Week 2: 8/30/18–9/6/18
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Time: 11:30 am — 11:40 am
The day of our first quiz!!! The questions on the test were fairly easy. I think I lost a point on a question because I spelled the word Anagnorisis incorrectly. Also, I missed the bonus because my brain didn’t register the fact that he’s talking about an example of anagnorisis, not the actual word.
Time: 11:40 am — 12:30 pm
Class Lecture: For today’s lecture, we were supposed to read the summary of the questions that we, the students, had thought were the five biggest questions that human beings regularly ask themselves.
Even though the questions were divided into twelve categories, the class lecture was mainly based on the question “what is my purpose?” I think this question is very confusing for a lot of people, including me. As someone who as already decided how I want to live my life, this question doesn’t hold as much significance in my life as it would for someone who has nothing planned and is looking for a way to live his/her life by asking this question. I also think that my answer to this question is based on my career choice. In my near future, I want to earn a degree in medicine and become a doctor, specifically a neurosurgeon, and I support my decision by saying that my purpose is to help and serve people in their time of need. But this “purpose of mine” was invented after I had decided to step into the field of medicine, so I don’t think this purpose is valid.
While these thoughts were going through my head, an important point was being made in class which prompted me to reevaluate my life’s purpose. The point was that in order for us to ask our selves the purpose of our life, we have to first assume that our lives have a purpose. The reason we assume our life has a purpose is that everything else in our life, people, pets and tangible items, have a purpose. We basically anthropomorphize our nature, meaning we give humanistic characteristics to the things in nature.
Another interesting point that our professor made was that there were about four ways or things that human beings think can control their life narrative. Humans believe that there are fate and destiny, divine gifts and devilish temptations, free will, and determinism. I personally believe that our life’s narrative, or at least mine, is determined by a mixture of these four ways. It is hard to explain why I believe so because the part about destiny, and divine gifts and devilish temptations ties back to my own religion, but the part of free will and determinism is what I have learned over time. I, however, strongly believe that if one wants to achieve something in life, then one should work towards it. Again, if there is a will, then there is a way.
Homework: Before next class, read pages 3–35 in the “Classical Mythology in Context” and answer the following questions:
- According to to the author, what is Classical Mythology?
- Do you agree with her reasons for studying classical myths in the 21st century (pp.33–35)?
Monday, September 3, 2018
Time: 3:12 pm — 5:30 pm
For class this week, we were supposed to read pages 3–35 from the “Classical Mythology in Context” book. The first few pages of the book are based on the twelve main gods of Greek mythology that everyone worships. Different temples have different combinations of the gods but there are some gods that are worshiped in every temple. The worshiping of gods in groups is a common practice in Hinduism also, which kind of made the first few pages relatable to me.
Another interesting thing, well something that I didn’t know, that I found in the reading was that the goddess Aphrodite was born before Rhea and Cronus. After further research, i.e. looking up Aphrodite on google and reading multiple websites, I discovered that she was born produced by Uranus’s genitals which Cronus, his son, had severed and thrown into the sea. I found this kind of odd because I was taught that Aphrodite was Zeus’s and Hera’s daughter, but after doing further research on that too, I discovered that in some versions, i.e. in Homer’s Iliad, she is depicted as Zeus’s and Hera’s daughter, but in other accounts, her origin stories are different.
Another interesting I found in the reading was that most Greek gods and goddesses are not given a physical description. I guess when I imagined Zeus and Poseidon as big men with muscles and a beard and Hades as a skinny guy with no facial hair, I was just making up those images in mind. Either that or my seventh grade English book was lying to me.
I truly enjoy reading this book because of the way the author explains her points. Instead of just letting us know what her thoughts on the subject are, she first introduces the thoughts of other authors and then adds her own thoughts to them. It’s like she wants us to pick our own answer to the questions that are being posed in the book and to help us do that she will try to give us the point of view of multiple people. I really like this way of writing where the author isn’t asking you to agree with them.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Homework: Answers to the questions related to the readings on pages 3–35:
- According to the author, classical mythology is myths from ancient Greece and Rome. These myths include religious, political, and cultural values and meanings.
- The main reason why I agree with the author’s explanation for why we should study classical mythology in the 21st century is that she said “one reason to study classical mythology, then, is to learn that we human beings live more and live better when we understand ourselves as connected to all peoples, whether past, present, near, or distant, not by means of technology but by an experience of our shared humanity.” (Page 35) I truly believe that learning about our past, not just about our family’s past but also about the history of humans, we can avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Understanding human nature can also be very beneficial in our everyday life. Interacting with others can be made easy because we have an inkling of what the other person is probably feeling in the situation.
Time: 11:00 am — 12:30 pm
Class Lecture: The topic of today’s lecture was How do we (should we) experience/ participate in stories and myths (beyond just hearing/reading/ seeing them)?
We started the class by discussing the origin stories of Easter and Thanksgiving. An interesting similarity that I found in both events is that they are both seasonal events, i.e. they occur during a specific season and this gives them a deeper meaning. For example, Easter is associated with spring and the season of spring symbolizes joy and love. Today I also learned the reason why eggs and bunnies are associated with Easter. The eggs symbolize the seed of life and the bunny symbolizes the act of reproduction because they reproduce at a faster rate than other species.
I thought that only the traditional or religious holidays were seasonal and had a deeper meaning to them but I realized how wrong I was when we started talking about Star Wars. As a fan, I know the date May 4th and the famous dialogue from Star Wars “May the force be with you” is related, but what I didn’t know is that there is another reason why this day is significant. The month of May comes before the month of June during which summer officially begins. May 4th is supposed to be the first event of the summer and is supposed to kick-start summer vacation.
To tie the lesson with Greek Mythology, we concluded the class by listening to our professor recite the story of the Trojan war. It was the greatest war in Greek Mythology but it was a mythic war. As I was listening to the story, I realized that the gods and goddesses didn’t really care about the consequences of their actions. I am pretty sure Aphrodite knew what she was doing when she promised Paris of Troy that she would give him Helen of Sparta. I am pretty sure she knew that the king of Sparta would be angered by his wife’s abduction and that there would be a conflict between the two communities but she didn’t really care about that, she only wanted the golden apple to belong to her.
Homework: Before the next class, read book 11 of Homer’s Odyssey and answer the following question: What happens after you die?
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Time: 1:12 pm — 3:35 pm
I think I remember reading a short story about Odysseus during middle school but I wasn’t that excited to read the story, just like how I am not enthusiastic to read it right now. I think that the only greek myths I like are the ones that explain the origin of something present in nature, not the stories about heroes and bloodshed. Anyways, I still have to read Book 11 because it is for a grade.
As I was reading the story, I realized that it wasn’t really about what happened on the battlefield, in fact, it’s about their visit to the underworld which kind of sounds interesting to me. I realized that Odysseus had gone down to the underworld to meet Teiresias, but I thought meeting the other souls in the underworld was also beneficial for him in some way. For example, he met Elpenor’s soul and was able to understand what he wanted Odysseus to do with his dead body. Also, he was able to meet his dead mother who told him about Odysseus’s father, son, and wife, whom he had left behind to participate in the war. His meeting with his mother, however, was tragic because, even though, he could see her and talk to her, he couldn’t hold her or hug her. I think not being able to physically touch your own mother would have been devastating for him.
Even though I know that these stories are just myths, the situations that the heroes had endured before coming to the underworld seem very unnatural to me, maybe because I belong to a different era. Also, I thought it was very nice of the heroes and the princesses in the underworld to give wisdom to Odysseus by reciting their stories.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Homework: read book 11 of Homer’s Odyssey and answer the following question: What happens after you die?
According to book eleven, in Greek Mythology, when someone dies, their soul descends to the underworld and you can easily, well it looks easy, visit your ancestors in the underworld by sacrificing an animal or multiple animals. In the Odyssey, Odysseus sacrifices sheep and prays to Hades and Persephone after which the souls of the dead approached him and he begins to question them about numerous things.