First Post - Many more to come

In archê, logos

This is the beginning of my on-line public notebook as I go through the process of researching and composing my senior thesis. The theory behind using a blog is threefold: one, it allows me to have an easily accessable, searchable, and secure "research notebook" where I can scribble down thoughts as they come to me whether I'm living in my sublet on Hamilton St., working in the Fishbowl, at home in Farmington, or anywhere else in the world. No pens. No notebooks. No fuss. Two, it is a public notebook, for friends, peers in my courses, and professors--anyone who has the patience to sit through my work, and provide more or less real-time feedback throughout the next year. Third, and perhaps the most important, by being public, there is some pressure for me to stay up-to-date and not let my studies flounder as I focus on work, friends, etc. I've witnessed enough of my friends procrastinate their theses until February of their graduating year, and I'm not eager to repeat that process. A preemptive-strike thank you to all who read and contribute to this blog--I look forward to witnessing how this will develop.

Onto the goal then: I hope to write my thesis on the production of some Euripidean fragments which rarely (if ever since their original, complete productions) have been attempted to be staged. At the moment, I don't know exactly where this will take me. There are numerous books on the production of Greek Tragedy: works by P. E. Easterling, Oliver Taplin, Ruth Scodel, etc., but I'd really like to be a trailblazed in uncharted territory. Professor Scodel has been helpful in proposing a few select fragments to consider, but I'm still in a quagmire of information with which I must first become familiar, and then make strides in a certain direction.

One direction has already been chosen, however: in the Fall, I will be teaching an Honors 135 one-crediut seminar to entering Honors students on the history and production of Greek Drama. The course will be, in part, a practical supplement or "humanities lab" to either Great Books 191 or Classical Civilization 101. First-year Honors students are required to enroll in one of those two courses, so I hope enrollment in my course will fill up. I hope to have the capstone experience of the course be a modest, yet thoughtful production of the fragments by the students, sometime in November or December.

For the moment, I plan on familiarizing myself with the classics of Greek drama as much as possible. I rented a production of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex from the public library this week, performed in the 1950's by the Stratford (Ontario) Festival... beautiful, stylized masks and costumes, and very flexible set. Seemed a bit bare-bones to me, but definitely not a bad production. I'll have to look into more productions (movie versions too) and perhaps pick a few for the mini-course to watch, either in part or in toto.

For now, off to enjoy a beautiful summer's day with some reading in the Arb. Until next post!