blogographos

Blogographos has moved!

2007-05-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

After just revamping my Summer Classics page, turning it into a blog and moving it to TypePad, I decided that Blogographos was in need of some updating as well. I've moved most of my blogs to TypePad from Blogger over the last year. I prefer TypePad's interface and am able to do more with it more happily, so I decided to move Blogographos over as well. There are, then, some changes for visitors and Blogographos's guest bloggers:

URL:
Blogographos will no longer be available from its old address, http://blogographos.dhamel.com, though I'll put a forwarding message there soon. The new address is the more easily remembered http://www.blogographos.net. Please update your links.

Subscription:
You'll need to update your RSS feed, if you subscribe to the blog. The new RSS feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/typepad/blogographos. But note that you can now also receive notification of updates by Twitter. Just get yourself a Twitter account, if you haven't already, and add blogographos as a friend. (Note that the summer classics site also has a Twitter account now.)

Comments:
In moving from Blogger to TypePad, I'm losing the old comments (which were on Haloscan on the old blog). But I just went to the trouble of reading through all the comments in the blog's history, and while there were some exchanges of interest there was nothing absolutely vital buried there. So despite the loss I'm not sorry to be moving to this new format where the comments will be more integral to the post.

Search:
There's a custom Google search box over in the sidebar at the new blog, but the domain is so new that Google probably doesn't know it exists yet. So having that return meaningful results may take a while.
Guest bloggers:
I'm going to be sending out guest blogger invitations to the people who have posted at the old blogographos site, at least in those cases where I have email addresses. It looks like I don't have access to all of them, however, so I welcome anyone who has posted in the past or anyone who would like to post to send me a registration request. I in turn will have TypePad send you an invitation with directions. Note that while TypePad is not, like Blogger, a free service, it is completely free for people to participate as guest bloggers.

Authorship:
The one problem remaining for me in the transition from Blogger to TypePad is that all of the posts on the blog are now attributed to me as author. I'm going to fix this one way or another. It's possible I'll be able to fix this elegantly if old contributors register at TypePad as guest bloggers. But if I'm unable to be elegant I'll go in and edit the posts individually to make note of their true authorship. But this may take me a little while to complete.
That's all I have to report, I guess. I hope you like the new blog. It's more modern and airy and I hope it inspires folks to stop by and contribute more often. Enjoy.

Summer Classics page changes: subscription possibilities

2007-05-26T10:44:00.000-04:00

I've spruced up the summer classics page--the site that lists classics courses being offered during the summer at a great many institutions. And it's now moved to a TypePad blog. Users who have been accessing it via the address www.summer-classics.com need do nothing, but if you've been using the longer form of the address (dhamel.com/summer-classics), please update your links to www.summer-classics.com.

The switch from static site to blog was made primarily to make my life easier. It will now be much easier to update. But it's also advantageous because one can now subscribe to receive updates to the page, either by RSS or Twitter.

Horace Translations

2007-05-08T21:17:00.000-04:00

I would like to invite people of a classical inclination to view (and comment) on my translations of Horace's Epodes, which I hope to publish in the not so distant future. The link is www.billblogx.blogspot.com . It is my hope that I will get some good, constructive comments on their merits and faults. Thanks, Bill Parsons

Announcing TwitterLit!

2007-04-30T14:18:00.000-04:00

The secret project I've been working on here in the lair is now ready for public scrutiny! I've created a new site, TwitterLit.com.

What is TwitterLit? Twice a day, at about 12:00 AM and 12:00PM GMT, I'll post the first line of a book to TwitterLit -- without the author's name or book title, but with a link (to Amazon.com) so you can see what book the line is from. Why? Because it's fun! It's just a little literary teaser twice a day. The first lines will, meanwhile, be available for subscription via RSS and -- and this is the exciting part and the reason for the site's name -- to Twitter.
There is also a highly customizable TwitterLit widget available for posting on your own site, should you want to. You can see my version of the widget in the sidebar at TwitterLit.
There are already three first lines posted at TwitterLit -- I started out with a particularly appropriate quote, I thought. Please do click over to the site to see what it's about.

Tags: books, first lines, Twitter

Wikipedia: Truth vs Equality?

2007-04-26T03:55:00.000-04:00

There's a notable essay by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, "WHO SAYS WE KNOW: On the New Politics of Knowledge" at Edge

Who Says we Know

and a very good discussion after. Since so many students - and not just students - use Wikipedia as a main reference, it's worth thinking about.

Judith

Visit Zenobia's new blog Empress of the East

Mary Reanult reviewed

2007-04-09T17:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a review of Mary Renault's The Bull from the Sea.

Textile Research Centre

2007-03-28T09:17:00.000-04:00

Probably few list members know of the TRC in Leiden, The Netherlands, so a post announcing their Annual Report for 2006 may be in order. While the general public -- incl. BBC world news -- got excited at their acquisition and display of a white silk burqa designed by the Italian fashion designer Gabriella Ghidoni ('a disgrace' according to some), archaeologists and classicists might notice:

1. Projected reconstruction of the garments from the late-1st C BC Tillia Tepe tombs in northern Afghanistan, otherwise famous for the huge quantity of 'Bactrian Gold' jewellery (now being shown at the Musee Guimet in Paris, but due for an American tour in 2008). Also found in the tombs were thousands of small gold plaques which had originally been sewn onto the deceased clothes and remains of the texiles themselves.

2. The current work being done on ancient Egyptian textiles, and especially a structural, weave, and fibre analysis of textile remnants.

See their website

The book as video

2007-03-07T12:06:00.000-05:00

I am filled with admiration. There were some blurry images and hiccups in the sound, but that may be my old computer. Oddly enough, when viewing a second time, the screen suddenly went dead, taking with it Firefox and all its works. Sexual censorship on You-tube? Naturally, I am wondering how to make a video of Chronicle of Zenobia, not that I'm brave enough to try it yet. I'm still working on the new blog (Empress of the East)-- of which which, come to think of it, you are the godmother.

Judith

The Neaira Video

2007-03-07T14:34:00.000-05:00

Update: There's a crisper version of the video available here, but it will take a bit longer to load. (Thanks for the response, Judith!)

Trying Neaira: The Book as Video

2007-03-06T10:01:00.000-05:00

It was my intention to throw together a quick video about my book, Trying Neaira. And so have I done. The problem is that while it may look in its final form indeed "thrown together," it in fact too me a good long while to put this not quite four-minute-long video together. Suffice it to say that I have increased respect for the likes of Ken Burns right now. Anyway, here it is, the book as video:

Tags: ancient Greece, ancient history, authors, book videos, books, courtesans, Neaira, prostitutes, Trying Neaira, women's history

Henry VIII, young and sexy: a new Showtime series

2007-02-28T14:48:00.000-05:00

Showtime has a new series coming out called The Tudors (press release) which I've been asked to write about, as it may interest some of my readers at both the deblog and Blogographos. Not just any Tudor, actually, but the series features Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as the young Henry VIII, back when he was athletic and handsome and sexy and before he developed a penchant for hacking off his wife's heads. It looks rather like something I would like to watch. Certainly I've enjoyed reading about this period in the past.

But I don't get Showtime. But some of you may. I'm told that "Showtime is actually going to feature the show on their site for people to watch starting March 12," and that sounds rather like the show itself will be watchable online. But I haven't got that confirmed yet. It would be pretty neat, though.

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I've been promised some unidentified prize for blogging about this. Which is nice, but not the decisive motivation for my having done so.

Review of Perez Zagorin, Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader

2007-02-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

My review of Perez Zagorin's Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader is out in the current (Spring, 2007) issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. I actually saw it in situ today on the Barnes & Noble shelves.

Tags: MHQ, military history, Perez Zagorin, Thucydides

Myles Burnyeat on Pythagoreans

2007-02-23T07:10:00.000-05:00

(Almost) everything we thought we knew about the Pythagoreans is wrong. Read Burnyeat in this week's London Review of Books:

"It is hard to let go of Pythagoras. He has meant so much to so many for so long. I can with confidence say to readers of this essay: most of what you believe, or think you know, about Pythagoras is fiction, much of it deliberately contrived."

Click here

Hail to vowels

2007-02-21T22:34:00.000-05:00

Roger von Oech has posted a tribute to Greek vowels over at Creative Think.

Tags: Greek, Roger von Oech, vowels

Revival of Olympian religion

2007-01-28T07:15:00.000-05:00

Eric the Blogless wrote: >"Can you believe they had a theological split *already*?!"<

Did the ancients have theological splits?

Mary Beard, by the way, put another skewer in their works: A Don's Life

Judith

Visit Zenobia's new blog at Empress of the East

Temple of Zeus in the news

2007-01-21T17:04:00.000-05:00

Friend Eric the Blogless sends along this link to an article about an Olympian religious revival with the comment, "Can you believe they had a theological split *already*?!"

Tags: Greek gods, Olympian gods, Zeus

Thucydides does iTunes

2007-01-20T14:11:00.000-05:00

The radio program Open Source, hosted by Christopher Lydon, has an episode available for free on iTunes entitled "Thucydides: Ur-Historian of the Ur-War." Robert Strassler (editor of the Landmark Thucydides) is his guest. Via open culture (with thanks to Maxine for alerting me to this).

Tags: Christopher Lydon, Open Source, ancient history, Thucydides

Summer Classics

2007-01-19T13:28:00.000-05:00

I've been toying with the layout of the Summer Classics page just a little today, which reminds me to remind people that the time is ripe for updating your institution's information. There's a form at the site for getting your information in to me when you're ready to do so.

Zenobia online

2007-01-04T10:31:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Debra's example in putting her Perikles talk on Blogographos, I thought I might do the same with a talk I gave on Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, as the Wilkinson lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last May. I would be looking for comments and criticisms and, at the same time, would hope to stimulate discussion about the Queen and her world.

However, I discovered that I first had to set up a blog of my own, which I industriously did. Then, I decided that a Zenobia blog was in itself a good idea, so I went a bit further: she will now have an ongoing blog, Empress of the East. It can be visited at http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com.

Your comments and participation are very welcome.

The Zenobia paper will still appear as promised, but a trifle later.

Pericles paper ready for prime time

2006-12-21T15:15:00.000-05:00

All of my talk on Pericles' Authority in Athens, which I began posting on the deblog in installments a few weeks ago, is now available. You can read about it in this introductory post, which will point you to the first page of the talk. There are 27 segments to the talk, each very brief. As you'll see, there is also a more readily printable version available if you don't have the patience for online reading.

I'll be checking it for errors again myself, but if you catch any typos, etc., please let me know about them.

Pericles' Authority in Athens

2006-12-03T09:39:00.000-05:00

I've begun posting a talk I once gave on Pericles' exercise of authority in Athens over at the deblog, my regular blog. Here is the blog post introducing the series: Pericles' Authority in Athens. I'm dividing the talk into a great many digestible chunks to make it more readable on screen. I've only posted four such chunks as of this writing, but more will come soon. The talk, by the way, is one I gave to an undergraduate ancient history class quite some time ago. Rather than let it lie unproductive in my desk I thought I'd post it.

Book note: Antiquity & Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites

2006-10-22T18:02:00.000-04:00

Getty Publications © 2005, 226 pages [amazon]

Soon after Daguerre demonstrated his photographic process in Paris in 1839, the new technology was used to capture in two dimensions the ruins of antiquity. Photography and archaeology, in fact, developed as disciplines more or less hand-in-hand. In this digital world, it is particularly interesting to be reminded of the effort that went into taking a single photograph at the time--the medium's pioneers traveling by sea and traipsing across Egypt or Greece or Italy lugging their easily damaged photographic equipment, the long exposure times required by then state-of-the-art cameras.

More than a hundred of these early photographs, from roughly the first forty years of the medium's history, are beautifully reproduced in Antiquity & Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites, published by the J. Paul Getty Museum. (The photographs included are taken from the Getty Museum's Department of Photography and the Research Library of the Getty Research Institute.) Andrew Szegedy-Maszak of Wesleyan University (whom I have to thank for my copy of the book) provides the book's introduction, a survey of early photographic activity in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, and he has also contributed one of the book's four essays, "An American on the Acropolis: William James Stillman." Stillman was an amateur archaeologist who published a collection of photographs of the Acropolis in 1870. Lindsey Stewart ("In Perfect Order: Antiquity in the Daguerrotypes of Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey") writes about another amateur, Girault de Prangey, who made daguerreotypes throughout the Mediterranean in the middle of the century. In her essay "The Art and Science of Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Photography" Claire Lyons writes about the use of photography by early archaeologists. The new technology allowed archaeologists to document their finds, and "facilitated a systematic reading of buildings literally as texts in stone, legible across their facades." And John Papadopoulos focuses on Athens in his contribution, "Antiquity Depicted," in which he demonstrates "how images negotiate between expectations, reality, and the ideal."

Vanderbilt Classics M.A.

2006-10-12T11:27:00.000-04:00

Attention all Classics majors! Thinking about graduate school? Vanderbilt’s Department of Classical Studies wants to recruit qualified and talented Classics B.A. recipients for its Classics M.A. program.

Our program is a rare and valuable combination: small but select, and rigorous while being emotionally supportive of our M.A. students. This program also offers several other very attractive advantages that deserve to be much better known among prospective applicants for graduate studies in Classics. These include:

1) Fellowships that can range up to $20,500 and higher for especially talented, well-trained, and ambitious students (and this in addition to tuition and health insurance)

2) Funded summer study abroad at the American Academy in Rome, at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, or a comparable summer academic program.

Our Department primarily seeks promising M.A. candidates who aspire, upon completing their Classics M.A. in our program, to enter a nationally ranked and well-established doctoral program in Classics, and potentially to go on to become professors of Classics themselves. The excellent faculty members in our Department are eager to support this aspiration by advising our M.A. students about which Classics Ph.D. programs are best suited to their interests, and doing our best to facilitate their successful entry. It is also worth noting that we train our M.A. students to become highly effective teachers of Latin and/or Greek.

Are you planning to pursue graduate studies in the field of Classics?
Be sure to include Vanderbilt’s Classics M.A. program among the graduate programs to which you apply!

More detailed information is available on our website at: http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/classics/graduateprograms

Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

dgsDOTclassicsATvanderbiltDOTedu

(615) 322-2516

Department of Classical StudiesVU Station B, #3517402301 Vanderbilt PlaceNashville, TN 37235-1740

Gateway to Ancient Greece?

2006-10-07T09:42:00.000-04:00

Following the recent announcement of the MuGeum at the Stoa, I thought I'd have a go at creating one.

What I'm working on is a list of various Greek cities as a reference for the new first years who start lectures in Ancient Greek history this coming week. Hopefully they'll know where Athens is, but working out which island is Samos can be more difficult. The solution is to use the MuGeum to create Google Earth files, along with Google maps. You can download what I've done so far here.

As you can see some of the entries are a bit spartan, especially the one at latitude 37.0821 and longitude 22.4236. This is because Google Earth isn't a very good browser to put a lot of explanatory text in. Once I can work out how to edit the references and additional resources tabs I thought to put in links to the Perseus Project and a brief bibliography. In the meantime it's really jus going to say where something is and, if possible, have a picture of it.

If you want to use it in teaching, but are impatient because it doesn't yet have Potidea or somewhere else then I'd be happy to add you as a curator. You can email me at blogographos (at) timespinner (dotcom) and I'll try and work out how to add you as a co-curator so you can edit the file.

Where's the kleroterion?

2006-09-28T10:57:00.000-04:00

This voting system in Gambia puts me in the mind of Athenian ballots.