Classical Myth · Classics
extensive reading (see above); 2 papers; random quizzes (I really doubt they affect the grade); 1 midterm; 1 final
A lot of reading, and two in-class essays (one the midterm, one for the final) and one 10 page essay outside of class analyzing either a piece of poetry or artwork and how it relates to a myth of your choice.
10 books - some with multiple plays. 2 tests. 2 papers.
Midterm (visual IDs, text IDs, analysis of a long passage with choice of one out of two), Paper (8-10 pages, I wrote it in one night and got an A/A-), Final (visual IDs, text IDs, essay that was prepared beforehand). for the final, we only had to study a selection of 75 visual works for the visual IDs out of 200 covered the entire semester.
It wasn't the best class ever and definitely not what I expected from classical mythology, but well worth it. Yes, Professor Said's lateness, random absences, deadline changes etc. were extremely frustrating but I had no problem doing well in the class. Do the reading (which is extensive, but mostly interesting), come to class, take notes. Regurgitate lecture notes on test. There were no surprises in the questions asked. The having to go to the office thing was kinda frustrating and awkward since her comments really made no sense. I really cared more about the grade than the comments, so i disregarded them. And, yes, I was extremely frustrating that I had no grade til like February.
I love mythology in general and entered this class very familiar with the material, and with an very deep respect for Professor Foley as the foremost expert on The Hymn to Demeter. However, although she is a very nice teacher and clearly cares an immense amount about the material, her lecture style can be very dull. She spends every class going through slides of artistic representations of whatever that day's myth is, but I can't remember a single time she actually brought up more than one critically backed interpretation. Also since it's easy to gather the general gist of the myths from the slides without reading them, lots of students just wouldn't do the reading (also in part because there is a ton of it). I was lucky because I happen to love this stuff, so the reading wasn't a problem for me, but this is not a good class if you just want to fulfill your lit requirement. Oh, and the midterm and the final aren't as hard as they seem like they will be. If you're familiar with the common identifying features of all the gods in greek and roman art you will be fine; you don't have to memorize all of the slides she shows you. She also puts together these really interesting packets of poems related to each myth (some modern, some classic). It's hard to find the time to read them during the semester, but I'd strongly recommend downloading them to read later. They really are quite g…
Classical Mythology I enjoyed this class and suggest to those interested in mythology to take it. At one point, this class was taught by two professors - one from the classics department and the other from the art department - and the class had an art component that was more than just tossing slides up on the projector and reading the captions. I was frustrated that the class even wasted time with this. One time the Professor asked what the slide was depicting and I answered - and she wanted to know how I knew the answer. It was written on the slide itself...I don't think she ever looked at the slides that she was putting up or had any information about the historical context of the objects depicted. The tests were interesting in that we had a bunch of characters to identify along with some essays - the interesting thing is that if you missed the one minor character that happened to appear in a given work - you could be sure that was the one that was making it on to the test - and it missing one ID like that was worth 10 points. I think on the first exam the entire class ended up missing the same question. Regarding her teaching style - Professor Matone pretends that the class is interactive in the sense that she asks questions. Feel free to sit and wait through the awkward sliences as tries to engage students who clearly did not read the material in time for the class discuss…
Wonderful class. I am a first year engineering student who was absolutely terrified of joining this class. Interested in the material, but worried about the difficulty of the class based on previous reviewers. But grading was extremely lenient, and I got an A. That is not to say, however, that the class was a breeze. We covered a large amount of literature over the semester, all of which had to be known for the exams. The way that the class worked was that every lecture was split in half, covering a certain mythological character. For the first half, Professor Steiner would talk about the literary portrayals of the character/family, then Professor De Angelis would take over and speak about visual sources. Both professors were always well-prepared and gave very fascinating and accessible interpretations of the myths. For someone like me, with no previous knowledge of classical mythology, I was still able to grasp the lectures without a problem. I came out of the class feeling like I've learned so much about mythology, and still feeling like there is so much to be explored that I want to learn about classical mythology. I mean, what more is a class supposed to do?
Midterm and final (format: identifications and essay) - fairly easy; 2 papers, your choice of topic, required draft depending on what she thinks of your writing skills
moderate to light reading, midterm, final, and final 10 page paper. Doable but you should put some time and effort into the class.