Selected Slides from Perfect, Beautiful Order
Full Presentation Here
__________________________________________________________
This project is my Magnum Opus.
That is quite dramatic, but I do truly feel that the stars aligned for me. I have been dreaming about finding a way to mesh my love of space and cosmos, and my love of Classics in a paper for nearly my entire college career and I have finally been given the opportunity to in my Capstone presentation and paper. This project came about through my 300-level Classics class titled “Materials, Making, and Meaning in the Ancient Mediterranean”. I was tasked with writing a research paper about any subject matter of my choosing as long as it related to material culture. My mind immediately went for the stars. At first, I struggled to find a piece of material culture that would encompass all that I wanted to talk about related to archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy. But I found what I needed in the Antikythera Mechanism, which is an amazing astronomical tool. Really, it is a portable cosmos which also happens to be our earliest record of complicated gearwork. The more I researched the device, the more I fell in love with it, wishing that I knew about it the previous summer when I had visited the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Because I was so interested in the topic, I felt so motivated to make it a great project, to the point where I think I ended up hindering myself. While this presentation went well, I was fueled by a desire to present it perfectly and I was frustrated that I felt it fell short in that regard.I do know I can get this presentation and project to the level it deserves and I will endeavor to do that as I have a bit more time to tweak.
This presentation exemplifies the following learning goals of the Skidmore College Classics Department:
- read critically and analyze closely literary texts and modern scholarship
- identify and assess selected artifacts and monuments within their cultural contexts
- conduct research by traditional and digital methods
- present orally and in written form an argument supported by primary and secondary sources
- develop multi- and cross-cultural perspectives and apply them to gender, ethnic, and social issues; and assess and present scholarship of a theoretical nature and apply theory to both primary and secondary sources.
It also reflects the following literacies:
- Visual
- Information
- Oral Communication
- Technology
Want more information about the reflection? Check out my final portfolio reflection!
