fandomhigh | World Mythology - Monday, January 28th

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World Mythology - Monday, January 28th - 2th Period

As usual, Ghani was seated on her desk as the class began, feet swinging slightly as she waited for her students to arrive.

Once everyone was seated, she launched right into the lecture. "Today we go back to the cradle of civilization, and no, I do not mean the Greeks. The Greeks are overrated." Coming from a woman directly descended from Agamemnon, that was saying something. "Instead, we look at the Mesopotamian mythologies."

"Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the area currently known as Iraq." Hopping off her desk, Ghani began wandering the room, passing out her Handouts of Doom.

"The Sumerians practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing forces or presences in the world, in much the same way as later Greek mythology. According to the Sumerians, the gods originally created humans as servants for themselves but freed them when they became too much to handle," Ghanima said, grinning. "That's right, boys and girls, we're too much trouble for the beings that created the universe. Isn't that a happy thought?"

"Many stories in Sumerian religion appear similar to stories in other Middle-Eastern religions. For example, the Biblical account of the creation of man as well as Noah's flood resemble the Sumerian tales very closely, though the Sumerian myths were written many centuries earlier than the Tanakh . Gods and Goddesses from Sumer have distinctly similar representations in the religions of the Akkadians, Caananites, and many others. A number of stories and deities have Greek parallels as well; for example, Inanna's descent into the underworld is strikingly similar to the story of Persephone, and pre-dates the Greek version by a goodly amount. That's right, the Greeks are dirty culture thieves. However, you should have already known that."

"The Babylonian canon is largely derived from Sumerian mythology

. This was written in Akkadian

, a Semitic

language, using cuneiform script

on clay tablets. Most texts known today are copies made in scribal schools

by student scribes , likely at a time when Akkadian was no longer the spoken language in Babylonia and serious belief in the myths had faded amongst educated

people. Some Babylonian texts were even translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language

of earlier texts, though the names of some deities were changed in Babylonian texts. Some Babylonian deities and myths are unique to that culture, however, such as the god Marduk

and the Enûma Elish, a creation epic."

"You should all now have in your handouts a few different versions of Inanna's descent into the Underworld. I'd like you to pair up and discuss the differences with a partner, and decide which story resonates the most with you. We'll then come back together as a class and discuss the Inanna story together."

[as always, ~~please to be waiting for my~~ OCD is good to go! Read forth and learn! Text unapologetically cribbed from multiple sources. Entertain yourselves, as I have to teach real live students today, and response time may vary. Ah, wee-tiny newbie grad students. How I adore you.]

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Collapse it in an Underworld-ian fashion!

S.T. Anders

Adam Park

Savannah Levine

Isabel Evans

Wyatt Halliwell

Michael Guerin

William Kessler

Teddy Altman

Naminé

Katara

Valentine

Jim Halpert

Troy Bolton

Hoshi Sato

Teyla Emmagan

Take notes, pass notes, do whatever it is you crazy kids do.

Ow, lots of information -- Anders found himself scrambling to keep notes on all of this ~~while his player made happy squeaky noises at ZOMG so many shiny links to click~~, but did so with far more eagerness than one might expect from a boy with a bit of a jock rep.

Isabel was taking notes and flipping through the handouts. It was actually pretty interesting.

Michael was interested, and scribbling down notes every so often.

How fascinating. Naminé took notes, and was already sketching a defiant Inanna standing before Erishkigal in the margins.

Jim totally had They Might Be Giants running through his head.

Hoshi was sitting all the way in back, trying not to be noticed as she took notes.

Inanna - Innocent visitor or plotting a royal takeover? Why do you think Ereshkigal reacted the way she did? Talk it out with your partner!

Naminé looked around for someone to pair up with.

Michael nodded to her, wandering over.

"Shall we?" Naminé asked. "I'm having very mixed reactions to this story, I must confess."

He nodded.

"Yeah, it's... weird. Which parts are getting you?"

Naminé shook her head. "In one version, this is all pre-ordained, and she chose this path. In another, she's hoping to sweep into the underworld, bent on taking over, or too naive to understand what awaits her. I'm not certain if I should pity her or loathe her. Neither seems right."

"I guess it depends which version you choose", Michael said slowly. "You can't go with them all - or you can, but you can't have the same reaction to all of them. And I'm not sure it's an either/or thing, with pity or loathing."

"I suppose it isn't," Naminé said. "But I meant ... neither of those seem right, in any version."

"In the pre-ordained one, you can admire her, I think", he suggested.

"You could," Naminé agreed. "Perhaps you can in all of them. She has a presence to her that compels it."

"There is that. Even when she's being arrogant, there's something about her."

"Welcome back," she said, once the student pairs had all finished their analysis. "So, let's open up the floor to debate. What is your first, gut reaction to these stories? You," she said, pointed at a student at random, "What part of the story, if any, did you connect with? Is this a case of cosmic sibling rivalry, or just a miscommunication?"

[This is a debate, so totally jump in with each other's threads. Feel free to bring your own family issues to the table, since we are dealing with siblings. Ah, family.]

Naminé bit her lip. "I suppose if we're discussing gut reactions ... the image that stays with me, for all of these, is Inannna, reaching the Underworld, having gone through the ancient rites, having been stripped of herself, and yet she stands there proudly before Ereshkigal. She has not been humbled. The diseases are sent upon her, and she falls over and dies, but ... I have to imagine that to be an empty victory, for Ereshkigal. It feels as though Inanna died with her head held high."

"I don't know if it's miscommunication... but it seems like Inanna was being kind of arrogant. Just showing up and threatening to break the door down if they didn't let her in, when it was her sister's place."

If he is no longer ill.

Billy is indeed back.

She's got the candy dish on the desk, and is around for the talkings.

Seriously, people, how can you get to be a GRADUATE STUDENT and not know how to look up something in the card catalog? Online catalog, old-school card index (yes, I still have one), there's no way in BLEEP you should have finished your undergrad without at least one trip to the library.

I sob for today's youth.

It's all done via the internet these days.

If they were the web-generation, they'd at least know how to do a basic search. These people are astounded that A) I can't just hand them a book, B) they need to know what they want, and C) I am not going to do their homework for them. One of them was very indignant that I forwarded her email to her professor. You know, the one that said, "I don't have time for this assignment, so if you can just give me..."

Moron.

Besides, my two PhD candidates are old enough to remember a time before computerized card catalogs and the internet. They had to have visited a library before Google, so I refuse to accept this an excuse.

Oh, well in that case they're just willfully stupid and I hope they dont' get the PhD's.

Sadly, Dawn will be missing class today due to a slight case of post-demonitis.

Woe.

Ghani will save some packets for her, should she want to cope via geekery later.

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World Mythology - Monday, January 28th - 2th Period

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