In a wordprocessed or typed essay, discuss how specific works (art, music, and every assigned reading in literature) in ancient Indian, Greek, Hebrew, and Roman culture portray the relationship of the human to the divine or supernatural. (Some works might exemplify the absence of thought about or connection with the divine or supernatural, and that could be indicated and discussed.)

        (1.1) The wordprocessed or typed essay should be double-spaced, with a font of 10 to 12 (11 or 12 in Times Roman; size 10, in Courier New; size 11 in Calibri); (1.2) should use MLA, APA, or University of Chicago (Turabian) format; and (1.3) should run a minimum of two pages for each main unit of the syllabus (4 units = 8 pages; it may run longer), probably requiring greater length for literature in each section. Be sure (1.4) your name and page number are on every sheet of your essay, as per MLA, APA, or University of Chicago (Turabian) format, and that (1.5) the essay is stapled in the upper lefthand corner. (1.6) Do not use a separate title page or a special cover or folder. (1.7) No works cited page is needed if only the required textbooks for the course are used. (1.8) Be sure to print out and study the portion of a sample Interdisciplinary Test that is posted on the Prinsky Humn. 2001 webpage, along with these instructions.

        (2.1) Make three copies of the essay, one for each professor. (2.2) Put a copy in each professor's mailbox (Allgood Hall, second floor, East Wing, Languages-Literature-Communication office -- or E-238 -- for the literature professor; the Fine Arts mailroom for the music professor, and Washington Hall Art Department for the Art professor). (2.3a) The due date is Friday, 10/9/09, by 4:30 p.m. when the departmental offices close. A penalty may be assessed by each professor for tests turned in late. (2.3b) Do not send papers by e-mail, unless specifically stated as acceptable in class by the Art or Music instructor. Documents fail to open; the English and Foreign Languages Department is in a perpetual budgetary crisis regarding inkjet paper and inkjet cartridges; the Art and Music professors sometimes don't have as easy access to school equipment, and will be in most cases grading many more Interdisciplinary tests than the literature professors.  Therefore, print out three copies of your paper, and take special care to make sure that the paper is placed in the correct departmental mailbox or slid under the correct office door.

        (2.4) In addition, the essay:

* should use only relevant specific examples from all assigned reading in the textbooks; for the literature component, that means specific examples from each part of every assigned literary work (Bhagavad Gita, Homer's Odyssey, Sophocles' Oedipus the King, assigned selections from the Hebrew Bible, Vergil's Aeneid), as well as the assigned introductions to the literary works; to prove that the assigned reading has been done, examples should come from the beginning, middle, and end of the literary work, not just from the beginning, nor just from passages discussed in lecture

* should use only relevant material from lecture (as well as any printed study and learning material from the professor -- e.g., the Prinsky Notes and Questions as well as Prinsky Tests)

* should group material about art, music, and literature together about each national culture (e.g., a paragraph or group of paragraphs grouping discussion about the assigned topic -- in literature, art, and music -- as applied to the culture of ancient India; a paragraph or group of paragraphs grouping discussion about the assigned topic -- in literature, art, and music -- as applied to the culture of ancient Greece. Do not write several pages separately about the art in all of the cultures covered, then several pages separately about the music in all of the cultures covered, and then several pages separately about the literature in all of the cultures covered.

* should follow the partial model of an Interdisciplinary Test, which is posted on the Prinsky website, along with this directions document

* should immediately after citing any detail explain how the detail shows or implies something about the relation between the human and divine (or supernatural)

        (3.1) Use only relevant material for your essay, not everything that happens in the literary works, or every detail of the NAWM introductions, or every detail of lecture. For example, putting in the detail of the exact geographical location of Homer's birthplace in Greece would be an irrelevant detail. (3.2) Further, take care to explain how every specific example or detail shows or supports what you say it does.

        (4.1) When you take material from the textbooks, if this material is word-for-word or close to word-for-word, then quotation marks must be used, plus an explicit crediting in the essay to the expert source. (4.2) When details or points are taken from the editors in NAWM, the authors of the art or music textbooks, or lecture, then explicit crediting of these sources is needed within the essay (such crediting may be an informal phrase like "as pointed out by Knox and Clinton in NAWM" [which editors are responsible for which sections of NAWM can be found on the page following the flyleaf page in NAWM]). Do not take too much material nearly word for word or only slightly paraphrased from the required textbooks. Review what is said about plagiarism in the composition handbook required for Engl. 1101 at ASU or wherever Engl. 101 was taken. (4.3) Keep the discussion of the literature, visual arts, and music components together for each culture covered by the interdisciplinary test (e.g., one section should be on ancient India and should have its literature, visual arts, and music components grouped together).
 

Additional Notes for the Visual Arts Component of the Paper

    (5.1) As with examples from literature or music, show specifically how works of visual art relate to the point the student is making in response to the essay question. (5.2) Actual titles of visual artworks should be used, and artists should be credited when known (e.g., Myron's Discus Thrower, Polykleitos' Spear Bearer -- not "That One Spear Holding Guy"!). (5.3) Students are expected to know material from lecture, assigned readings, and the assigned videos. (5.4) Students should go beyond mere description (e.g., "the statue is black Northosite gneiss, 5' 6" tall, partly nude and partly clothed") and link specific artistic traits to larger cultural concepts (e.g., "the dignity, calm, permanence, and large size of the Menkaura and a Queen Graywacke stone sculpture suggest the Egyptians' view of the Pharaoh as having these virtues and also the idea, through idealization and the fixity of the postures, that the statue and what it portrays were meant to proceed into the eternity of the afterlife and realm of the gods"). (5.5) Students should know terms listed on the art portion of the combined Humanities 2001 syllabus and be able to use them appropriately in the essay. (5.6) Students should be sure that they are answering the question asked on the interdisciplinary test rather than just writing down a list of facts in their notes or from the book. The interdisciplinary test asks that students take the factual information learned and use it in analysis of religious outlook. (5.7) Every visual artwork covered in class need not be discussed, but specific visual artworks relevant to the cultural analysis sought by the interdisciplinary test should be used.
 

Additional Notes for the Music Component of the Paper

    (6.1) Students should focus on each culture's concept of music, as well as each culture's use of music, and how it relates (or doesn't relate) to the culture's or society's view of the religious, spiritual, and interrelation between humanity and the divine or spiritual. (6.2) All cultures covered by the syllabus up to this point should be discussed, based on information from lectures and assigned readings (particularly the Shotwell supplement). (6.3) Students should go beyond mere description (e.g., "actual orchestras -- composed of seven harps and seven flutes -- were used to support the singer in ancient Egyptian music") and link views or concepts of music to the larger cultural religious concepts (e.g., "on Egyptian reliefs and wall paintings, music is mostly connected with those scenes from the lives of the great that the artists depicted in order to facilitate, indeed to enforce, bliss and pleasure in a future existence of the dead in the realm of the gods"). (6.4) Students should not get bogged down with the history and specific dates or terms mentioned in the supplemental text but should only use such details in brief examples that are explicitly connected to the assigned topic (what relationship is suggested between human and divine or spiritual). Students should answer the question asked rather than just writing down a list of facts from lecture notes or the book. This interdisciplinary test asks that students take the factual information and use it in analysis of religious outlook.