Reading and blog assignments

1. Odyssey. Post by Thurs., Jan. 22 (optional writing).  Read Books 9, 10, and 12 of the Odyssey, available online here.  You might pick up the story a little earlier, back in Book 8, line 540.  The reading assignment is required, but the blog post is optional.

2. Herodotus. Post by Mon., Jan. 27.  Read Snakes with Wings for Tuesday. (This book consists of excerpts from Herodotus' Histories.  If you would like to read the selections online or if you're using a complete edition of the Histories and want to see which passage are in Snakes with Wings, the excerpts are all here.)  For background, check out the About the Readings page; especially recommended, the New Yorker article, "Arms and the Man."

3. Marco Polo. Post by Mon., Feb. 2. Read the Prologue and chapters 1 - 3 (through section 105).  If you would like to try reading the selection online, try the Google Book version: read pages 95 to 237; for a pdf version, here.  Or log onto NYUHome, and go to the "ebrary" and you'll find an online version of the book; read pages 3 - 215 in that edition.  Another option is the wiki version of the text: in this case, read the Preface, Book First, and Book Second-Part I.

4. Ibn Battuta. Post by Mon., Feb. 9.  Read chapters 1 - 6.

5. Columbus. Post by Mon., Feb. 16.  Read "The First Voyage" (through p. 130).

6. Cabeza de Vaca. Post by Mon., Feb. 23.  Read the entire book for Tuesday.

7. The Tempest. Post by Mon., March 2.  Read The Tempest and Montaigne's "Of Cannibals," available online here.

8. Final thoughts.  Post by Sun., March 8.  Focus on one theme and discuss it in the context of several of the books.

Requirements

The minimum requirement for the course is to do seven blog posts and to write seven comments on other blogs. For extra-credit, you can write more posts and more comments on other blogs. The posts should be about 400 to 500 words, with a picture and, if relevant, a location indicated on the map. They can be a response to the reading or discuss some helpful information.

Due dates: The required posts are usually due on Monday (with the exception of the first and last posts), so that there’s some time to read them over before class on Tuesday. The required comments are due by Thursday. You can do optional posts and additional comments whenever you like.

Comments: The comments should be about 100 words and respond to some theme in the post by providing additional thoughts, materials, links, etc.

Suggested topics:

1. The overall context is “place studies,” so think about how the places in the books are described: nature, villages, cities, buildings; the customs of the people; the aspects of the place that make it unique; the values and valuables; the geography (where we are on the map, the terrain, the climate, etc.); and the history (what’s happened in that place since the time of the book, and what’s happening there now).

2. The main theme is travel, so consider the motives for travel, the shape of the narrative, the conventions of travel narrative, fact vs. fiction, the actual experience of travel (the modes, problems, speed, etc.), preconceptions about a place, guests and hosts, the mind of the traveler, food, clothing, shelter, sex & marriage, death & funerals, the Old World encounter with the New, etc.

3. How does something in the work relate to your concentration or your colloquium topic? If the work were on your book list, what might you say about it at your colloquium?

4. Work with a quotation—from the book itself, from a secondary source about the work, or from someplace else, perhaps a quotation about travel or place, that somehow relates to something in the book.