Final Projects, Sample Topics and Bibliographical Suggestions

Deadlines for Final Projects:

Statement of topic to me by email: Tuesday November 7

Projects due: Tuesday November 21, before the Thanksgiving break

The Final Project in this class is an opportunity to extend your knowledge of ancient sports and spectacle beyond the topics covered in class by investigating something that has caught your interest in depth. It can take the form of a traditional research paper, of a modest length (around 6 pages double-spaced) or it can be a more creative exploration in a non-traditional format. Or you can do a traditional piece of research but present it in a non-traditional format, like a web page or Powerpoint. But the format should make sense for the topic chosen.

Part of the assignment is the selection of topic. A good topic addresses a problem, an area of uncertainty, a part of ancient athletic culture which you find dificult to understand coming from the modern Western point of view, or has some other problematic aspect to it. It can be quite straightforward: for instance, how could pentathletes jump over 50 ft? is this a triple jump, or some other kind of multiple jump? Or it could be a large cultural question, like the status of women or the interaction of athletics and male autoerotic relations. Topics that aim simply to gather and present a lot of "information" on a subject are usually less successful.

If you explore a topic in a creative way, such as making a sculpture or a painting, it should also have a point to make, not just be a reproduction of an ancient work of art or a new imaginative creation. Models should bring out some aspect of the original that needs to be explained. All creative works must be accompanied by a short statement (a page or a paragraph) of their intent, i.e. what point you are trying to make. I am not an art teacher and can't judge things on their artistic merit, so I need guidance about what you are trying to accomplish.

It but you should check by email (not just a hurried word after class) with me about your topic choice in advance to make sure it is feasible. You may work in teams of up to three. Guidelines for format and citation, to which web pages must also conform, are at the end of this document.

Some possible topics are:

Celebrating athletes and victories in literature: the professional poet of athletes,Pindar, and others

Professionalism and its critics at Athens; athletics in general and its ancient critics

The full program and prizes at the Panathenaic festival at Athens

Officiating: who, were they paid, were they respected or hated, were they mostly ex- athletes or politicians or what?

the Roman beast hunts: where did the beasts come from? who hunted them and were they mostly convicted criminals like gladiators?

The buildings for athletics: stadia, hippodromes & circuses, amphitheaters

Role of the judges at Olympia

Women as athletes in the Roman Empire

The Heraia at Olympia

The modern Olympics: de Coubertin and other founders and the ideology of Victorian sport

how the modern Olympics have been used for political purposes: Hitler and the 1936 Olympics, Leni Riefenstahl film Olympia Mussolini and the (aborted) 1940 Olympics and Foro Italico in Rome

Particular sports: Compare a sport with its modern form and discuss the differences (use vase painting for ancient evidence, whatever you find for modern).

The Life of a gladiator: would you sell him life insurance?

The function of gladiatorial games at small towns like Pompeii

The Circus factions (Blues and Greens) in Rome

the authenticity of the chariot race in Ben Hur and the filming of the scene

FORMAT REQUIREMENTS

All sources for information and images must be credited. If you do a traditional research paper, use the usual footnote format (notes can be at the end or at the bottom of each page). For web pages, use citations either at the end or with hyperlinks functinging as footnotees. If unsure, use your common sense, but make sure that nothing that is not your own work goes unacknowledged.

General Bibliography

The Oxford Classical Dictionary.reliable general reference on all aspects of classical antiquity.

E. Norman Gardiner, Olympia, Its History and Remains. Clarendon Press, 1925. opinionated and dated.

E. Norman Gardiner, Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals. Macmillan 1910.

E. Norman Gardiner, Athletics of the Ancient World. Clarendon Press 1930.

M. I. Finley and H. W. Pleket, The Olympic Games: the First Thousand Years. Chatto & Windus 1976.

H. W. Pleket, "Games, Prizes and Ideology," Arena ( = Stadion) 1.1 (1976) 49-89.

David C. Young, The Olympic Myth of Greek Amateur Athletics. Chicago 1984. the key works on professionalism and rewards for athletes.

H. W. Pleket, "Olympic Benefactors," Zeitschrift fuer Papyrologie und Epigraphik 20 (1976) 11-20.

H. W. Pleket, "The Participants in the Olympic Games: Social Background and Mentality," in W. Coulson & H. Kyrieleis eds., Proceedings of an International Symposium on the Olympic Games. Athens 1992.

Ludwig Drees, Olympia: Gods, Artists and Athletes. Eng. trans. Pall Mall Press 1968.

C. Forbes, "Crime and Punishment in Greek Athletics," Classical Journal 47 (1952) 169-74. H. A. Harris, Greek Athletes and Athletics. Hutchinson 1964.

H. A. Harris, Greek Athletics and the Jews. Cardiff 1976.

H. A. Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome. London 1972.

L. Kurke, The Traffic in Praise. Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy. Ithaca 1991.

Donald Kyle, Athletics in Ancient Athens. Leiden 1987

D. Kyle, "The Panathenaic Games: Sacred and Civic Athletes," in J. Neils ed., Goddess and Polis: The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens. Princeton 1992.

M. Loenmer, "Women and sport in Ancient Greece," in J. Borms ed., Women and Sport. Basle 1981: 17-24.

H. Lee, "Did Women Compete against Men in Greek Athletic Festivals?" Nikephoros 1 (1988) 103-17.

M. McDonnell, "The Introduction of Athletic Nudity: Plato,Thucydides and theVases," Journal of Hellenic Studies 111 (1991) 182-93. S. G. Miller, Nemea. A Guide to the Site and Museum. Los Angeles 1990.

Vera Olivova, Sporta and Games in the Ancient World. London 1984.

Michael Poliakoff, "Jacob, Job, and other Wrestlers," Journal of Sport History 11.2 (1984) 48-55.

Michael Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World. Yale University Press 1987.

Wendy J. Raschke ed., The Archaeology of the Olympics. Univ. of Wisconsin Press 1988. excellent collection of essays.

R. S. Robinson, Sources for the the History of Greek Athletics. Urbana 1955, Chicago reprint. not easy to find.

D. Romano, Athlethics & Mathematics in Archaic Corinth: The Origins of the Greek Stadion. Philadelphia 1993.

D. Sansone, Greek Athletics and the Genesis of Sport. Los Angeles 1988.

R. T. Scanlon, Greek and Roman Athletics: A Bibliography. Chicago 1984. T. Scanlon, "The Iconograpy of the Ancient Female Runner," American J. of Archaeology 97 (1993) 403-22.

Erich Segal, "To win or die of shame: a taxonomy of values," Journal of Sport History 11.2 (1984) 25-31. Waldo E. Sweet, Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece. Oxford University Press 1987. has good bibliography.

N. Yalouris ed., The Eternal Olympics. New York 1979. Rome

J. K. Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games. London 1972 (Paris 1970).

J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome. New York 1960.

C. A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans. Princeton 1992.

A. D. Booth, "Roman Attitudes to Physical Education," Classical News & Views 19 (1975) 27-34.

W. Briggs, "Augustan Athletics and the Games of Aeneid V," Stadion 1.2 (1975) 267-83.

A. Cameron, Circus Factions. Oxford 1976.

L. Friedlaender, Roman Life and Manners. 7th ed., New York 1905.

M. Grant, Gladiators. London 1967.

K. Hopkins, the chapter "Murderous Games," in his book Conquerors and Slaves. Cambridge 1982.

Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal. Cambridge 1983.

J. H. Humphrey, Roman Circuses. Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986.

E. Rawson, "Discrimina Ordinum: the Lex Julia Theatralis," Papers of the British School at Rome 55 (1987) 83-14.

K. Welch, "The Roman Arena in late-Republican Italy: a new interpretation," J. of Roman Archaeology. 7 (1994) 59-79. there are many gladiator books, most pretty bad. the work of Welch is an exception.

Guidelines for student web pages:

1) Every source must be acknowledged, both for images and for ideas and information. If you find a picture on another website which is "rights reserved," or copyrighted or permission for reuse is not granted, you may not use that picture (if you do, I will either reduce the grade for the project or edit out the reference if the offense is blatant).

2) Be aware that plagiarism, academic dishonesty consisting of using someone's else's work and ideas as your own, applies as much to the composition of web pages as to traditional research papers. So if you find useful information on another website, acknowledge it in your text where you use it, not in a general acknowledgement at the end in your bibliography.

3) How to cite other web pages. Give the exact address, down to the page (it's easy to block and copy these), and give the date when you saw it.