffrey de Ste. Croix, 1984]

 

Was de Ste. Croix right to think that analysing ancient society must lead one to draw disturbing inferences for contemporary society?

 

Consider studying these books and articles:

Cartledge, Paul (ed.). Crux: Essays presented to G.E.M. de Ste. Croix on his 75th birthday (London, 1985).

Lewis, Paul.  Obituary of Geoffrey de Ste. Croix, New York Times  12 February 2000 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/12/arts/geoffrey-de-ste-croix-89-historian-of-ancient-greece.html

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. Christian Persecution, Martyrdom and Orthodoxy (Oxford, 2006).

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. Athenian Democratic Origins and Other Essays (Oxford, 2004)

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. ‘Class in Marx’s Conception of History, Ancient and Modern’ New Left Review I/146, July-August 1984, pp. 94-111.

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London, 1981).

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. Early Christian Attitudes to Property and Slavery (Cambridge, 1975).

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972).

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de.  ‘Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?’ Past and Present 26 (1963), 6-38.

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. ‘Aspects of the “Great” Persecution’ Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954), 75-113.

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de. ‘The Character of the Athenian empire’ Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 3 (1954), pp. 1–41.

 

Whichever title you choose, use the AHIS Assignment Presentation Style Guide, and see below for further hints. Submit your essay through Turnitin by 2359 on 18 August 2017.

Two extra hints:

1. Don’t refer to the works of ancient texts by giving the page number in an English translation. Always use instead the book, chapter and section numbers in the text. Some of the translations you find online may not have proper numbering, e.g. in Internet Classics Archive (http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/); but if you’re reading your ancient source online, try to use a site which does have numbering, e.g. Lacus Curtius (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/home.html), Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html), or Breasted’s Ancient Records of Egypt (https://archive.org/details/BreastedJ.H.AncientRecordsEgyptAll5Vols1906).

2. Don’t give strings of identical footnotes. Whoever is marking your essay will not be impressed by you scoring fifty footnotes, or even a century. If you are referring more than once to the same page of the same book, consider grouping reference into one footnote, probably at the end of the paragraph. Or if something is so good that it has to be referred to four or five times, why not copy it in as a quotation, then add your discussion?

This Assessment Task relates to the following Learning Outcomes:

* Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.

* Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.

* Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

* Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.

* Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence.

 

 

 

 

 

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.
  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Major essay

Due: 2 October 2017
Weighting: 30%

Write an essay (word-limit 2000 words including footnotes but not including bibliography list) on one of the titles given below.

 

6.

‘… secondary or counterreligions develop a new form of unconsciousness by enriching themselves with elements of primary religious experience and religious practice, while at the same time having to reinterpret their semantics and refunction their forms to fit them to the new context. These elements constitute a kind of “crypt” in the edifice of secondary religions, a subterranean realm no longer illuminated by the light of consciously cultivated religious semantics, from whose depths, however, new (or rather age-old) impulses can arise at any time to bring people under their spell.’ [Jan Assmann, 2014]

Examine critically the development of Assmann’s ideas about religion and cultural memory since Moses the Egyptian (1997).

 

Please consider studying these books and articles

Assmann, Jan. ‘Memory and Culture’ in Dmitri Nikulin, Memory: a History (Oxford, 2015), 325-349.

Assmann, Jan.  Egyptian Solar Religion (Florence, 2012)

Assmann, Jan. Cultural memory and early civilization : writing, remembrance, and political imagination (Cambridge, 2011)

Assmann, Jan. The price of monotheism (Stanford, 2010).

Assmann, Jan. Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (Madison, 2010)

Assmann, Jan.  Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (Madison, 2008)

Assmann, Jan. Religion and Cultural Memory:  Ten Studies (Stanford, 2006)

Assmann, Jan.  Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, 2005).

Assmann, Jan.  The Mind of Egypt:  History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs (New York, 2002)

Assmann, Jan.  Moses the Egyptian:  the Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, MA, 1997).

Assmann, Jan. Egyptian solar religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amun and the crisis of polytheism (London and New York, 1995)

Bernstein, Richard J. Freud and the Legacy of Moses (New York, 1998)

Freud, Sigmund. Moses and monotheism : three essays (New York, 1939)

Miller, Peter N. Momigliano and Antiquarianism (Toronto, 2015).

 

7.

‘Though not the only possible mode of expression, Christian discourse came in practice to be exactly that; it provided both the framework within which most people looked at the world and the words that they used to describe it. … Secular culture, lacking in the institutional strength and the purposeful thrust of Christian discourse, was in the end unable to resist.  The former had remained an elite preserve; there was little or no incentive to literacy for secular purposes and no desire to teach by other means.  Christians, by contrast, had both the will and the way.’ [Averil Cameron, 1991]

Examine critically Cameron’s claim that in the centuries after Constantine, Christian discourse came to be ‘the only possible mode of expression’.

 

Please consider studying these books and articles

Cameron, Averil.  Arguing it Out: Discussion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium (Budapest, 2016)

Cameron, Averil.  Byzantine Matters (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014)

Cameron, Averil.  The Byzantines (Oxford: Blackwell 2006)

Cameron, Averil.  The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395-600 (London, Routledge, 1993)

Cameron, Averil.  Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991)

Cameron, Averil.  Procopius and the Sixth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985)

Cameron, Averil and Amélie Kuhrt (eds.).  Images of Women in Antiquity (London, Croom Helm, 1983)

Macleod, Donald, and Polly Curtis. ‘Voices of education win New Year honours’ Guardian 31 December 2005 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/dec/31/highereducation.uk1

 

YouTube:

Averil Cameron ‘Apocalyptic ideas and the emergence of Islam’ https://youtu.be/VssO-ZIQxrI

Averil Cameron ‘Patristic Studies and the Emergence of Islam’ https://youtu.be/9cYIGNXHlxE

 

8.

‘Western civilization has given mankind the only economic system that works, a rationalist tradition that alone allows us material and technological progress, the sole political structure that ensures the freedom of the individual, a system of ethics and a religion that brings out the best in humankind―and the most lethal practice of arms conceivable’ [Victor Davis Hanson, 2001]

Evaluate Hanson’s case in favour of the view that the Western concept of freedom (from antiquity onwards) has formed a single continuous story. What are the consequences of this view?

 

Please consider studying these books and articles

Garcia, Francisco Javier Gonzalez and Pedro López Barja de Quiroga. ‘Neocon Greece:  V.D. Hanson’s War on History’ International Journal of the Classical Tradition 19 (2012), 129-151.

Hanson, Victor Davis. Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Washington, DC, Smithsonian Books, 2004).

Hanson, Victor Davis.  Why the West has won: carnage and culture from Salamis to Vietnam (London, 2002 [first published 2001])

Hanson, Victor Davis. The Wars of the Ancient Greeks and the Invention of Western Military Culture (London, Cassell, 1999)

Hanson, Victor Davis and John Heath. Who Killed Homer? The demise of classical education and the recovery of Greek wisdom (New York, Free Press, 1998)

Hanson, Victor Davis. Hoplites:  the Classical Greek Battle Experience (London and New York, Routledge, 1991)

Hanson, Victor Davis. The Western Way of War:  Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (New York, Knopf, 1989)

Hanson, Victor Davis. Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (Pisa, 1983)

MacDonald, Heather, Victor Davis Hanson, Steven Malanga. The Immigration Solution: a Better Plan than Today’s (Chicago, 2007).

Miller, Peter N. Momigliano and Antiquarianism (Toronto, 2015).

Renton, Dave.  ‘When superpowers lose’ International Socialism Journal 98 (2003) http://www.pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj98/renton.htm

Hanson’s Hoover Institution podcasts

http://www.hoover.org/publications/classicist

 

9.

‘But why are we so interested in what’s going to happen to the classics, and why discuss it in this way, and fill so many pages with the competing answers? There’s something a bit paradoxical about the “decline of the classics debate” and the mini publishing industry that appears to depend on large number of key supporters of the classics buying books that chart their demise. I mean, if you don’t give a toss about Latin and Greek and the classical tradition, you don’t choose to read a book on why no one’s interested in them anymore.’ [Mary Beard, 2012]

Is the classics ‘the study of what happens in the gap between antiquity and ourselves’?

 

Please consider studying these books and articles

Beard, Mary, Women in Power (lecture delivered at the British Museum on 3 March 2017) https://youtu.be/VGDJIlUCjA0 ; text: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n06/mary-beard/women-in-power

Beard, Mary.  ‘A Don’s Life’ blog in Times Literary Supplement: http://timesonline.typepad.com/

Beard, Mary, SPQR: a History of Ancient Rome (London, Profile Books, 2015)

Beard, Mary, Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2014)

Beard, Mary, Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations (London, Profile, 2013)

Beard, Mary. ‘Do the Classics Have a Future?’ New York Review of Books 12 January 2012 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/01/12/do-classics-have-future/

Beard, Mary. The Roman Triumph (Cambridge, MA, 2007)

Beard, Mary. The Parthenon (Cambridge, MA, 2002)

Beard, Mary, and John Henderson. Classical Art from Greece to Rome (Oxford, 2001)

Beard, Mary. The Invention of Jane Harrison (Cambridge, MA, 2000)

Beard, Mary. ‘Diary’ London Review of Books 22.16 (24 August 2000), 34-35.  https://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n16/mary-beard/diary

Beard, Mary, and John Henderson. Classics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 1995)

Bell, Erin, ‘No one wants to be lectured at by a woman’ Women’s History (2008), 4-12.

Hanson, Victor Davis and John Heath. Who Killed Homer? The demise of classical education and the recovery of Greek wisdom (New York, Free Press, 1998).

Mead, Rebecca.  ‘The Troll Slayer:  a Cambridge Classicist Takes on her Sexist Detractors’ New Yorker (September 1 2014) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/troll-slayer

Miller, Peter N. Momigliano and Antiquarianism (Toronto, 2015).

Patterson, Christina.  Interview with Mary Beard.  Independent 15 March 2013 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/mary-beard-interview-i-hadnt-realised-that-there-were-people-like-that-8534771.html

 

NB There’s lots of Mary Beard on YouTube.

 

10.

Latin is a foreign cultural model, but it is foreign to every modern culture, everywhere. [V.S.] Naipaul mocks Titus Hoyt’s self‐regarding teaching of Latin for Latin’s sake, but he would write home to his family in Trinidad about his study of Virgil's Aeneid as part of his English degree at Oxford and … he would later use this knowledge of Virgil to expose the myth behind the claim of a continuous European civilization stretching back to ancient Rome. In the twentieth century, Caribbean readings of the Classics have outgrown this colonial education to use the Graeco‐Roman classics in the service of postcolonial critique. [Emily Greenwood, 2010]

Does Greenwood’s observation about Caribbean literature apply elsewhere? Or (per contra) is Greenwood over-optimistic (or perhaps misguided) in thinking that the Graeco-Roman classics can be used in the service of postcolonial critique?

 

Please consider studying these books and articles:

Graziosi, Barbara, and Emily Greenwood (eds.), Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between World Literature and the Western Canon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

Greenwood, Emily.  ‘Reception Studies:  the Cultural Mobility of Classics’ Daedalus 145 (2016), 41-49.

Greenwood, Emily.  Afro-Greeks: Dialogues Between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and Classics in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Greenwood, Emily.  Thucydides and the Shaping of History (London: Duckworth, 2006)

Miller, Peter N. Momigliano and Antiquarianism (Toronto, 2015).

Naipaul, V.S. Miguel Street (London, 1976 [first published 1959])

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993).

 

 

Whichever title you choose, use the AHIS Assignment Presentation Style Guide, and see below for further hints. Submit your essay through Turnitin by 2359 on 2 October 2017.

Two extra hints:

1. Don’t refer to the works of ancient texts by giving the page number in an English translation. Always use instead the book, chapter and section numbers in the text. Some of the translations you find online may not have proper numbering, e.g. in Internet Classics Archive (http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/); but if you’re reading your ancient source online, try to use a site which does have numbering, e.g. Lacus Curtius (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/home.html), Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html), or Breasted’s Ancient Records of Egypt (https://archive.org/details/BreastedJ.H.AncientRecordsEgyptAll5Vols1906).

2. Don’t give strings of identical footnotes. Whoever is marking your essay will not be impressed by you scoring fifty footnotes, or even a century. If you are referring more than once to the same page of the same book, consider grouping reference into one footnote, probably at the end of the paragraph. Or if something is so good that it has to be referred to four or five times, why not copy it in as a quotation, then add your discussion?

This Assessment Task relates to the following Learning Outcomes:

* Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.

* Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.

* Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

* Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.

* Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence.

 

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.
  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Advanced project

Due: 10 November 2017
Weighting: 50%

Write an essay (word-limit 2500 words including footnotes but not including bibliography list) on the title given below.

 

11. ‘Historical interpretation is a discursive conversation about contemporary concerns, or it is antiquarianism.’ (T.C. McCaskie, 2012)

If McCaskie is right, how can one make the history of ancient times into a 'discursive conversation about contemporary concerns'? If on the other hand he is wrong, what justifies spending effort and money on studying ancient times?

 

Draw on your findings in the minor essay and major essay assignments as well as on a broader range of reading and thinking in writing this essay (but avoid self-plagiarism:  don't repeat text from earlier essays, and don't give narrative from the earlier essays over again).

 

In addition to reading you have done earlier in this unit, please consider studying these items:

Eley, Geoff. A crooked line: from cultural history to the history of society (Ann Arbor, 2005).

Ferguson, Niall. Civilization: the West and the Rest (New York, 2012).

McCaskie, T.C. ''“As on a Darkling Plain”: Practitioners, Publics, Propagandists, and Ancient Historiography' Comparative Studies in Society and History 54 (2012), 145–173.

Marchand, Suzanne.  German Orientalism in the Age of Empire (Cambridge, 2009).

Pocock, John. 'The Historian as Political Actor in Polity, Society and Academy' in John Pocock (ed.), Political Thought and History: Essays on Theory and Method (Cambridge, 2009), 217-238.

Said, Edward. Orientalism (London, 1978).

White, Hayden. Metahistory: the historical imagination in nineteenth-century Europe (Baltimore, 1973).

 

Use the AHIS Assignment Presentation Style Guide, and see below for further hints. Submit your essay through Turnitin by 2359 on 10 November 2017.

Two extra hints:

1. Don’t refer to the works of ancient texts by giving the page number in an English translation. Always use instead the book, chapter and section numbers in the text. Some of the translations you find online may not have proper numbering, e.g. in Internet Classics Archive (http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/); but if you’re reading your ancient source online, try to use a site which does have numbering, e.g. Lacus Curtius (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/home.html), Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html), or Breasted’s Ancient Records of Egypt (https://archive.org/details/BreastedJ.H.AncientRecordsEgyptAll5Vols1906).

2. Don’t give strings of identical footnotes. Whoever is marking your essay will not be impressed by you scoring fifty footnotes, or even a century. If you are referring more than once to the same page of the same book, consider grouping reference into one footnote, probably at the end of the paragraph. Or if something is so good that it has to be referred to four or five times, why not copy it in as a quotation, then add your discussion?

This Assessment Task relates to the following Learning Outcomes:

* Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.

* Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.

* Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

* Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.

* Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.

* Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence.


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Delivery and Resources

Bibliography

Bibliographies are given for each assignment.  Students should regard these as a baseline and develop their work by identifying and making use of further bibliographical items in accordance with their own judgement.

Many but not all items listed in the bibliographies are available in the Unit Readings in Multisearch.  For copyright reasons, when a book is recommended, no more than a chapter can be made available in the Unit Readings.  This does not mean that there is no need to read the rest of the book.

Most of the items listed in the bibliographies are available in Macquarie University Library. A few older items are not available there.  Interlibrary loans are one of the strategies which students may choose, in order to obtain these items where needed.

 

Learning Skills

Learning Skills (mq.edu.au/learningskills) provides academic writing resources and study strategies to improve your marks and take control of your study.

 

• Workshops

• StudyWise

• Academic Integrity Module for Students

• Ask a Learning Adviser

 

Graduate Capabilities

These (below) are the graduate capabilities (postgraduate) which one acquires through graduate study at Macquarie University.

 

PG - Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking

Our postgraduates will be capable of utilising and reflecting on prior knowledge and experience, of applying higher level critical thinking skills, and of integrating and synthesising learning and knowledge from a range of sources and environments. A characteristic of this form of thinking is the generation of new, professionally oriented knowledge through personal or group-based critique of practice and theory.

This graduate capability is supported in this unit by:

Learning outcomes

·  Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.

·  Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.

·  Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

·  Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.

·  Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.

·  Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence.

Assessment tasks

• Minor essay

• Major essay

• Advanced project

 

PG - Research and Problem Solving Capability

Our postgraduates will be capable of systematic enquiry; able to use research skills to create new knowledge that can be applied to real world issues, or contribute to a field of study or practice to enhance society. They will be capable of creative questioning, problem finding and problem solving.

This graduate capability is supported in this unit by:

Learning outcomes

·  Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.

·  Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.

·  Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

·  Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.

Assessment tasks

• Minor essay

• Major essay

• Advanced project

 

PG - Engaged and Responsible, Active and Ethical Citizens

Our postgraduates will be ethically aware and capable of confident transformative action in relation to their professional responsibilities and the wider community. They will have a sense of connectedness with others and country and have a sense of mutual obligation. They will be able to appreciate the impact of their professional roles for social justice and inclusion related to national and global issues.

This graduate capability is supported in this unit by:

Learning outcomes

·  Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.

·  Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

·  Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.

·  Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.

·  Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence.

Assessment tasks

• Minor essay

• Major essay

• Advanced project

 

PG - Capable of Professional and Personal Judgment and Initiative

Our postgraduates will demonstrate a high standard of discernment and common sense in their professional and personal judgment. They will have the ability to make informed choices and decisions that reflect both the nature of their professional work and their personal perspectives.

This graduate capability is supported in this unit by:

Learning outcomes

·  Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.

·  Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

·  Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.

·  Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.

·  Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment tasks

• Minor essay

• Major essay

• Advanced project

 

PG - Discipline Knowledge and Skills

Our postgraduates will be able to demonstrate a significantly enhanced depth and breadth of knowledge, scholarly understanding, and specific subject content knowledge in their chosen fields.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

·  Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.

·  Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.

·  Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.

Assessment tasks

• Minor essay

• Major essay

• Advanced project

 

PG - Effective Communication

Our postgraduates will be able to communicate effectively and convey their views to different social, cultural, and professional audiences. They will be able to use a variety of technologically supported media to communicate with empathy using a range of written, spoken or visual formats.

This graduate capability is supported in this unit by:

Learning outcomes

·  Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.

·  Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment tasks

• Minor essay

• Major essay

• Advanced project

Policies and Procedures

Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central. Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:

Academic Honesty Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html

Assessment Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy_2016.html

Grade Appeal Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/gradeappeal/policy.html

Complaint Management Procedure for Students and Members of the Public http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/complaint_management/procedure.html​

Disruption to Studies Policy (in effect until Dec 4th, 2017): http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html

Special Consideration Policy (in effect from Dec 4th, 2017): https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policies/special-consideration

In addition, a number of other policies can be found in the Learning and Teaching Category of Policy Central.

Student Code of Conduct

Macquarie University students have a responsibility to be familiar with the Student Code of Conduct: https://students.mq.edu.au/support/student_conduct/

Results

Results shown in iLearn, or released directly by your Unit Convenor, are not confirmed as they are subject to final approval by the University. Once approved, final results will be sent to your student email address and will be made available in eStudent. For more information visit ask.mq.edu.au.

Student Support

Macquarie University provides a range of support services for students. For details, visit http://students.mq.edu.au/support/

Learning Skills

Learning Skills (mq.edu.au/learningskills) provides academic writing resources and study strategies to improve your marks and take control of your study.

Student Services and Support

Students with a disability are encouraged to contact the Disability Service who can provide appropriate help with any issues that arise during their studies.

Student Enquiries

For all student enquiries, visit Student Connect at ask.mq.edu.au

IT Help

For help with University computer systems and technology, visit http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/offices_and_units/information_technology/help/

When using the University's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use of IT Resources Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students.

Graduate Capabilities

PG - Capable of Professional and Personal Judgment and Initiative

Our postgraduates will demonstrate a high standard of discernment and common sense in their professional and personal judgment. They will have the ability to make informed choices and decisions that reflect both the nature of their professional work and their personal perspectives.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment tasks

  • Minor essay
  • Major essay
  • Advanced project

PG - Discipline Knowledge and Skills

Our postgraduates will be able to demonstrate a significantly enhanced depth and breadth of knowledge, scholarly understanding, and specific subject content knowledge in their chosen fields.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.
  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.

Assessment tasks

  • Minor essay
  • Major essay
  • Advanced project

PG - Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking

Our postgraduates will be capable of utilising and reflecting on prior knowledge and experience, of applying higher level critical thinking skills, and of integrating and synthesising learning and knowledge from a range of sources and environments. A characteristic of this form of thinking is the generation of new, professionally oriented knowledge through personal or group-based critique of practice and theory.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.
  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment tasks

  • Minor essay
  • Major essay
  • Advanced project

PG - Research and Problem Solving Capability

Our postgraduates will be capable of systematic enquiry; able to use research skills to create new knowledge that can be applied to real world issues, or contribute to a field of study or practice to enhance society. They will be capable of creative questioning, problem finding and problem solving.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Acquire knowledge of how approaches to and methods of study of the ancient world have developed between the early nineteenth century and today.
  • Uncover and assimilate information in a context appropriate to postgraduate study.
  • Understand how scholars with varying outlooks and perspectives have combined investigating the ancient world with responding to and seeking to shape modern conditions.
  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment tasks

  • Minor essay
  • Major essay
  • Advanced project

PG - Effective Communication

Our postgraduates will be able to communicate effectively and convey their views to different social, cultural, and professional audiences. They will be able to use a variety of technologically supported media to communicate with empathy using a range of written, spoken or visual formats.

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment tasks

  • Minor essay
  • Major essay
  • Advanced project

PG - Engaged and Responsible, Active and Ethical Citizens

Our postgraduates will be ethically aware and capable of confident transformative action in relation to their professional responsibilities and the wider community. They will have a sense of connectedness with others and country and have a sense of mutual obligation. They will be able to appreciate the impact of their professional roles for social justice and inclusion related to national and global issues

This graduate capability is supported by:

Learning outcomes

  • Relate understanding of the ancient world to broad conceptual frameworks and modern contexts, with a view to integrating knowledge and learning experiences from the whole Master of Ancient History degree program.
  • Show in writing critical understanding of factual questions and judgements of likelihood and value.
  • Demonstrate in writing ability to reason persuasively from a question to a provisional answer, citing relevant evidence

Assessment tasks

  • Minor essay
  • Major essay
  • Advanced project

Changes from Previous Offering

This unit is being offered for the first time in Session 2 2017.  AHPG880 was previously called Documentary Project and was a wholly different unit.