(no subject)
For those of you who don't already know, starting on Monday I'm going to be embarking on the 10-week Latin Institute at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. It's a famous program that aims to inculcate 2.5 years (6 semesters) of college level Latin into one's brain (or more likely, one's soul) over the summer. For anybody unfamiliar with the program, it's headed by Rita Fleischer, the author of the renowned Moreland & Fleischer's Intensive Latin textbook (in nerd society, this is a VERY cool thing!). The first five weeks are spent on mastering basic forms, and then the course moves on to covering a huge amount of unadapted Latin Literature:
Classical Prose: Cicero and Sallust. A close translation and comparative examination of the syntax, style, and rhetoric of Cicero's complete First Oration Against Catiline and of selections from Sallust's The Conspiracy of Catiline.
Augustan Epic: Vergil. Book IV of the Aeneid is read in its entirety with a view toward an appreciation of Vergilian style and poetic technique.
Survey of Latin Literature. Lectures and discussions on the development of Latin prose and poetry from Livius Andronicus through the Silver Age and into the medieval period and the Renaissance. Representative passages are translated and analyzed.
Classical Lyric Poetry. Selections from the four books of Horace's Odes are read and analyzed in terms of themes, language, and metrics.
At the end there are some two-week elective courses ranging from Tacitus, Livy, Vergil's Eclogues, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, Petronius' Satyricon, Roman Elegy of Ovid, Tibullus, etc.
As somebody who spends every moment of his free time fooling around with languages, I am ecstatic. Even the most intensive language courses I've taken in Japan and at NYU have failed to push me as hard as I've wanted. This program is something that will satisfy my linguistic cravings. Since December of 2003 I've fiddled around with Wheelock's Latin during the re-donk-ulously short amount of free time I've found myself with, but now I can finally clear my entire summer to devote to this. I will be spending 10+ hours per day breathing, eating, sleeping, and living in Latin. Score. It sounds like the closest thing to a foreign exchange program to Classical Rome.
I'm rather elated about my Japanese courses this fall as well. I'm particularly pleased that at this rate I'll have the opportunity to get started on graduate level Japanese literature courses as an undergraduate, as well as perhaps take advantage of the Nagoya University exchange program NYU has. If I pass the JLPT 2-kyuu test this winter, I'll be set for taking courses in native Japanese if I go to 名古屋大.
Ahh, what a nerdy ranting. Twas much needed, however. Tonight I finished teaching my last EFL class in Chinatown before the start of the summer. My students seemed really sad that I'll be unable to finish out the term with them and teach over the summer. But if I find myself with enough time in the Fall, I plan on going back to teach (in which case maybe they'll freaking hire me as a real Americorps member so I can receive money for the two classes I teach voluntarily!). If not, I'm sure I'll be back next Winter or Spring.
Anyhow, I should probably go sleep. Ciao.
Classical Prose: Cicero and Sallust. A close translation and comparative examination of the syntax, style, and rhetoric of Cicero's complete First Oration Against Catiline and of selections from Sallust's The Conspiracy of Catiline.
Augustan Epic: Vergil. Book IV of the Aeneid is read in its entirety with a view toward an appreciation of Vergilian style and poetic technique.
Survey of Latin Literature. Lectures and discussions on the development of Latin prose and poetry from Livius Andronicus through the Silver Age and into the medieval period and the Renaissance. Representative passages are translated and analyzed.
Classical Lyric Poetry. Selections from the four books of Horace's Odes are read and analyzed in terms of themes, language, and metrics.
At the end there are some two-week elective courses ranging from Tacitus, Livy, Vergil's Eclogues, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, Petronius' Satyricon, Roman Elegy of Ovid, Tibullus, etc.
As somebody who spends every moment of his free time fooling around with languages, I am ecstatic. Even the most intensive language courses I've taken in Japan and at NYU have failed to push me as hard as I've wanted. This program is something that will satisfy my linguistic cravings. Since December of 2003 I've fiddled around with Wheelock's Latin during the re-donk-ulously short amount of free time I've found myself with, but now I can finally clear my entire summer to devote to this. I will be spending 10+ hours per day breathing, eating, sleeping, and living in Latin. Score. It sounds like the closest thing to a foreign exchange program to Classical Rome.
I'm rather elated about my Japanese courses this fall as well. I'm particularly pleased that at this rate I'll have the opportunity to get started on graduate level Japanese literature courses as an undergraduate, as well as perhaps take advantage of the Nagoya University exchange program NYU has. If I pass the JLPT 2-kyuu test this winter, I'll be set for taking courses in native Japanese if I go to 名古屋大.
Ahh, what a nerdy ranting. Twas much needed, however. Tonight I finished teaching my last EFL class in Chinatown before the start of the summer. My students seemed really sad that I'll be unable to finish out the term with them and teach over the summer. But if I find myself with enough time in the Fall, I plan on going back to teach (in which case maybe they'll freaking hire me as a real Americorps member so I can receive money for the two classes I teach voluntarily!). If not, I'm sure I'll be back next Winter or Spring.
Anyhow, I should probably go sleep. Ciao.