I am writing this note to let all my frequent readers and email subscribers know that my courses for this semester are set to begin on Monday, 23 August 2021 and they will last until mid-December. I will be taking some extremely difficult courses and I will almost certainly be extremely busy. I will try to continue posting as often as I can, but I will most likely not have enough time this semester to post anywhere close to as frequently as I have over the summer.
It is likely that I will only be able to post maybe one article each week at the very most and there will probably be some weeks when I will not have time to post anything at all. My articles may also need to be shorter because I won’t be able to spend as much time working on individual articles.
Reasons why I will be very busy this semester
I am about to begin a semester that will be full of unusually difficult classes. The classes that I am currently scheduled to take this semester are:
- CLAS-G 407 (“Greek Historians”), a class in which we will be reading the work of the Greek historian Xenophon in the original Attic Greek. The professor who will be teaching this class explicitly told me not to take it because the class is not an intermediary class, it is mainly intended for graduate students, it is extremely “fast-paced,” and students will be expected to read over a hundred lines of Greek for every class, in addition to extensive readings in secondary scholarship. He thinks that the volume and difficulty of the Greek we will be expected to read in the course will be way over my head and that I will not be able to handle it. Unfortunately, this is the only Greek class other than the four classes that make up the introductory sequence, all of which I have already taken, that IU will be offering this semester that will be open to undergraduates. It is also, alongside a similarly difficult class on Homer that will be offered in the spring, one of only two Greek classes other than the introductory sequence that IU will be offering to undergraduates all year. This means that I have no choice other than to take this class if I want to take any Greek classes beyond the introductory sequence before I graduate.
- HIST-K 392 (“Honors Seminar”), an honors research seminar that all undergraduate students who wish to graduate with honors in history are required to take during the fall semesters of their senior years
- HIST-H 605 (“Colloquium in Ancient History”), a graduate-level seminar on the ancient Greek historians Herodotos and Thoukydides. The course is normally only open to graduate students and undergraduates are not allowed to sign up, but I got special permission to take the class from both the professor who will be teaching it and the history department.
- CLAS-L 305 (“Ovid”), a Latin class in which we will be reading the ancient Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book Fourteen, in Latin
- CLAS-C 305 (“Ethnicity in Antiquity”), a class dealing with the topics of race, ethnicity, and nationality in the ancient Mediterranean world
In addition to taking all these classes, I will also be applying to probably six or seven different graduate programs in ancient history and I expect that preparing my applications will require a significant amount of time.
In addition to all the things I have mentioned here, there are also many other things going on my life that will make me extremely busy and stressed over the coming months.
I love writing articles and posting them on this blog, I love having people read my work, and I have no intention to stop posting altogether anytime soon. Nonetheless, I hope that my readers will be patient with me and understand that my classes need to come first.
Update: 23 August 2021
The professor who will be teaching CLAS-G 407 has advised me that, if I am going to take both CLAS-G 407 and HIST-H 605, I should drop one of my other classes so that I will be able to devote more time to those two classes in particular, since they are primarily meant for graduate students and will be more time-demanding than what I am accustomed to. I have therefore dropped CLAS-L 305 to give myself more time to devote to CLAS-G 407 and HIST-H 605.
Good luck! You’re right to put your studies first.
But please don’t give up the blog altogether, not only for your readers’ sake but also for your own. There is a real benefit to writing for pleasure, and to your own schedule, even if less frequently at times when life gets in the way.
And also: do consider reusing your university essays here, if that is permitted!
I don’t know the precise rules, but I don’t think that I am allowed to post the papers I write for my classes. I think that the university is concerned about people posting their essays online and other students copying them. I don’t really worry about people copying my blog posts, though, since I think my blog posts are, in general, so markedly different from anything that a university would assign a student to write that I think it would be very difficult for a student to adapt any of them into anything that they could turn in for credit.
good luck with your courses!
Thank you! I really appreciate your kind words.
Oh, Spence, we’re dying of grad school envy here. Of course studies come first! We’d love to hear your thoughts on Ovid later though, including recommended reading… And insights about the ethnicities course.
Also, what about the Persephone piece mentioned in the interview?
If we were local, I’d offer to help in any admin/gofor way possible.
I kind of got stuck with the Persephone piece after I realized how hard it was going to be to offer an adequate and well-researched response to Overly Sarcastic Productions’ video.
I have over a hundred articles saved that I’ve started writing, but haven’t finished. They’re all in various states of incompletion, with some of them being just a few paragraphs and some of them being nearly finished.
Wish ya the best of luck. Lord knows I wish I had that kind of devoutness with my work.
It’s great you are deepening your studies–of course that comes first! We can certainly be patient when the payoff will be excellent future blogs informed by all you learn.
Your articles are incredibly interesting and always so well-researched! Do what you need to do this semester, and rest assured your loyal readers will enjoy whatever you manage to post — no matter the frequency.
Studies have absolute priority…!
Best of luck with yours…!
The best of luck to you!
We’ll always be here to cheer for you!
good luck!
Sounds like your kind of semester! We will be happy with whatever you have time for – of course the academics have priority.
Congratulations on your academic achievements – and Thank You for sharing with us your curious and fascinating insights into the classical world. BTW, do you know of any K-12 “international” school in the Mediterranean basin that specializes in Greco-Roman studies? Thanks, and have a wonderful career.
Good for you for putting your own studies first! I’m especially interested in reading more about race, ethnicity, and nationality in the ancient world, so I’m hoping the class material sparks blog ideas for you.
I’m looking forward to read your future articles when you have more time and even more knowledge. I had a similar approach to studying, wanting to know more, so took graduate level classes, worked on a couple research assistants and teaching assistant jobs, went multiple times to the graduate level presentations at an university 70 miles away, worked on internship positions locally and internationally in varies fields to get hands on experience (which allowed me to finance myself without loans), went every semester to the dean to ask to take 3 hours beyond the maximum limit. That is an investment in oneself, that makes life later easier. Thank you for giving a glimpse what studying history involves, and for your many well researched and written articles:)
Good luck with your courses Spencer!
All the best! 🙂
I love your blog. Have a great semester. Your writing is so fascinating! Perhaps you will eventually write a book.
Thank you so much! I do hope that I will eventually be able to publish a book, but, for now, this blog is all I have. I will continue writing and publishing articles when I can, but, of course, I need to put my schoolwork ahead of everything else.