Classics Discussion Group: Planning and Recruitment Thread

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=The Lovely Margo Lane]

dangermom- I noticed in the recent homeschooling thread that you and your daughter are doing Latin… Do you think she might enjoy working along through some of these texts with you? Obviously not reading the whole things (unless she is some kind of freakish super-genius), but maybe there are some decent children’s adaptations, especially of the Iliad and Odyssey that she could read while you are going through the original. They are such cool stories, and while not from the Latin originally, that’s how they were preserved and passed on to us. I remember being impressed when I figured out that, as long ago as the Romans were to us, they had the same perspective on the Greeks (does that parse?). Anyhow, I’m sure your curriculum is already set, just thinking “out loud” so to speak. I’d love to have you come along as far as you can!
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Oh, that is very sweet of you Margo, but my daughter is 7 and our Latin ability so far is pretty much either set pieces (songs etc.) or very very short sentences (Nautae pugnant, the sailors fight). Our great ambition is to be able to read “The 3 little pigs,” which contains the immortal line, “Huffabo et puffabo!” Someday we’ll get to the Aeneid, but not this year. :slight_smile:

So what is the first selection going to be? Are we starting with the Iliad? What are we going to do about translations?

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[QUOTE=dangermom]

So what is the first selection going to be? Are we starting with the Iliad? What are we going to do about translations?
[/QUOTE]

I think we are starting with the Iliad. I vote for using any translation which is convenient to you, and maybe posting in the thread(s) which translation you used. And if we have a reading thread and a discussion thread, provide feedback if you feel like it in the reading encouragement thread that Smith’s translation is clunky, and Jones’s is poetic but childish, or whatever.

I’m open to other opinions, though. But, at this point, I have no inclination to buy any books. I’d much rather borrow them from the library.

(This post is at least half-bump).

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I’m interested. I had a very similar education to St. John’s, so that might be cheating. I’d love to be part of the conversation, though, and I might be able to help with some textual issues since I can read Latin and Greek. I don’t want to stand on a soapbox, though.

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I’m in as well. I’ve got the Lattimore translation of the *Illiad * at home. I’ve read the work several times, so this will be a nice way to ease into this group.

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I’m tentatively in, though I’ll have to plow my way through the rest of Moby Dick so I can get started on the Illiad.

I’m not sure how reliable I’ll be, as my schedule goes through periods of total craziness, but I’ll try.

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[QUOTE=burundi]

Hmmm. I’m not sure what I think of this one. We can’t read things from a completely objective, tabula rasa viewpoint. Rather, we’re going to be reading these works in a 21st century historical context, with all of our own 21st beliefs and biases. Refusing to consider a book in its historical context seems as though it leads to situations like the people who get up in arms about the use of “nigger” in Huckleberry Finn.
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Actually, I think we agree, but perhaps I didn’t express myself well enough. By taking Huckleberry Finn (for example) on its own terms, you accept that “nigger” was a commonly used word in the world of the book, and don’t judge the characters that use the word in the book as you would a 21st century person who used it the same way.

My point is that the discussion shouldn’t allow people to dismiss the ideas from some other time and place as “just the way they thought back then,” with the implicit assumption that we’re better now.

Also, the problem of discussing the work’s historical context is that 1) it’s external to the work itself, which is the primary focus, and 2) like non-Program books, it’s not knowledge that the discussion group has in common. So it’s too easy to be come a hijack, to use message board vernacular.

These are among the reasons why historical context is generally off-limits in St. John’s seminars. And again, I’m not saying that they must or should be off-limits in the SDMB seminars, but that we should consider the issue.

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[QUOTE=dalej42]
I’m in as well. I’ve got the Lattimore translation of the *Illiad * at home. I’ve read the work several times, so this will be a nice way to ease into this group.
[/QUOTE]

Ditto here. AND I just read that Cahill book, Sailing the wine-dark sea, so I’m in a Greek mood. (His illustrations had quite a few artifacts one does not normally see in college books. :eek: )

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I am a St. John’s alumna and I am already involved in a re-reading of the Program list (about mid-sophomore year now). I am interested in the success of this online endeavor, though,and I might enjoy joining in with the conversation. May I suggest that one participant accept responsibility for creating an “opening question” to open each discussion?

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[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa]
I am a St. John’s alumna and I am already involved in a re-reading of the Program list (about mid-sophomore year now). I am interested in the success of this online endeavor, though,and I might enjoy joining in with the conversation. May I suggest that one participant accept responsibility for creating an “opening question” to open each discussion?
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Perhaps a different person for each book. This might create some additional discipline or at least make sure that someone is fully engaged for all of the topics.

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[QUOTE=Maeglin]
Perhaps a different person for each book. This might create some additional discipline or at least make sure that someone is fully engaged for all of the topics.
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Exactly. that’s what I meant. Possibly a different person for each reading, not just each book. It would be quite a burden have to think of the (or every) opening question for, say, the Bible.

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[QUOTE=Tabula Rasa]
Exactly. that’s what I meant. Possibly a different person for each reading, not just each book. It would be quite a burden have to think of the (or every) opening question for, say, the Bible.
[/QUOTE]

The Bible? Child’s play.

“The Bible is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. Discuss among yourselves.”

I tried to do something like this on the boards years ago, but it died after the first few weeks. I definitely hope this incarnation lasts longer. I tried to find it, but I think it disappeared in our Winter of Missed Content.

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Wow, so much input!

I’ll try to sift through, and not leave anybody out…

First of all, thank you for your input, commasense, it’s fascinating, and I hope that you and others who have been through this wringer before will continue to chime in and help us newbies along.

I haven’t seen anybody object to March 10 as the target date for beginning discussion on the Iliad, so we’ll let that stand. I am liking the idea of a separate “reading” thread more and more- perhaps everyone can chime in at the start with which edition/translation they are working from, then throughout the month with progress.

As far as keeping the actual discussion within St. John’s rules or similar, what if we agree to keep the supplemental reading/movie suggestions and tangents about historical context to the “reading and support” thread, and kept the “discussion” thread at the end more purely textual? - I freely admit that I don’t have the slightest idea how to do that- anybody have suggestions for wording of thread rules?

An opening question is a great idea- how about this: Towards the end of the month (start of March) as we start winding down the reading, group members can post their ideas for awesome discussion questions to the reading group, and then one person (I could volunteer for the first one, then tag off to somebody else for the next) could pick one to start the discussion thread. This takes some pressure off of any one person to come up with an awesome question, plus having a bunch of them in the reading thread can give food for thought before the full-on discussion starts. If this starts to lead to an in-depth discussion in the “reading” thread, a "discussion thread can be started early.

Maeglin - not cheating at all! What I love about the Dope is how diverse we all are with regards to background. Perhaps in the reading thread we can all talk a little about our previous experiences with the given text.

For the name of our little group, I was taken by commasense’s suggestion: Straight Dope Seminars[sup]TM[/sup] how do you all feel?

As you can probably tell, I’m very much a “split the difference” sort of person as far as rules and such go, so feel free to jump in and let me know if I’m compromising us all to madness!

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I’m going to give this another night to get any additional input, then I’ll start the first reading and support thread for the Iliad.

Yay so excited!

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[QUOTE=The Lovely Margo Lane]
Wow, so much input!
As far as keeping the actual discussion within St. John’s rules or similar, what if we agree to keep the supplemental reading/movie suggestions and tangents about historical context to the “reading and support” thread, and kept the “discussion” thread at the end more purely textual? - I freely admit that I don’t have the slightest idea how to do that- anybody have suggestions for wording of thread rules?
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I didn’t go to St John’s, but it seems that the purpose of the rules is for students to learn to exercise their critical muscles and to give texts a close reading under supervision. That doesn’t seem to be the purpose here. People will be reading with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and levels of engagement. My sense is, the less strict we try to be, the happier we will be. I do agree that “who should be in a movie of the Gorgias” belongs in the support thread. But since this is meant for fun, my sense is that we should go light on the rules and not possibly stifle participation.

These, of course, are just my two obols.

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Like Maeglin, I suspect that with our gang, perhaps the fewer rules for discussion the better-- it will keep discussion livelier by not strangling ‘illegal’ but terribly interesting contributions, and we’re not 19 year olds being trained into critical thought. I say open season. But if the majority suspects that these guidelines would keep things more sane, I can go along with that, too.

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Hey all! I’ve started the reading and support thread for the first text- come on over!

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I would join in, except that that truly looks like the most bland reading list I think I’ve ever seen. :o

Is there any particular reason you chose the St. John’s College reading list? I think you could get a much more rounded and less gruelling list of books just by polling people, or randomly selecting X number of books from a list that was less focussed on the Greeks and philosophy.

not to throw a wrench into the gears

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[QUOTE=Sage Rat]

Is there any particular reason you chose the St. John’s College reading list?
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While I’m not fanatical about following the St. John’s list, it is almost entirely made up of books that I’d never choose to read on their own, which is to me a good thing in this case. Also, when I looked over it last week (I had seen it before- I considered going there for undergrad!) I was struck by the feeling that I am no where near as “well read” as I like to think. I’m hoping that this project can help me out a bit in that regard. Plus, using this list instead of one I select myself I can have a feeling (perhaps misguided?) that they build on each other- creating context within the course of the readings.

My previous education and independent reading has skewed heavily to modern works and (in the case of many of my college classes) highly politicized analysis. I don’t regret those experiences, but the St. John’s approach is attractive to me because it is so different. The Western Canon may have been overemphasized in culture as a whole, but I haven’t really been exposed to it at all in and of itself- only through its influences.

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[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
I would join in, except that that truly looks like the most bland reading list I think I’ve ever seen. :o

Is there any particular reason you chose the St. John’s College reading list? I think you could get a much more rounded and less gruelling list of books just by polling people, or randomly selecting X number of books from a list that was less focussed on the Greeks and philosophy.

http://terrenceberres.com/read.html
[/QUOTE]
As mentioned in the OP, this thread and the idea of Straight Dope Seminars™ arose out of a thread that asked about the Liberal Arts. In that thread I, and other Johnnies, mentioned the St. John’s program as one example of a modern Liberal Arts reading list. Margo and others liked it and chose it as a starting point.

The St. John’s reading list has been in place (with minor modifications) for 70 years. Its strengths and weaknesses are discussed perennially at the college, and yet it has endured with relatively few changes, most of them at the modern end of the list, where it’s harder to classify something as a true classic.

A keystone of its rationale is that the books “talk to each other.” That is, as I mentioned earlier, to a large degree, later authors were generally familiar with many if not most of the earlier works. This is the main reason why Eastern works are not included–not that they aren’t important, but few if any important thinkers in Europe knew of them. (The Santa Fe campus of St. John’s has established an Eastern program. It’s listed in your first link.)

Anyway, all this is not to defend the St. John’s list as ideal for our purposes here, but to say that, IMHO, and that of thousands of SJC graduates over the past 70 years, it’s a pretty good and well thought-out list. To a certain extent, any list is somewhat arbitrary, and the advantage of picking one – any one – rather than trying to create our own is that we can get started right away instead of arguing about which books to include. Don’t like this list? Start your own reading threads. (I’m not being snarky, just pointing out that there’s room here for lots of discussions.)

As I’ve said over in the other thread, I think it would be more realistic to trim the list somewhat, but there’s no denying that the books on the SJC list are true classics of Western culture, and that you’ll get something from reading almost any of them. (Well, maybe not Hegel. I hate Hegel.)

BTW, the very first book in your first list, “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, basically *is *the St. John’s program. Adler was an adviser to the founders of the Program (IIRC) and Van Doren (yes, the one involved in the quiz show scandal) was a graduate of St. John’s, class of '46.

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[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
I would join in, except that that truly looks like the most bland reading list I think I’ve ever seen. :o

[/QUOTE]

Just as long as you recognize that the above says more about you than it does about the contents of the reading list, I think we’re all good.