Summer Latin and Old English

Please pass along to any and all interested parties and forgive duplications:

Hello all, I am pleased to off the two courses listed below this summer online. There are both undergraduate and graduate options. If you are not a Bemidji State University student, directions on admission can be found here: http://www.bemidjistate.edu/academics/distance/admissions/ The ability to use basic software is required, and much will be delivered through D2L, a Blackboard like software that the student will be able to access once enrolled for the class. I’m looking forward to see some of you there!

 ENGL 3930/5930 Intensive Latin Online 

Dr. Larry Swain 

Bemidji State University 

 Course Description: This course is an intensive introduction to Latin, covering in eight weeks a full academic year’s worth of the language. This will require a lot of work and dedication on the part of both instructor and student. By the end, however, the student should be able to read Latin prose with the aid of a grammar and a good dictionary or lexicon. There will be a great deal of memorization. Via our online tools, discussion board, online office hours, recorded lectures, live lectures, exercise sharing and corrections, and Q&A sessions delivered via D2L, power point presentations, and other tools, we will go through the entire text and master basic Latin. The course will require a commitment from the student. A MINIMUM of 2 hours and preferably 4-6 hours a day will need to be spent working on the exercises, in class, interacting with the professor etc. Because delivery is online rather than in a traditional classroom, the need for each individual student to apply him- or herself diligently daily is even more important than in a face-to-face class. Four days a week we will meet virtually to explain the grammar lesson, to do some in class exercises, to correct exercises, and so on, for approximately two hours. The rest of your time will be spent working on exercises, translating sample passages of actual Latin, memorizing the forms. 

Texts: Intensive Latin by Floyd Moreland and Rita Fleischer 

Other materials as assigned

(I will have advice about students’ dictionaries, additional grammar aids in print and online and so on as well throughout the course). 

Highly Recommended: English Grammar for Students of Latin: The Study Guide for Those Learning Latin by Norma Goldman and Ladislas Szymanski 

English 3390/5390: 

Intensive Old English Summer 2012 

Dr. Larry J. Swain

 Bemidji State University 

This seminar is intended to accomplish three related objectives: 1) to learn to read Old English and translate texts in Old English with relative ease 2) to have an overview of Anglo-Saxon Literature and 3) to place the language and literature into the historical, cultural, theological, intellectual, and material contexts. That's a tall order. But like those we read who endure heroically, so shall we: we will be able to by semester's end read Old English literature in Old English, both prose and poetry. The approach is simple. This is an intensive course, a full 15 week course offered over less than 8 weeks in Summer delivered over D2L and the Internet. This means that the student will need to keep up and plan well. Missing some elements of the course will prevent successful 

. We will cover approximately two chapters a week, and during the last couple of weeks we will be working exclusively in translating Old English texts. This will require a serious commitment on the part of the student as well as the instructor. 

Textbooks: Reading Old English: An Introduction by Robert Hasenfratz and Thomas Jambeck

A History of Old English Literature by Michael Alexander 

Recommended: The Anglo-Saxons James Campbell 

Larry Swain lswain@bemidjistate.edu

Please pass along to any and all interested parties and forgive duplications: Hello all, I am pleased to off the two courses listed below this summer online. There are both undergraduate and graduate options. If you are not a Bemidji State University student, directions on admission can be found here: http://www.bemidjistate.edu/academics/distance/admissions/ The ability to use basic software is required, and much will be delivered through D2L, a Blackboard like software that the student will be able to access once enrolled for the class. I’m looking forward to see some of you there! ENGL 3930/5930 Intensive Latin Online Dr. Larry Swain Bemidji State University Course Description: This course is an intensive introduction to Latin, covering in eight weeks a full academic year’s worth of the language. This will require a lot of work and dedication on the part of both instructor and student. By the end, however, the student should be able to read Latin prose with the aid of a grammar and a good dictionary or lexicon. There will be a great deal of memorization. Via our online tools, discussion board, online office hours, recorded lectures, live lectures, exercise sharing and corrections, and Q&A sessions delivered via D2L, power point presentations, and other tools, we will go through the entire text and master basic Latin. The course will require a commitment from the student. A MINIMUM of 2 hours and preferably 4-6 hours a day will need to be spent working on the exercises, in class, interacting with the professor etc. Because delivery is online rather than in a traditional classroom, the need for each individual student to apply him- or herself diligently daily is even more important than in a face-to-face class. Four days a week we will meet virtually to explain the grammar lesson, to do some in class exercises, to correct exercises, and so on, for approximately two hours. The rest of your time will be spent working on exercises, translating sample passages of actual Latin, memorizing the forms. Texts: Intensive Latin by Floyd Moreland and Rita Fleischer Other materials as assigned (I will have advice about students’ dictionaries, additional grammar aids in print and online and so on as well throughout the course). Highly Recommended: English Grammar for Students of Latin: The Study Guide for Those Learning Latin by Norma Goldman and Ladislas Szymanski English 3390/5390: Intensive Old English Summer 2012 Dr. Larry J. Swain Bemidji State University This seminar is intended to accomplish three related objectives: 1) to learn to read Old English and translate texts in Old English with relative ease 2) to have an overview of Anglo-Saxon Literature and 3) to place the language and literature into the historical, cultural, theological, intellectual, and material contexts. That's a tall order. But like those we read who endure heroically, so shall we: we will be able to by semester's end read Old English literature in Old English, both prose and poetry. The approach is simple. This is an intensive course, a full 15 week course offered over less than 8 weeks in Summer delivered over D2L and the Internet. This means that the student will need to keep up and plan well. Missing some elements of the course will prevent successful completion. We will cover approximately two chapters a week, and during the last couple of weeks we will be working exclusively in translating Old English texts. This will require a serious commitment on the part of the student as well as the instructor. Textbooks: Reading Old English: An Introduction by Robert Hasenfratz and Thomas Jambeck A History of Old English Literature by Michael Alexander Recommended: The Anglo-Saxons James Campbell Larry Swain lswain@bemidjistate.edu

A Saga sort of post.....

A brief post today, but one of joy. For a number of reasons, not least because it will form part of my teaching stable of texts this fall, I've been trying to work my way through Hrafnkel's Saga in Old Norse. My favorite spouse's decision to take a job half a continent away and all that that entails lost me a month of scholarly fun and work. Ah well. So I was running a quick eye over what I had translated so far of the saga before taking on the next chunk. One of the things I was struck by was the names for Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire, and the Greeks.

Constantinople is called often in Old Norse Miklagarthi--the great enclosed dwelling place. The emperor is called Garthikonungr, king of the dwelling place, but alos Grikkjakonungr, king of the Greeks.

This raises some issues for me, some of them good. First, I love as always the compounding (there is a great deal of compounding Latin and Romance languages too, but that often goes unappreciated. Admittedly the nature of compounding there is somewhat different.) But the name "Great Enclosure" just strikes me as so descriptive. "Garthi" (and forgive me, I don't know how to get eths, thorns, ashes, and the like into blogger) is cognate to Old English geard, which gives modern yard: both mean an enclosure and can be applied to a house, a farm, a yard in our sense, a garden, a house...an enclosed space. I love this word. So versatile, so meaningful.

"Garthi" has interesting cognates around the I-E family besides in Old English. Latin hortus is one...garden, as in horticulture, as is the second part of the word cohors, giving modern English cohort. Cohors in it's primary meaning is simply an enclosure, but comes to signify a troop whether legions, cavalry, or other unit since they are enclosed in a fort. Greek Xortus (x=chi) for a pasture, OIrish gort for a garden and Breton garz for the same are likewise cognate.

In English we have other related words: gird the verb, and from gird the verb girder, the thing enclosing space in buildings; another enclosing device from the same root is girdle. Speaking of things going about one's middle, there's also girth, as in what goes around a horse's middle for the saddle, and then by extension talking someone's girth in the sense of how round about they are or are not. An archaic word from the north derives directly from garthi in Old Norse: garth. It now survives chiefly as the technical name for the cloister garth, the cloister enclosure. The word court has an interesting history as well. It comes to English from OFrench, cour, itself from Latin cohors. Orchard is another English derivative, probably wort (vegetables) geard in Old English, or vegetable garden...and as long as I'm mentioning "garden" how about the word garden itself? That's a round about one, coming from OFrench by way of Latin again though vulgar Latin picked up a Frankish word, *gardum, cognate with yard.

There are important names that should make more sense now. Asgard, the enclosure of the Aesir, Midgard, the middle enclosure, related to middenerd and middengeard, Old English terms for "middle enclosure." We now call this middle enclosure, Middle Earth after a certain someone's books. And now you will be able to tell what the names Hortense and Hildegard have in common besides being old-fashioned now.

Anyway, the second issue is that I love the descriptive compounding of the Germanic languages. Constantinople, Constantine's polis, as the "Great Enclosure" and the emperor as "king of the enclosure" is something that rather tickles my philology bone. But it is also reminiscent of Tolkien who obviously copied this type of compounding, descriptive names from Indo-European, nay, specifically Germanic languages. Nor am I only thinking here of Mundburg, the hill of protection, as the Rohirrim call Minas Tirith. Rather I am thinking of Minas Tirith itself, the Tower of Guard. Even in his invented languages, Tolkien is still using the Germanic mechanism of descriptive naming. Ok, to be fair there are other languages that certainly do similar things. Jerusalem, built in peace for example. Still we know that ol' Tollers knew the Germanic and other Indo-European languages long before he looked too closely into Hebrew. So, when he writes about Minas Tirith, using that descriptive compound, and the Rohihrrim call it Mundburg (direct from old English mundbeorg, btw, which is used to describe Jerusalem.....), we see the same naming conventions at work that we do with Miklagarthi. Nor are these the only examples. One could look at the fabulously named Orthanc, which in the invented Sindarin means "Mount Fang" since the structure rises from the Ring of Isengard rather like an iron fang out of the earth. But it is also an Old English word meaning a skillful contrivance or construction...but like "crafty", orthanc can have another meaning, something cunning...cunning being a skillful contrivance that has bad connotations to it. Not surprisingly, the character who dwelled in Orthanc, Saruman, whose name in Old English means "man of skill" or man of cunning depending on context. Point is, the man and the place have synonymous names.

What does this segue into Tolkienia have to do with Hrankel and stuff? Not a lot admittedly, but let's bring it back there. Orthanc and Saruman live in the Ring of Isengard. Isengard means "iron enclosure", here in the sense of fortress, not unlike Miklagarthi. But the Tolkienian name could secondarily be "enclosure on the Isen" since the Isen River, the Iron River, flows right by Isengard. But the "gard" and the "geard" and yard, and Miklagarthi bring us back full circle to Hrafnkel.

A Piece of Job Market Advice

So....a job advice column. You know how some schools have you fill out an application PLUS send letter, references, CV, teaching philosophy, CV etc...and after the upteenth time of filling this out, you just start putting "see my CV" on the application.

Let me give you a piece of advice. Don't give in to that temptation! Oh, I know how tempting it is. Your time is precious and short. You are trying to teach, research and write, and apply for jobs...enough for anyone but you have other obligations too. And all that information you have supplied in multiple ways already!!

Thing is, as I've recently discovered, those applications are likely the first thing that a search committee will see at those institutions and will make a determination of the first cut on the basis of those applications and only really begin to look at the materials you've provided if you make the first cut. Do you have the essential credentials? They can tell at a glance on those applications. If you've not filled it out completely or said "see my CV", chances are your application will hit the round file. Essentially you've asked the committee members to do extra work on your behalf, to go look elsewhere to see if you are worthy of their consideration. It's like a student asking for extra credit when they haven't done the work in the first place: why should I have to do extra work for a student who hasn't worked at all so far and now wants a favor? Same thing here. So let me advise you facing job markets: no matter how time consuming or how frustrating (and it is so very frustrating from the job hunter's point of view), if you want to be considered for that slot: fill out the application thoroughly, completely, and use even that document to make yourself shine as much as possible. Give them every reason to consider you and make the first cut.

CFP

Please forward to all and sundry.


The Heroic Age is currently inviting papers on the following topics:

LAST CALL: Issue 16: Alcuin and His Impact

Alcuin spans the Anglo-Saxon and Continental worlds and his influence is
felt far beyond his own period and place. This issue seeks to explore
the man, his times, and his influence on his contemporaries and on
subsequent generations.

Articles should be 7000 words including bibliography and endnotes, and
conform to The Heroic Age's in-house style. Instructions may be found
under Submission Instructions. All submissions will be reviewed by two
readers according to a double-blind policy. All submissions should be
sent to Larry Swain.

Issue 17: Carolingian Border-Lands

This issue seeks to explore the lands and peoples surrounding the
Carolingian kingdom(s) and the relationship between empire and
"periphery". Possible topics might include, but not be limited to: the
Spanish March, Carolingians and England and Ireland, the Scandinavian
countries, Carolingian "foreign policy" and trade,
cross-border/cultural/linguistic influences, Italy, Byzantine Empire and
the Carolingians, Saxons, Avars and Slavs just to name a few. The focus
is on the regions surrounding the Carolingians and possibly Carolingian
relationships with those borderlands whether political, religious, or
cultural.

Articles should be 7000 words including bibliography and endnotes, and
conform to The Heroic Age's in-house style. Instructions may be found
under Submission Instructions. All submissions will be reviewed by two
readers according to a double-blind policy. All submissions should be
sent to Larry Swain.

Issue 18: Occitan Poetry

We would like to invite submissions for the special 2012 issue of HA on
Occitan poetry, edited by Anna Klosowska (Miami U. of OH). We are
interested in submissions including but not limited to the following
topics and approaches:

editions or translations of a short text or texts or a portion of a
longer text (especially lesser known texts)
transnational and postcolonial approaches, Jewish, Arabic,
Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and cultural studies
feminism, queer theory, Marxism, psychoanalysis, history of emotions,
history of subjectivity, critical animal studies
philology, musicology, poetics, manuscript study, material history and
history of ideas, medievalism
Publication: June 2012 (online)
Final revisions due: March 1, 2012
Response from anonymous readers by: December 1, 2012
Submission due: July 1, 2011

Submissions should be 3000 words including bibliography and endnotes,
and conform to The Heroic Age's in-house style. Instructions may be
found under Submission Instructions. All submissions will be reviewed by
two readers according to a double-blind policy. All submissions should
be sent to Anna Klosowska, Special Issue Editor.
--
Larry Swain

A Serendipity of Gigantism

So, this is a bit old now, nearly a month in fact. Thus, I will not post links. But about 3.5 weeks ago I had one of those moments when various strands and streams of thought converged. This time the point of convergence was giants.

For various reasons I was reading about Rabelais and his giants, esp. Pantagruel. The whole thing rather reminded me of Snorri's tale of creation in Prose Edda. That brought to reflecting on the Marduk and Tiamat tale of Babylonian mythology that many think lies behind biblical Genesis 1.

At the same time, I had reason to review Grettir's Saga, the part where Glam enters the hall and the battle between the two begins. The saga describes Glam as quite a large draugr.

Meanwhile, J. J. Cohen was talking about an encyclopedia article he was writing about....yes, giants and gigantism etc. Then on Facebook Cohen also mentioned that he had found a review of his book, Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, And The Middle Ages.

All these giants kept hitting me. Should I take the hint?

Two Mentions

I neglected to mention in my K'zoo post two rather important folk:

First, I think it was Friday that while with the Great Nokes at the Witan Publishing booth, I met the team behind Medievalists.net. Very nice folk and I for one very much appreciate what they do over there.


The other person that I am very embarrassed not to have mentioned and with whom I was unable to spend nearly enough time is my good friend Dot Porter. Talented, smart, digital humanitarian extraordinaire....I hope to rectify my wrongs here.

Kalamazoo at Last

At last, my report on Kalamazoo 2011. Few seem to do this anymore, which is sad considering how significant this conference is. And how large. There is no way that any one person can give an account of all the great scholarship (and sometimes not so great) that is read at Congress. So I annually appreciate the comments of my fellow bloggers the Medieval Geek who posts his experiences every year. Since Curt gets to sessions I can not attend or haven't attended, I always learn a great deal from his posts and so appreciate those posts. His posts also include info about books he purchases; these are enjoyable as well but also educational as a way of being apprised of what is going on out there even in areas I am interested in. In the Medieval Middle also had some K'zoo related posts, mostly from Jeffrey Cohen. I heard rumors of papers being tweeted, but since I have so little time anyway, Twitter is one of the lines I have drawn for myself: that is, I don't Twitter because right now I don't need another thing to keep up on. But if anyone knows for sure, send me a note and I'll add it here. Also there were a few comments by Nokes, Unlocked Wordhoard on this year's K'zoo. You might notice some guy posing as me with the Great Nokes. Vaulting and Vellum also had a post on post-Kalamzoo. That's all I know. Granted I'm behind on my reading, even of blogs, and others may be like me and be delayed in posting about K'zoo. In any case, here's my conference.

For the third year in a row, events conspired to prevent me from being at Congress as planned. I had planned on being there Wednesday afternoon, meeting with some old friends, doing some work, and having dinner with fellow attendees with Thursday dawning bright and early with a meeting followed by sessions. That didn't happen. I did leave early Thursday morning to catch a train; that was a comedy of errors, but I at least made the train sans breakfast, cash, or caffeine....and since the train's credit card reader was down, I was without coffee for the duration of the trip!

We arrived a little late at 11:30. Thankfully and blessedly, a million thanks upon their noggins, the fabulous, intelligent, and ubertalented Jena Webb and Francesca Bezzone came and retrieved me from the train station and then took me to lunch where coffee was had, food partaken, company enjoyed. We didn't watch the time as closely as we ought, so we drove back to Fetzer where my two companions were attending a Late Antique session. I was off to an A-S sessionnin Bernhard. Regrettably, I ran into construction on Sangren hall...so by the time I found a way round and got to Bernhard, I was 15 minutes into the session and missing the paper I wanted to hear addressing an already packed room. So I went downstairs to the computer lab and finished my own paper and printed it off.

There I fortunately ran into Bruce Gilchrist. Bruce was reading in the very next session, and as I was undecided which of the three I wanted to go to, prevailed on me to go to the Bede session. There were only two papers, "Why no Love for Constantine the Great in Bede's HE? by Bruce in which Bruce examines the lack of any Constantine mention in Bede and talks somewhat about the growth of the Constantine legends. Good paper, but he tells me that he discovered in process that someone else beat him to it in some out of the way place...but still already done. The second paper was titled "Lessons from Lesser Kings: Books IV and V of Bede's HE" which aimed to accomplish just exactly what the title says: what do we make of the kings in those two books.

Next, I went down to the wine hour. There were too many conversations, new acquaintances made, friends caught up with to mention here. But t'was a good time had by all. Dinner was had with Francesca and Jena again and others; we ended up missing the evening sessions because of a the wait at the restaurant. So it was off to the receptions, many conversations, including one that hopefully will appear in HA in the not so distant future. More on that anon.....

Friday morning came a bit too early. But I went off anyway to the Bloggers Meetup. I was fashionably late; I do know how to make an appearance. Before arriving there I pleasantly encountered Bridget Slavin, now a medieval archaeologist. It was grand to catch up with her a little bit and very good to see her. Then off to the meetup: present and delightful were ADM, Jonathan Jarrett, the aforementioned Curt Emanual of The Medieval History Geek, the incomparable Elizabeth Carnell, the fabulous and knowledgeable Steve Muhlberger, me, and Vaulting and Vellum. I had a good time.

Next came the session in Valley I that I presided over and co-organized with Mary K. Ramsey. One of my long time interests is notions and practices of translation. The session was called "Found in Translation: Linguistic Evidence for Culture Change". We received three abstracts, but only two papers showed. The first paper never communicated with either of us as far I know about not being there, but he didn't show. Anyway, Sandra Hordis read an interesting paper about "Anglo-Saxon Paradise" regarding especially the odd compound for paradise, neaxorwang. She's submitted to HA, so hopefully you'll all read that one in the nearish future. Mary Ramsey then read on "Translating the Names of God" which does as the title says, talks about how God is referred to in OE TEXTS. Two really good, solid papers.

After lunch with Jena and Francesca at Bilbos (my first Bilbo's trip of the year!), I spent the next session in the exhibit hall. For one thing, I needed to find Witan Publishing's booth; there I met the rest of the team in addition to Nokes, took some pictures, and shook some hands. I also made the rounds of book stalls looking for good stuff. Very few primary texts to be had this year, that was very disappointing.

I had intended at the 3:30 session to FINALLY appear at one of the sessions in honor of Pat Conner. Unfortunately, the presider started the session 5 minutes early, the room was packed, not even standing room, so after standing around a bit pondering at the rudeness of starting early and what to do next, I ended up having some coffee and then popped into a paper down the hall on Women Selling Women by Mary Valante. It was very interesting about a topic I had never considered before, so got an education there.

Then off to the wine hour!! By this point being in Jena and Francesca's orbit, I had encountered many folk I might not otherwise have encountered. But still, the nature of the wine hour is to meet, greet, chat, and there are so many I talked to and had a good time with that I can not begin to make a list.

Friday night is the AngloSaxonist dinner, an event that I try to go too. Yes, it is generally the "old guard" and at a "stuffy restaurant" etc. But so what? What matters is the people: I have always enjoyed getting to know my colleagues as people whether Andy Orchard, Paul Szarmach, Tom Hill, Don Scragg, Katherine O'Brien O'Keefe, and others. Or us lesser lights too, who as these big names retire, become big names ourselves. This year I shared a cab and table with two folk becoming big names and whom I respect very, very much: Chris Vaccaro and Yvette Kisor. Both are delightful people and good scholars. I had a very good time in their company.

I had intended to go down to the Babel gathering, but was having such a good time with Jena, Francesca, Yvette, Chris, Michael Fletcher, David DiTucci, Beth Stollar, and others. We exchanged many views on many things and Babel somehow got along without me this year.

Saturday morning became an odd one. It was supposed to be a meeting of the board of the HA for breakfast. We met briefly in the lobby of Valley III and that was that. We were going to go to Maggie's. Maggie's was sadly closed. Bruce Gilchrist was going to join us. So it ended up being Michelle Ziegler, Bruce, and I and first we went to a "coffee shop" in town and I won't comment, and then off to Bob Evans, and a dash back for the first session. I went to the exhibit room for awhile and then ran through my paper a couple times.

After lunch in the company of Francesca, Jena, Lauren Doughty, it were time for my session, "Beowulf Against the Grain." Quite apart from my paper that I've already posted, the other two were really good. J. D. Thayer read on "Hwil Dages: A Mythological Reading of Beowulf and the Man" which was interesting and of course goes the opposite direction of much Beowulf criticism: to read the poem as myth rather than for history or language. The second paper was "Making Beowulf Scream: The Punctuation of Old English Poetry" by Eric Weiskott. I had concerns about this paper. Going in, it was an "Hoo boy" and all I could think of was discussions by Bruce Mitchell. But in the end, this was the best paper in the session, it was terrific, well argued, well delivered. If only I could be that good! Fantastic as a matter of fact.

I had intended to go to a session, but lo, and behold, my friend Melody Harris was at my session, and I hadn't seen Mel in some time. So we went for coffee and caught up with one another, lives, careers, research, etc. Then off to wine hour!! Michael Fletcher had a large group together and they included m kindly in the group. Before going out, Michael thankfully wanted to stop by the Boethius Society reception...good call! There I was able to catch up a bit with Paul Szarmach and Rhonda McDaniel. We went down to a tapas place across from Old Penn. It used to be a French place, then a pizza place...and now this place was FANTASTIC. I would so spend money there again! Wish I could remember the name.

Dinner was fabulous. I met Cedric Briand at last, and we all talked, laughed, and shared plates of food. T'were grand.

Then it was off to the dance....and I danced. And overall a good time was had by many. I still miss the old days, but ah well. Lack of self policing solved that.

Well, believe it or not the next morning dawned. I always intend to go the morning sessions. In recent years, it hasn't happened. Mostly because I have to say Sunday is my chief book time. I spent more time in the book exhibits and finally got to the end at Powells. T'were a sad affair. I think I only bought six books this year. Of course, my budget doesn't extend as far at Curt Emanuel's, whose time to read I also envy! Still, I found this year's exhibit disappointing overall.

So there it is. My 2011 Congress.