Humanities 110

Paper Topics | Spring 2012 | Paper 2

Due Saturday, March 24th, 5 p.m., in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox.
Suggested Length 1500-1800 words

Write an essay in response to one of the following prompts. Structure your essay around a strong, analytical claim, and provide specific, detailed evidence from the primary texts to support that claim. You will want to focus on specific characters, episodes, relations, themes, or claims in the texts, rather than provide general summaries.

1. With a careful eye toward the poets use of diction and imagery, discuss the contrasting ways in which Theocritus depicts the relationship between erotic desire and the production of poetry in Idyll 1 and Idyll 11.

2. In On Duties, Cicero claims that what is morally wrong cannot conflict with what is advantageous, and that the appearance of such a conflict is always misleading. (i) What is Cicero's general reason for thinking this is so? (ii) Explain one of Cicero's cases of a merely apparent tension between that the advantageous and the right, where that tension dissolves under closer inspection. (iii) Evaluate Cicero's argument in (i) and his diagnosis of the case in (ii).

3. Central to Hellenistic culture is the negotiation between the local and the imperial, or cosmopolitan - a negotiation that pervades language, history, art, literature, and politics. Focusing on one of the following, discuss how the work addresses the relationship between regional societies and the greater Mediterranean and Near Eastern world of which they were part; if relevant, pay particular attention to how it addresses the question of Greekness: The Hellenistic city (e.g. Alexandria, Pergamon) and/or its sculptural program; Daniel; 1 Maccabees; Plautus The Swaggering Soldier (Miles Gloriosus); or Lucretius' On the Nature of Things.

4. Referring to the Roman example, Polybius argues that, it is impossible to find a better form of constitution than this (Book VI.18). What institutional arrangements does he have in mind and how does he defend this claim? In your answer, consider at least one of the comparisons he makes to build his case in Book VI.43.

5. Provide a close analysis of the ways in which the visual program of the Pergamon Altar legitimates or potentially complicates the authority of the Attalid dynasts.

6. Both the Book of Daniel and 1 Maccabees describe the period of the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV, but from very different angles. Compare the two accounts, making sure to situate each text in the particular context of its composition. How do the two authors negotiate Jewish identity in a multicultural context? What do the differences in their emphasis or style reveal about what they consider to be the most efficacious way to respond to a moment of collective crisis?

7. At the beginning of Book Two (2.1-61) of On the Nature of Things, Lucretius compares an Epicurean watching the troubled lives of others to someone standing on land gazing at people struggling in a storm at sea. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this image for Lucretius' poetic and philosophical purposes in his work?

8. In consultation with your conference leader, write an essay on a topic of your own devising.

In addition to consulting with your conference leader, you can get help with all stages of the writing process from peer tutors at the Writing Center. You can find links to the Writing Center hours on the Drop-in Tutoring Schedule website. Extra tutoring help will be available in the week leading up to paper due dates.