Week 1: Shape of the Earth notes

Fascinating video! I would embed it here but the video is apparently not at YouTube for embedding... and I have to ask: why not??? If Janux is all about "open content" as they claim, why can't I share the video using YouTube's excellent embedding options...??? Hmmmm.... Anyway, here are my notes as I watch the video:

News of Washington Irving's role in modern storytelling about Columbus is new to me! I like Kerry's term for it: "mischievous nonsense."

Plato, Aristotle, Dante: pretty illustrious company for belief in the round earth! The curve of the earth's shadow sound's like a pretty good piece of evidence that should have been obvious to anyone who saw it!

These illustrations in the books are just beautiful, and I know that Kerry has digitized and put many of these books online for us to use. Is there a list of links somewhere here in the course website that will let me see links to all these images so that I can click. I would also love to read some of the Latin text, like in this wonderful set of illustrations for the effects of a lunar eclipse!

That's another topic where there is so much great overlap between mythological storytelling and the phenomena studied by scientists: eclipses. My favorite is the Hindu myth of the demon Rahu. Maybe I will write about that for my discussion contribution here!

(Rahu poster at Exotic India Arts)

Week 1 Notes: Stonehenge (video transcript)

Oh, now I really do feel bad to not see the video: in the transcript, Kerry is describing one of my very favorite mythology topics of all time: the stories of the constellations!!! I would love to see the book pages he is describing in the video.

New word for the day: orrery.

(Meanwhile, as I take these notes, nothing is happening; the video has timed out completely I guess.)

Reading about the use of Stonehenge megaliths as a kind of armillary sphere to measure celestial motion, I wonder if we will also discuss sun dials in this course, a MUCH beloved topic of mine because of the beautiful literature of sun dial inscriptions!!!

I also realize with great pleasure how the Latin I have studied for so many years is a ticket to delightful places, because Chorea Gigantum just makes me smile! I am glad to make myself available as a Latin reference person for the class... if there were a practical way to do something like that!

And as the transcript ends with this question - What stories do you want to hear and tell about Stonehenge? - I realize that while on the one hand Kerry's class and my own class are so different, TRULY different (I am not a scientist and I do not teach scientist), on the spectrum of storytelling, we do stand together. And I might just get a student who wants to do their Storybook project in my class on Stonehenge, in which case I have learned some great new things to share!