Module 2

Week 2            Neolithic period and Ancient civilizations.

(May 18-22)    Due:    Module 2, WW Prologue, Intro to Part 1, Ch 1 (First Peoples), 

                        Ch 2 (First Civilizations)

Sunday deadlines work better for all of you who stated a preference! Let’s make Sunday deadlines standard unless otherwise stated. From here on out, all work in a Module will be due at 11:00 pm on the Sunday.

For readability of your blog posts, please keep in mind that white fonts against light backgrounds or dark fonts against dark background are hard to read. Light fonts in general lead to more eye fatigue than dark fonts. You don’t need to rush out and change your blog’s background, but please do read your own blog periodically and consider whether your choices of color scheme are easy or hard on the eyes. You can also give each other feedback on this in your comments sections.

We have some great bloggers so far and a wide range of human experiences. You are a fascinating and inspiring group! It’s good to see everyone engaging with each other and getting to know each other dynamically even if we can’t have a dynamic in-person experience. Many of you have things in common, and some have already been able to help each other find references, clarify concepts and learn the material better.

The Timeline era you had most trouble with as a group was the Gaiac. No, I didn’t make it up – not quite. It’s simply a reference to the fact that the earth has its own history which contributes to our understanding of ourselves, and in that sense, it needs its own era on the timeline. But many of you did find that Gaia is a reference to Earth, or Mother Earth, some even see Marian symbology here. The Gaia hypothesis is that the earth and atmosphere form a self-regulating system that meets the definition of a living organism. Stephan Harding calls it an “animate earth.” 

If we put the timeline elements in order, they would begin with the Cosmic (the big bang and beginning of the universe and elements), the Gaiac (formation of the earth as a self-regulating system that is alive or capable of creating life), the Paleolithic (“old stone” technology), the Neolithic (“new stone” technology and also the beginnings of agriculture), the Ancient (development of civilization and writing), the Classical (the time of empires and the seminal thinkers whose ideas still define us as peoples), the Modern (perhaps also considered the European era), and the Ecozoic (when humans come to live in a relationship of mutuality with the non-human world).

This week, we will begin with the readings from our textbook. If you don’t have your paper copy yet, you can use the version I linked to in a previous email. You might find that the reading load is just too much to complete and in that case, if you are struggling with that, it’s OK to choose the segments of the chapter that you find most compelling – based on the section titles or perhaps on the images – and read those carefully, while reading the other segments in a less detailed manner. 

We could spend the entire semester exploring the life ways of Paleolithic peoples… so much of our way of being human originates from this era. Instead we’re going to move quickly, reading about the first three historical eras of the human past all in one week – the Paleolithic, the Neolithic and the Ancient. That’s a lot, and so our initial blogging about the chapters will be fairly straightforward. 

1) Your first assignment for this week is to do the reading, and write three blog entries about the readingfor this week. They should begin as follows:

One of them should begin: I found it interesting to read that…

A second one should begin: I was sad / disappointed / angry to read that…

And the third should begin: It was surprising to learn…

Your blog posts should show evidence of having done the reading, but also feel free to make them personal. You might find them easier to write that way.

2) This second assignment is easier to do in person, but I have faith in you guys… you can do it online. You’re going to call up your inner thespian and act out a very short segment of one of the great stories of the human record – the Epic of Gilgamesh. You can enlist the help of anyone you like… this includes other students if you’d like to collaborate somehow, it also includes members of your household with whom you might currently be sheltering-in-place. You can feature your dog if you like. You can also do a staged reading of the passage featuring only yourself if you prefer. How you present it is entirely up to you. You can use whatever platform you like – YouTube, Tik Tok… also entirely up to you as long as you can send it to me via file or link. I will send each of you the passage you should prepare, you record your reading/presentation of it, and send the recording to me.I’ll find a way to put them all together into one entertaining segment of this great story of the human past… the story of the shaggy beast Enkidu becoming a human.

Look for your passage in a separate email… this will probably come Monday evening. Meanwhile, you can get started on the reading.

That’s it for this week. Please let me know if you have any questions about what to do.

Patti Andrews