Reflection Project

Depending on the final grade you’re aiming for this semester, you’ll need to complete, revise, and give feedback on up to two Reflection Projects. A Reflection Project consists of three components:

  • The project itself, which you’ll share with your whole class Family and with Prof. Farmer (the page you’re on)
  • Feedback on the projects, which you’ll give and receive from two other classmates (instructions here)
  • Revisions to the project, which you’ll complete in response to that feedback (instructions here)

Project Options

You have three options for completing a Reflection Project. If you are planning to do two Reflection Projects, YOU MUST CHOOSE DIFFERENT OPTIONS from the following list:

  • Reception Project: Identify a work of post-classical reception of a Greek myth and analyze it.
  • Research Project: Read works of contemporary scholarship on Greek mythological texts and analyze them.
  • Artistic Project: Produce an artistic work that responds to Greek myth, and write a short essay about your approach.

Instructions

Reception Project

A reception project will take the form of a 900-1200 (3-4 double-spaced page) essay in which you identify an instance of classical reception and provide your own interpretation of it. Below are the steps to take to complete a Reception Project.

First, identify an instance of the reception of Greek myth. This means a retelling of a Greek myth produced outside of ancient Greece, at any time between then and the present day.

  • Reception can take place in any medium: poetry, novels, plays, or other texts; paintings, sculptures, or other visual arts; film and video are important categories. It doesn’t have to be “high art”: pop culture receptions in graphic novels, musicals, web cartoons, and video games are all valid.
  • Reception can be obvious and clearly identify itself – like Madeline Miller’s Circe – or it can be subtle but still important – like Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Acts of reception might engage with specific ancient texts, like the performances of the Medea Project, or they might incorporate ideas from different sources about Greek culture, like BTS’ Dionysus.
  • If you’re having trouble finding examples of reception, or you’re not sure whether something you’d like to write about consititutes an act of reception, just ask me!

Next, develop your own interpretation of this act of reception. Here are a few prompts to get you started:

  • What ancient myths, texts, or other products of Greek culture is your work of reception engaged with? How closely does it mirror or repeat or invoke those models? How overtly does it reveal its relationship to the Greek past?
  • How does your work of reception subvert its Greek models? Is it, for example, a feminist / queer / crip / Black retelling, or a retelling that centers or recenters some other aspect of human identity? Does it foreground characters or stories that weren’t being heard in the original?
  • How does engaging with your work of reception change the way you engage with the ancient sources of the myth? Do you read or understand them in a new way?
  • What does your work of reception achieve through its use of Greek myth that it might not be able to otherwise? Does it draw status or prestige from the myths? Weaponize them? Activate new emotions through them? Reject them?

Finally, compose an essay in which you reflect on your work of reception and the analysis you developed in response to the prompts above. Requirements:

  • Your essay must be 900-1200 words long. Do not go under or over the wordcount!
  • Write in clear, careful language. You don’t have to use the mannerisms of an academic journal article, but you should take care with your language to convey your ideas: read your work aloud, revise it, correct it, eliminate minor errors and stylistic infelicities. You’re going to show this essay to other students, and to me: make it something you’ll be proud of.
  • Upload your essay to your Family’s Google Drive folder before the start of class on your Family’s essay due date. See the course schedule for the list of deadlines.

Research Project

A research project will take the form of a 900-1200 (3-4 double-spaced page) essay in which you read 2-3 academic articles or chapters related to Greek mythology and analyze them. Here are the steps to take to complete a Research Project:

First, identify the ancient material you’d like to research. Academic classicists don’t tend to write about “myths” – they write about literary and material evidence from ancient Greece in which those myths are reflected in some way. Your first step in pursuing a research project, then, will be to identify specific primary evidence – ancient material – you’d like to investigate.

  • Perhaps the most obvious approach will be to identify a specific text you’d like to research. This could be one of the ancient texts we’re reading this semester (Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Euripides’ Medea), or another piece of mythologizing literature from ancient Greece: Hesiod’s Theogony, tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides, Apollonius’ Argonautica, and so forth.
  • Material evidence is more challenging to work with, but if you bring interest and expertise of your own, you are also welcome to center your project on things like vase paintings, sculptures, or architectural decorations that depict myths.
  • If you’re having trouble finding primary evidence to focus on, or you’re not sure whether something you’d like to write about counts, just ask me!

Next, locate and read 2-3 works of scholarship related to the primary evidence you’re investigating. These should be published, peer-reviewed, reputable works of scholarship – articles in academic journals, chapters in books from academic presses. Things you find online might be helpful to your search and your ideas, but unless you’re reading an academic publication, it’s not valid for the purposes of this assignment.

Start by making use of the colleges’ research resources. Consult the Classics Research Guide and/or the Classical Mythology Research Guide produced by our library staff. Even better, ask to meet with one of our research librarians: Margaret Schaus at Haverford, or Camilla MacKay or Laura Surtees at Bryn Mawr.

Try searching the author, title, or other key terms related to your evidence in the following bibliographical resources:

As you read your works of scholarship, take careful notes, keeping some of the following prompts in mind:

  • What is the central argument of the article? Is it persuasive? Are there more or less valuable aspects of it?
  • Do the authors of your articles seem to agree with one another? Are they explicitly or implicitly in dialogue with one another? Do they reach related or conflicting conclusions?
  • What did you learn from these articles? What surprised you? What confirmed what you already knew or thought?
  • How could you extend the work these scholars are doing? Could you apply their methods to new texts? Gather further evidence to support their claims? Improve or nuance their arguments in some way?

Finally, compose an essay in which you reflect on your works of scholarship and the analysis you developed in response to the prompts above. Requirements:

  • Your essay must be 900-1200 words long. Do not go under or over the wordcount!
  • Write in clear, careful language. You don’t have to use the mannerisms of an academic journal article, but you should take care with your language to convey your ideas: read your work aloud, revise it, correct it, eliminate minor errors and stylistic infelicities. You’re going to show this essay to other students, and to me: make it something you’ll be proud of.
  • Upload your essay to your Family’s Google Drive folder before the start of class on your Family’s essay due date. See the course schedule for the list of deadlines.

Artistic Project

An artistic project will require you to produce a creative work in a medium of your choosing, and then write a 600-900 word (2-3 double-spaced page) essay in which you identify your artistic models and sources of inspiration, and reflect on your creative process. Below are the steps to take to complete an Artistic Project.

First, decide on the medium you’d like to work in: fiction, poetry, drawing, cartooning, painting, ceramics, music / lyrics, video, textiles – any form you’re comfortable working in is valid. This is NOT the time to learn an entirely new artistic medium: if you’re an experienced knitter and want to knit something that responds to Greek myth, great! If you’ve always wanted to learn how to knit, by all means do so, but not for this project.

Next, identify your artistic models. These can be ancient works of art you’re responding to, or contemporary practitioners who inspire you. You do not need to limit your inspirations to the world of Greek myth: you are welcome to draw on sources of inspiration from any period or culture. You should explicitly identify at least 2-3 artistic works as specific models for your project.

Now you’re ready to develop the artistic work itself. Within your chosen medium, consider how you can engage with the world of Greek mythology. You might do this directly: fiction set in the world of the Greek heroes, a painting of a Greek god, a weaving depicting a scene from Greek myth. You might also do this indirectly: perhaps your fiction repeats themes from Greek myths in a contemporary setting, without explicitly involving mythological beings; perhaps your weaving is inspired by imagery from the Greek world, but depicts a contemporary scene. There isn’t a right answer to how your work should engage with Greek mythology, but there must be an answer.

You’ll need to produce some version of your artistic work to submit as part of this project, but it might not be the final, perfect version. If you’re working on something particularly time consuming (such as a large weaving project, a script for a play, or an oil painting), you should consider producing a prototype or sample: maybe a sketch for the painting with some color palette examples; maybe a scene from the play, with notes about the overall structure. You need to produce something substantial and meaningful for this project, but please don’t let it take over your life! As you work, consider how you’d like to document the project for submission in digital form.

Finally, write a short reflection (600-900 words) about your artistic work. Consider some of the following prompts:

  • Describe your artistic models. How did ancient and modern artistic works shape your approach? What aspects of these models inspired you? Are there aspects of your models you are resisting or subverting?
  • How does your work engage with Greek mythology? How does it depect or reflect Greek mythological characters, themes, stories? How does it reframe, reclaim, reinterpret those myths?
  • Who would you want to be the audience for your work? What would you want them to get out of it?
  • How did engaging with Greek mythology in this creative form expand your understanding of it beyond what traditional scholarly engagement could provide you?

Submission requirements:

  • Your essay must be 600-900 words long. Do not go under or over the wordcount!
  • Write in clear, careful language. You don’t have to use the mannerisms of an academic journal article, but you should take care with your language to convey your ideas: read your work aloud, revise it, correct it, eliminate minor errors and stylistic infelicities. You’re going to show this essay to other students, and to me: make it something you’ll be proud of.
  • Upload your essay along with documentation of your artistic work (e.g. photos or videos) to your Family’s Google Drive folder before the start of class on your Family’s essay due date. See the course schedule for the list of deadlines.