Rome via Brooklyn

460 words.

I write better in the morning, but tomorrow is an up and out day (again), so I thought I better get some words down today.

The pedometer hit 23k plus yesterday, and ‘only’ 19k plus today. I want to work on augmenting course design. My own weekend plans. I want to write notes for students to help with their making the most of their three day weekends. I want to submit a proposal for a session at a major conference next year. The words aren’t coming. Maybe I should try to go to sleep super early and get up at the crack of dawn to write tomorrow before I wear myself out doing just what I love.

Why does this type of teaching make me SO happy?

It is the joy of the first time. It is like I get to see each thing through the students’ eyes. The newness and awe are catching. The sense of wonder and curiosity. And, they ask the best questions.

Were ancestor masks made from human skin? No (thank goodness), but a valid question given the cultural difference.

What were togas made of? Wool, I think, but I’ll have to look it up, I said. They looked it up and reported back. Brilliant. Mostly wool, some linen.

I get to share my favorite facts:

• How fasces connect to fascism
• the one first name shared by all Roman women
• How older men tied back their foreskin to look less well endowed

I get to tell stories. Yesterday we did mythic foundation narratives versus archaeological foundation narratives. Today we did Lucretia (so much sexual violence in all these stories) and then Polybius, his own story, the story of Roman imperialism AND his influence on the US constitution through his recounting of the Republican constitution. I love a good yarn.

I also love some key vocab. So far we’ve introduced the following (listed here in order of my personal level of obsession).

• apotropaic
• spolia
• key stone
• Ionic
• Corinthian
• etiological
• eponymous

It’s funny, I start writing, even if I think I have nothing to say, and after a while the words just come.

I see the group coming together. I see those who are easy going. those who are nervous. Those who stick close to a buddy. I think of my twins at sleep away camp for the first time and wonder how the staff there is watching my children fit into the dynamics.

Below is a gallery of images. I hope you can see the joy and wonder, not just theirs, but my own.

Imitating statues feels silly and fun, but it is deeply usefully for understanding artistic intention! What does this pose feel like to hold? What might that convey about the intention of the statue?