Project 5
Understanding Life and Religion in Ancient Greece
Learning Goal: Read and analyze historical documents within their social contexts and evaluate the role of the individual in ancient cultures
Literacy: Information
This exam discusses how civic life and the ancient Greek city were organized around religion and the relationship between civic and religious life. In addition to that, it also describes the evidence we have that allows us to understand religion in ancient Greece and the strengths and limitations of our evidence.
"Religious and civic life in ancient Greek were deeply intertwined, and the city was organized to demonstrate this relationship through the agora and city-wide religious festivals."
This assignment was the midterm exam for the Body and Soul in Ancient Greece course. In it, we were required to reflect on the importance of religion in Ancient Greece and the types of information we have to study it. I believe I was partially successful in this exam. If I were to redo it, I think that I would have wanted to make my responses longer. As a Classics major, I think this piece demonstrates my desire to learn about Greece on both a macro level and a micro level. In studying antiquity, we strive to learn about all aspects of life. This includes large social institutions like religion and smaller aspects of daily life.
However, as exemplified in the exam, there are many limitations on the information we can study with such a large spatial and time difference. Despite this, there are also many avenues with which we can and do study. While there is a large breadth of information that Classics can learn, it is still limited, and this class helped me think about the reaches and limitations of the field. I think that this helped me become more aware of Classics in that sense. Though Classics is field is easily explained as learning about the Greek and Roman worlds, I do think that there is more to Classics than being able to recite information about the ancient world. I think that this class and exam taught me more about how the field of Classics and how we can interpret information.