The Medieval North Atlantic
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The Medieval North Atlantic |
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| Course Requirements | |
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There are a number of activities, in addition to your research schedule, which you are expected to complete fully and thoughtfully each week. 1) You are expected to have completed the reading in advance of each week's seminar. 2) You should be prepared to participate regularly in discussion, especially when your comments and questions might be of value to the research of your peers. 3) You must attempt to be a knowledgeable (but tactful!) critic of your peers' work. 4) Finally, all of these requirements presuppose weekly attendance.
During most of the term there will be weekly language exercises; these usually will consist of the translation of a highly-glossed Old Norse passage, the identification of the parts of speech and forms of Old Norse words, and the memorization of a handful of Old Norse grammatical structures. These exercises will be supplemented by some discussion during seminar time. The purpose of these exercises is to approach a closer understanding of the Viking World through some conversance with concepts and language from that world.
Each student will research one of a series of designated broad topics listed on the Assignment Schedule Page; this research will culminate in a Final Research Project of 4000-5000 words which must be submitted both as hardcopy and as an electronic document. The Final Research Project must engage scholarly sources (these should include history, archaeology, politics, religion, etc., as necessary and relevant) as well as several specific saga references relevant to that topic. The target audience for this work is an expert in the field, so the tone of the Final Research Project should be scholarly, authoritative, and as exhaustive as possible. The point is to illustrate that the student can complete a thorough and readable research project of significant substance.
The Final Research Project which you will assemble for this course will be similar to some you have written before; it will require wide reading, the gathering of sources and compilation of a bibliography, the annotation of that bibliography, the analysis and synthesis of information, and the composition of a cogent and persuasive argument. This project also may be unique in a few ways: It will be interdisciplinary, it will be public, and it will be permanent . The penultimate point is particularly important for a number of reasons, not least because it requires us to consider carefully our use of copyrighted material. Because this project is to be unique and complex in some ways, we will proceed in a number of stages, and it is important that we do not fall behind; it is therefore imperative that you read the Assignment Schedule carefully.
Your Final Research Project will be interdisciplinary in that you will have to engage a number of disciplines; one of these undoubtedly will be literature, but other disciplines are likely to be history, archaeology, religion, anthropology and law; economics and political science likewise offer possibilities. We will be discussing the possible research topics in the first few weeks of the term, and we will be reading a great deal of Norse history, literature, and mythology, as well as discussing the laws, the moral and ethical systems, and other social structures of the Vikings. Further, we will be contextualizing these broad themes by researching specific sites of archaeological, historical, and literary interest which form a part of our Medieval North Atlantic multimedia project. As you read and participate in class discussions, be thinking about how various disciplines intersect, and contemplate how your own academic and personal interests might help to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on this material. You might decide to look at the role of marriage in Norse domestic life, for example, relating historical observations concerning the strategic marriages of Jarls of Shetland and Orkney with a number of literary accounts such as the episode of Margaret in Orkneyinga Saga and the union of the god Njord and the giantess Skadi, and bringing all of this knowledge to bear on various homestead sites such as Jarlshof, or on the Broch of Mousa, where Margaret escaped after her elopement. Or you could trace the twin themes of vengeance and jurisprudence through a number of the sagas and the myths of the gods, comparing the literary record to the history of the period and to the Norse laws of compensation, linking them all to specific saga episodes such as those of Grettir, and noting the relevance of all of this information to a discussion of specific Assembly sites such as Thingvellir and Hegraness. Christian and pagan conflict is itself a topic which easily transcends disciplinary boundaries, especially in Viking Britain, and you might well ground such a discussion, for example, in such Norse myths as Ragnarok and Otter’s Ransom, images of both of which we may find carved upon Christian crosses on the Isle of Man. In any case, I think you get the picture.
As a part of developing a Final Research Project, each student will be responsible for compiling a Project Site Report of 2500 or more words on a specific Project Site related to that student’s particular Final Research Project topic. Students are expected to make relevant mention of several specific pertinent saga episodes, as well as to cite a number of scholarly sources. The existing Icelandic site narratives should point you in the right direction. While not an abbreviated version of the Final Research Project, it is to be expected that the Project Site Report will be closely related to the Final Research Project, and might comprise as much as a third of that Final Research Project. The target audience for this work is an informed non-specialist, so the tone of the Project Site Report should be serious, but not overly scholarly: The point is to give a visitor to that particular Project Site an overview of the most important information available regarding that site, as well as to offer direction regarding further relevant reading in both research works and the saga record.
Finally, each student will devise an Interactive Fiction (IF) Project of 2500 or more words involving a creative approach to that student’s Project Site. Each student is expected to collaborate with the other students whose Project Sites are located on the same island, as well as with those students whose Project Sites might be grouped under the same or similar categories. The point is to make as many connections as possible and to develop as coherent an overall IF Project as possible. The student should feel free to be creative and to have fun. While the IF project is, by its very nature, fiction, the student should incorporate as much factual detail about the site and relevant themes as possible, and several relevant saga references are also expected. The Instructor's sample IF Project should point you in the right direction. One might use Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” as a primer for a kind of engaging fiction dressed up with facts. The target audience for this work is a student in an upper-level high school or lower-level college survey course, so the tone of the IF Project should be light-hearted and fun. The student need not fear an overly harsh editorial hand, but should be reminded that under-age high school students, ancient parents and faculty members, and potential employers will have easy and permanent access to this work. The point is to engage the interest and incite the imagination of the visitor to that site, thereby informing them of actual pertinent information about the site and its connection with other sites, themes, and sagas in as transparent and entertaining a way as possible.
It is important to be aware of the public nature of this project. Access to this work will not be limited to our seminar, or even to Gettysburg College. By saying that this project is “public,” I mean that your work on this project, most probably unlike most research you have done before, will be available for any and all (with access to the internet) who would like to peruse it. This includes your family and friends, total strangers, experts in the field, school kids interested in what you can teach them, etc. This need not cause you undue anxiety, as it is unlikely that millions of people are anxiously awaiting the publication of our humble project; still, it is best to keep this fact in mind when you are crediting sources, when you are considering how clear your logic is, when you are gauging the persuasiveness of your argument, and when you are proofreading syntax and grammar. This project is public for a number of reasons, including your ability to include your efforts therein in your professional “electronic portfolio,” should you choose to do so. It is first and foremost a public document, however, so that it may be used as a teaching and reference tool. This project will be referenced, built upon, and emulated by future courses, at Gettysburg and at other institutions. It may be substantially modified. The instructor will present demonstrations of the project, in whatever form is most expedient, at professional conferences, and the instructor will use it in some future courses; other instructors may, as well. Please be aware that, while generally (unless a student should specifically request in writing to be anonymous, or unless the quality of a student's work requires intense revision by the instructor) each student will always be credited individually and by name for that student's specific contributions to the project, by participating in this project each student explicitly and irrevocably shares ownership and copyright of all materials submitted for this course and posted to this page with Christopher R. Fee and Gettysburg College.
Our discussion of the public nature of this document brings up a crucial legal and ethical issue concerning copyrighted material. While copyright law regarding electronic resources is still open to interpretation, it is strict and becomes more so all the time. Academic users of such resources are accorded a certain amount of latitude, but only so long as they conform strictly to the tenets of academic fair use. For the purposes of this project we define “fair use” thusly: No borrowed copyright material will be used for profit, and all borrowed copyright material will be credited to the copyright source; finally, all copyright material is borrowed only to further scholarly and educational purposes. The ONLY static images, videos, and panoramas used on this project we have compiled ourselves, and we own the copyright to them. The Interactive Fiction software we have used, Inform, specifically grants us the right to create and to disseminate materials as we see fit; ONLY original Interactive Fiction personally created by the instructor and by the students enrolled in this course may be used as a part of this project, however. You may of course cite scholarly sources in your work in accordance with Modern Language Association guidelines and Gettysburg College's Honor Code; you may not, however, borrow static or moving images, panoramas, animation, sound bites, or any other non-textual materials, and you may only borrow textual materials in the form of properly credited scholarly citations. A breach of this policy could possibly result in legal action. Furthermore, any act of omission concerning the full acknowledgement of all sources of concepts or phrasing, or indeed any material borrowed without proper acknowledgement from any source (copyrighted or not) could very likely constitute a breach of the Honor Code. It is always safer to over-cite than to under-cite. Give others credit for their work.
1) The Final Research Project, while not by any means the only graded component of the course, is the single most important piece of work. The Final Research Project is due on the Wednesday (Reading Day) of Finals Week: ONE (1) Printed paper copy AND ONE (1) electronic version (sent as an email attachment) are due in the grubby paws (and crowded in-box) of the instructor NO LATER than 6:30 PM on WEDNESDAY, December 12th, 2007.
2) The Project Site Report is the main scholarly way in which the student may collaborate in the multimedia Medieval North Atlantic project, and promises to provide a permanent, public record of the student's research work in this course. The first draft of the Project Site Report is due during Week 7, on the Wednesday after the October Reading Days: ONE (1) Printed paper copy AND ONE (1) electronic version (sent as an email attachment) are due in the grubby paws (and crowded in-box) of the instructor NO LATER than 6:30 PM on WEDNESDAY, October 10th, 2007. The final draft of the Project Site Report is due during Week 14, on the Wednesday after Thanksgiving: ONE (1) Printed paper copy AND ONE (1) electronic version (sent as an email attachment) are due in the grubby paws (and crowded in-box) of the instructor NO LATER than 6:30 PM on WEDNESDAY, November 28th, 2007.
3) The Interactive Fiction Project is the main creative way in which the student may collaborate in the multimedia Medieval North Atlantic project, and promises to provide a permanent, public record of the student's creative work in this course. The first draft of the Interactive Fiction Project is due during Week 12, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving: ONE (1) Printed paper copy AND ONE (1) electronic version (sent as an email attachment) are due in the grubby paws (and crowded in-box) of the instructor NO LATER than 6:30 PM on WEDNESDAY, November 14th, 2007. The final draft of the Interactive Fiction Project is due during Week 15, on the last day of class: ONE (1) Printed paper copy AND ONE (1) electronic version (sent as an email attachment) are due in the grubby paws (and crowded in-box) of the instructor NO LATER than 6:30 PM on WEDNESDAY, December 5th, 2007.
4) There will be a Final Exam in this course; it will be administered during finals week and will consist of three parts:
The Final Research Project will be worth approximately 35% of the final course grade.
The Project Site Report first draft will be worth approximately 10% of the final course grade.
The Project Site Report final draft will be worth approximately 15% of the final course grade.
The Interactive Fiction Project first draft will be worth approximately 10% of the final course grade.
The Interactive Fiction Project final draft will be worth approximately 10% of the final course grade.
The Final Exam will be worth approximately 10% of the final course grade.
Preparation, participation, and satisfactory completion of weekly reading and exercises will be worth approximately 10% of the final course grade.
Perfect attendance and prompt arrival is presupposed; failure in this regard would likely result in failure of the course.
While it is expected that, in general, each student will receive some form of publicly displayed recognition for any work of that student which appears in some recognizable form in the Medieval North Atlantic project, no such recognition will be awarded on C-, D+, D, D-, or F work. The student's name will be mentioned in the general acknowledgments for C, C+, B-, or B work, while the student will receive full and due recognition in the appropriate place in the project for B+, A-, A, or A+ work. These provisos are based on the assumptions that failing work is unlikely to be used on the project at all, and thus no recognition would be due, while middling work will require substantial editing, revising, and augmenting by the instructor before it is fit for use, and thus only some acknowledgment of collaboration is due. Very good and excellent work, on the other hand, will likely pass into the project with little modification, and thus will be fully acknowledged as the student's original work.
Every student must sign a copyright waiver before submitting work for a grade.
*ALL ASPECTS of this course must be completed in order to pass the course, regardless of the overall percentage earned.*
Syllabus and Schedule Subject to Change
Copyright 1999-2007 Gettysburg College and Christopher R. Fee