CLST 389-01W / CATH 300-01W / HIST 300B-02W / MSTU 398-01W Classical Backgrounds: Augustine - Writing Intensive Fall Semester 2008

Our work will pursue four main aims (plus the fifth, of having fun with all of them):

• Acquiring historical knowledge, to master the chronology of Augustine's biography and to know the signal events, people, institutions, and productions that shaped his world.
• Thinking critically, to analyze selected texts written by Augustine in the light of other relevant evidence, so as to understand the social, religious, intellectual, and communicative resources with which Augustine responded to events and social forces.
• Researching and reasoning across diverse cultural backgrounds from the present to the later Roman empire, to identify distinctive patterns of thought and behavior, investigate Augustines's concerns, and assess their contemporary and lasting significance.
• Communicating thoughtfully and effectively, to participate in the process of historical inquiry and formation of knowledge.

• Augustine, Sermons: Various Newly Discovered, tr. Edmund Hill (New City Press 2000)
• Augustine, Letters, vol. 6, tr. Robert B. Eno (Catholic University of America Press 1995)
• Augustine, On Christian Teaching, tr. R. P. H. Green (Oxford University Press 2008)
• Augustine, Confessions, tr. Henry Chadwick (Oxford University Press 1998)
• Augustine, City of God Against the Pagans, tr. Robert Dyson (Cambridge University Press 1998)
• Garry Wills, Saint Augustine (Penguin Group Incorporated 2005)
• William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th edn. (Longman); the 1st edn. (1918) is available on-line from bartleby.com
• Additional resources in photocopy and on the Internet

Writing

• Guide to Writing Academic Papers: Dr. Long's strategic checklist.
• Guide to Beginning Research on Topics in Classical Studies: suggestions and resources.
• Loyola Writing Program's Statement of Grading Standards. As you can see, Harvard University's Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning recommends to instructors a similar set of policies for Grading Papers - the document offers extremely useful insight to instructors' objectives for student writing.
• 1st edn. (1918) of William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style: print editions have been updated, but the original still represents the standard American guide to good writing
• How to use apostrophes, or else.
• The the impotence of proofreading by Taylor Mali.

• Augustine's web-page: nerve-center for teaching and research on Augustine on the Internet, including articles, bibliographies, texts, commentaries, images, records of an on-line seminar run in 1994 and 1995, and links to other off-site resources; edited by James J. O'Donnell, formerly of the University of Pennsylvania (where a mirror-site is still maintained), now Provost of Georgetown University
• Devotion and Dissent: the Practice of Christianity in Roman Africa, work in progress of the Interdisciplinary Working Group for the Study of Christianity in Roman Africa led by Prof. J. Patout Burns of the Vanderbilt Divinity School
• ORB - Late Antiquity: a division of the On-Line Reference Book for Medieval Studies focused on the period AD 284-632. A clearinghouse of on-line resources for the study of late antiquity, with links to other sites. Scholarly; edited and managed by Steven Muhlberger of Nipissing University.
• IAHS - Late Antiquity: part of the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, an index of on-line translations of primary sources, focused on "the end of antiquity" - some texts as early as the first and second centuries AD, but mostly third and fourth; the main site covers ancient history comprehensively. Scholarly compilation for teaching purposes, relying principally on older translations in the public domain; edited by Paul Hallsall, then of Fordham University where the Sourcebook is maintained, now of the University of North Florida.
• IMS - the End of the Classical World: part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, an index of on-line translations of primary sources, a few texts as early as the second and third centuries AD, but mainly focused on the fourth and fifth; the main collection is the largest of on-line medieval texts. Scholarly; edited by Paul Hallsall, then of Fordham University where the Sourcebook is maintained, now of the University of North Florida.
• De Imperatoribus Romanis: an on-line encyclopedia of Roman emperors, including empresses, junior emperors, and ultimately non-successful claimants of imperial power - classical, later Roman, and Byzantine. Includes interlinked biographical articles with bibliography, imperial stemmata, the DIR/ORB Ancient and Medieval Atlas, and an index of select major battles. Scholarly, peer-edited; editorial boards currently under the presidency of Richard Weigel of Western Kentucky University (Classical through Later Roman Empire) and Lynda Garland of the University of New England, New South Wales (Byzantine).
• The Perseus Digital Library, an evolving digital library that originated with an extensive and still-growing center of resources for the study of the Classical world.
• Lacus Curtius, a staggeringly rich treasurehouse of on-line resources for Roman archaeology and topography (especially); compiled by Bill Thayer.

Revised 6 August 2008 by jlong1@luc.edu
http://www.luc.edu/classicalstudies/