Web tech note–Cannot show or preview draft post in WordPress

Aside

Reply

A quick techincal point answering an issue some users of WordPress have raised. I had this problem (that the Preview button did not work with draft posts). It could be because your browser is not accepting cookies.

In my case it turned out that this problem was caused by Varnish reverse proxy server (probably because my Varnish config file was stripping all cookies: well not all, if you let it strip cookies on the admin or login pages, you cannot log into your site). If you want to use the Preview button in this case, it is simply a matter of bypassing Varnish by adding the port number of the backend to the URL. If you are not administering your own server, it is unlikely Varnish is installed, and the cookie is probably going missing for some oher reason!

An English View of the French Character

Posted on by
1

Some racially discriminatory thoughts about the French character follow! An American friend emailed from near Paris today to say “Tomorrow is our Independence Day 14 July, and I have a new feeling (of the heart) for France.” I suspect the Americans see the romance of France more readily, and the perfidy less readily, than the English. I am of course aware that perfidy is precisely the quality the French ascribe to the English, but that does not make them free of it!

France is indeed a wonderful country. The English tend to find the French have an infuriating quality, a combination of amour propre, a tendency to cheat at sport, and habit of seducing one’s wife while pretending they are just being friendly, and shrugging their shoulders with an unanswerably mendacious innocency. And yet on another level they have a gloriously civilized approach to life, to food, to sex, even to war, which leaves the English in the dust.

Americans en masse (perhaps not the minority of Americans who visit Europe frequently) turned on the French when they disagreed about foreign policy. French fries (‘chips’ to the British!) were renamed ‘freedom fries’, and the French renamed ‘cheese-eating surrender monkies.’ This recalled seventeenth century English views of the Welsh. Civil War pamphlets, in mock Welsh dialect, often equate the reluctance of the Welsh to fight with cowardice, and refer to their fondness for eating toasted cheese as if it was somehow connected. However, the English love-hate relationship with their neighbours is more chronic than that American flash of rage.

Does Anglicisation of global culture threaten the survival of the Gallic character? No doubt Sarkozy will make France as much like the Anglo-Saxon world as he can, but I doubt it. I rarely go to France and do not really know what is going on but the culture is sufficiently old and vigorous to have some life in it yet, I would have thought.

It does appear to me that the loss of French as the second language of choice in British schools, and the second language of choice for most adult students, (and perhaps as the language of choice for the European Union) makes French culture less visible. The teaching of languages in British schools is meaningless, beyond its symbolic value, but that is worth something: I seem to recall French was compulsory for all, we started at about eight years old with a native-speaker of French as teacher, and other languages were optional extras. But after eight years of near-daily French (and exam success), very few children could speak the handful of words required to communicate effectively with a Parisian waiter. I doubt if language teaching in English schools is much better now.

The deficiency of my own French was illustrated one day whan I was alone in a steak house at Victoria (London), and started talking to the young man at the next table. He said he was French. I told him in French that I thought the French were more civilised than the English. There was some confusion because he understood ‘siphilisé’, but I really had meant ‘civilisé’ So much for the hundreds of hours of French lessons I had undergone. There are many British, even English Francophiles, but our neighbours deserve more awareness.

Since my blog is mainly about Classics, if any classicist is still reading, I would be interested to hear what it is about French scholarship which is distinctive? There is something which makes the work and writing produced by the French different, but I cannot quite put my finger on what it is.

Free Digital Resources for Classicists, including the New Online Version of Liddell and Scott (LSJ)

Featured

Posted on by
1

Here are some quick notes on online resources, particularly from the perspective of someone in the UK who is outside the university system, and therefore looking for materials with free access.

In my last blog post I promised a piece about Raoul Schrott and his theory that both Homer, and Troy were located in Southern Turkey. However, I appear to have thrown away my notes on the Innsbruck University Symposium on the topic. In due course I will write something from memory, and whatever I can find. For now, the loss of my notes his led me on to want to write something about paperless resources in Classics: owning little and travelling a lot means I am heavily dependent on electronic resources. Without the Net my lifestyle would be impossible. It seemed worth sharing some thoughts about what is out there, and how to get hold of it for those who do not have institutional access (where that is possible at all).

Library access in the UK and electronic resources

It is true that I have access to libraries. Indeed, access to the British Library is all too democratic, since it is quite easy to get a reader’s card these days. That would be acceptable except that seats fill up, and there can interminable queues to collect books one has ordered. Once you are through the door of the reading rooms at the BL various electronic resources are open to you. In the case of certain expensive business and legal resources a member of staff has to put in a password for you. The same is true in the Bodleian (or was last time I visited). However, at UCL former students who obtain a library card are locked out of the computer system, which is annoying. However, libraries which offer off-site access to holders of readers’ cards are few.

Some UK public libraries are good for offsite access to press and certain reference works in English and modern languages. Just how good your library is, is a postcode lottery. Things are done differently in Germany: national licences for academic databases provide all German residents with a range of goodies beyond the dreams of any local UK public library. Howver the system is not particularly strong for Classics. Switzerland and Austria do not have this kind of arrangement, as far as I can discover. For everyone, regardless of residence, the London-based Wellcome Institute Library will give a card to anyone (in principle) and is rather generous with offline access to expensive resources. A pity they do not have better coverage of Classics! Their interpretatin of their field (history of medicine) is fairly broad: on that basis, maybe they could and would acquire more Classics resources.

Primary and secondary texts for classicists

Perseus offer a good range of texts, albeit without apparatus, and not necessarily in the edition you would choose. There are other online texts. For example, computer scientist Sean Palmer (whose website attests an astonishing range of interests) has attempted to provide a relatively up-to-date and complete text of Sappho online, with translations. Wikisource is in the process of publishing online Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (RE) but it is at an early stage.

Epigraphy, papyrology, and manuscripts

There are several databases for epigraphy. They are somewhat impenetrable to the non-epigrapher, partly because of the patchy coverage which is nowhere explained in an accessible manner. However, epigraphy in general is like that. There are several lists on the Net of what is available, but none of them hold your hand and lead you through it. I wanted to read graffiti from Pompeii. Ultimately it appears that the relevant volume of CIL is not digitised, free or otherwise. There is some material on Epigraphic Database Roma (which temptingly has links for versions of the site in languages other than Italian, none of which are live). The material which is there has little more than the bare text. It appears that these database are there to lead the electronic searcher to the correct volume, rather than to replace having a good library to hand. Other epigraphic databases apparently offer images supplementary to the material in the book version.

The situation with Greek papyrology is very much better. papyri.info contains in some cases the kind of material one would expect in a published book. It is not merely ancillary to the book format: the website even invites suggested emendations of texts, to enable collaborative editing. And it is free.

It is fun to have digital images of a number of ancient manuscripts in minuscule offered by several libraries, notably for Classics the Greek manuscripts online from the British Library. A search brings up three works by Pseudo-Nonnus: I am not sure who is going to sit down and read them (though it tells you something about the importance of Nonnus!). Some of the images are no doubt useful for practicing one’s manuscript-reading skills, and useful if you happen to be working on a text which is included.

Downloading and breach of copyright

I won’t go into what may or may not be available for download, possibly breaching copyright. Somehow I feel that students should not have breach copyright in order to get hold of books. I feel electronic resources should be accessible. Why? When UK university courses are set to become a privilege for the modestly wealthy, why should electronic resources not be similarly restricted to the well off? Arguments would be easy to find, but (for me) convictions are less easy to find. Google Books appears to breach copyright with effective impunity, and I have no difficulty in recommending Google Books, not only as a source for old and out of print works on Classics (though it is great for that). The rules are different for a multi-national corporation, and we must all be grateful to Google.

Dictionaries for classicists

The free TLG search program Diogenes now comes bundled with the Perseus versions of Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary, and Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon for offline use. A pity there is nothing similar for Oxford Latin Dictionary: a paid version was promised by Libronix-Logos but does not seem to have appeared.

The new LSJ from TLG

 
I would particularly commended the new online version of Liddell and Scott (LSJ), which appeared earlier this year on the website of Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG). It is said to be corrected, unlike the Perseus version. There is a brief history of the TLG version of LSJ on the TLG website. It brings up the context of each quotation from the TLG database, even for non-subscribers. The ability to search definition text may also be useful, particularly to writers of Greek verse and prose (though I daresay most academics have better things to with their time than write verse like Sophocles, as schoolteachers of yore did).

Miscellaneous materials

This is a fast moving field. There are projects which will render this post obsolete fairly soon, I hope. I have not attempted to cover archaeological materials, or non-Greek and Roman materials. The Stoa Consortium website is a good place to look for links for more Greek and Roman-related websites. It was there I found the Online Suda, which I have not used yet, but no doubt will be using.

For more systematic coverage of what is available on the Net, turn to the Intute Classics page. This is an admirable resource, although according their website JISC has withdrawn funding, and it will not be kept up to date. In Germany (as noted above) the state just gets on and does what is required, quietly. The rhetoric of ‘Digital Britain,’ on the other hand, (like the rhetoric of ‘Education, Education, Education!’ before it), is like a snow storm, whereas the un-thought-through consequences of decisions which seemed good at the time will be like an Iliad. (My future post on rising university fees in England is still embryonic!).

There is a wider question about why any academic monograph should have to appear in a very expensive hardback, when it might suit universities and library budgets better to provide a version for electronic book readers such as Kindle. That will come, no doubt. Those outside the university system, like the scholars and readers formerly behind the Iron curtain, and in other under-funded places, must enjoy what is available. The offering is pretty good.

Scholarship & Imagination: Should a Classics Curriculum include Visiting Greece and Rome?

Posted on by
1

In the many years I spent as a student of Classics, it was rare to hear a teacher suggest visiting the countries we studied, unless to look at a manuscript, a piece of art, or a dig.

I was set to thinking about this by Mary Beard’s latest blog post: “The daughter is in Rumbek in Southern Sudan. She is doing her PhD research and learning Dinka.” (The rest of the post is here.) Going to Southern Sudan for a student studying some aspect of contemporary Southern Sudan is no doubt encouraged, if not a prerequisite of university life. Going to Italy to study ancient Roman poetry or politics is not.

This kind of travel gives the student of Classics stimulation for the imagination. Imagination is difficult to evaluate, and may be intellectually misleading. It is not formally valued in a university world which, however creative and flexible, is committed to intellectual rigour. The loss in empathic understanding of the subject is great.

One of my ‘eureka moments’ in ‘understanding’ (imagining and having a sense for the reality of) ancient Italy, was sitting in the Arena at Verona, in the interval of a show (La Boehme, probably), and hearing the young water-seller make his way up and down the rows of stone steps shouting ‘*Acqua! Acqua!’

Arena at Verona

The Arena at Verona: probably not very different 1,980 years ago

(The above image is linked from the official site of the Arena.) It immediately took me back, I imagined, to a gladiatorial show of the first century AD, where a water seller, with similar look and behaviour (but no plastic bottles!) might have souted ‘Aqua! Aqua!.’ No real killing in Puccini though! The closest I came to making that real, in the imagination, was visiting the Corrida at Ronda: watch the adience go wild over a good kill, as the matador circulates the ring to accept applause, and is pelted with flowers.

Stimulating the imagination by travel as a tool for understanding the ancient world still has its place in modern literature. However, the university Classics system does not accommodate it well. And yet its value was surely well understood in the Rennaissance tradition, and represented by the Grand Tour. The reasons for this change are an interesting aspect of the history of scholarship. Examining the reasons for the decline of the Grand Tour (oddly, coinciding with the time when railways and steamers were beginning to make travel easier) is one route to understanding the loss of emphasis on developing imagination in modern university teaching. The German Wikipedia article on the Grand Tour attributes the decline of the Grand Tour in part to the retreat of aristocratic values after the French Revolution. A defining feature of aristocratic values is to be a ‘good all-rounder’ (to use a cricketing phrase). Literary skills, interpersonal skills, and intellectual ones, all count. The lack of emphasis on travel for Classics students reflects a narrower focus on intellectual skills.

Should university Classics departments do more encourage student visits to Greece and Rome, even for students whose main interest is literature or language (not art or archeology)? Certainly. Why? To stimulate the imagination. And how can this be measured? There are several ways to answer that. Not everything of value a student does at university will be measured. But the imagination drives intellectual application and intellectual creativity, and these are already measured. Beyond that, perhaps it is time to offer formal recognition to, and evaluation of, ‘creative writing’ which Classics students produce on their subject. The literary output of a Renaissance scholar might have been regarded as of central importance by his contemporaries. The literary output of a modern scholar, if it is exists, tends to be regarded as peripheral. That perception is ripe for change, and when it does change, the value of student visits to the landscape of the ancient poets and politicians they study will be obvious, and will flourish.

In a future post I will write about Raoul Schrott, who did precisely that: combined his literary imagination with some scholarship to re-locate the author of the Iliad to locations now in south-eastern Turkey. This caused such a stir in the German-speaking press that the academic community did him the honour of a conference to discuss his ideas. The conference attracted some very big names who explained why his ideas were wrong. In replying, very much alone in his views, Schrott called on the role of his literary imagination in re-interpreting the Iliad (of which he had published a verse translation). The academics were respectful in trashing his historical ideas. None engaged with, or probably even understand, his attempts to justify his work on the basis of its value for the creative poetic imagination. They saw that he was technically wrong but failed to see that culturally he may be ahead of his time.

Yay! It’s Greek Prose Composition Month!

Posted on by
Reply

Some universities fear that students will be deterred from taking Classics if syllabuses are loaded with demanding language courses. There are signs that the opposite is the case.

I slowed down with Sidgwick [Introduction to Greek Prose Composition] because I found that even devoting four hours a day I wasn’t able to produce quality translations.

This is from Textkit, a website with a library and discussion board http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/ for amateur students of Greek and Latin. The schedule for the participators in Prose Composition Month (still ongoing) looks gruelling, and the thread has gone a little quiet.

The standard of Greek (where it is posted) is varied, to put it politely (often quite bad, but what do you expect! So were my first attempts at Greek prose). Any professional who is tempted to joke about the blind leading the blind might first go and lend a hand: the level of enthusiasm and effort somehow deserves reward.

That site is American. Here in the UK we have an active discussion board entirely in Latin http://schola.ning.com/ . Its Greek counterpart appears to has fizzled, but that Latin board is continued by enthusiasts, many self-taught, who write Latin which is often grammatical, if rarely classical (and why should it be?).

These sites are moderately large. Whatever you make of the huge membership at Textkit, there is no escaping the impressive number of Facebook likes: this is a site with a significant Internet presence. Hit the Sodales button on Schola, and (as of today) there are 1,843 members. Considering that the signup process, and every contribution must be exclusively in Latin, this too is impressive

Against this blossoming of enthusiasm for Classical languages, university deparments appear to be continuing a long and gradual move away from langauge teaching in Classics. The latest Bulletin of the Council of University Classics Deparments shows a shift of the balance of UK students on language-based and non-language-based Classics courses in favour of the latter. Overall numbers are not growing, but this shift is no doubt perceived as contributing to the ability of Classics deparments to attract applicants.

To me as an onlooker, it looks as though there is a legitimate side to the trend, and an illegitimate one. There are good arguments for broadening the syllabus. It is as likely to make Classics a better subject as the converse. The illegitimate side is the tendency to think that difficult subjects will discourage students from applying for, and completing degree courses. ‘Dumbing down.’

I happen to think that a Classics degree (or a degree in Egyptology, or Bible studies, or German culture, and so on) with no relevant language component is a mistake. Reducing the language component, even if that is done to attract students, is understandable. There is, let’s face it, a market in students.

But why the mismatch between the aims and enthusiasm of these dedicated autodidacts on the one hand, and on the other, the perception university Classics teachers have of student expectations, particularly outside the most prestigous universities? I know someone who, while an IT manager (first degree: Physics), said she enjoyed the long commute to work as it gave her a chance to construe Vergil.

There is surely a gap between the real demand for ‘old-fashioned,’ even dying linguistic skills which Greek and Latin composition represent, and may help cultivate: and the supply of more ‘modern’ approaches to the subject which Classics deparments assume prospective students will respond to. I do not fancy the problem or the solution is easy. And by running summer schools in languages, universities are engaging with the demand for language teaching in the wider world. But there are signs that what the public (including prospective students) really (and potentially) want from university Classics deparments might not be what we imagine.

Rising university fees will change student expecations in favour of courses which are percieved as harder. I will blog about this in a future post.