Take-home Option for Exam I

Section A: due Mon., Sept 24, at 3:00 p.m. 
Section B: due Tues., Sept 25, at 2:00 p.m. 
(in both paper and electronic form)

Directions:
    Option 1: write two 600-900 word essays on two of the topics given below
    Option 2: write one 1200-1500 word essay on one of the topics given below

Some Notes:
1. cite sources as you did for the paper; if you cite from Pomeroy, give author and page number, e.g. (Pomeroy, 49)
2. a good paper uses examples from more than a small subsection of the appropriate materials which we have covered

Topics:

1. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, we have seen how there is a difference between what "commoners" are expected to do in assembly meetings and what "nobles or chiefs" are expected to do (or can do). Is this true for "commoner" women and "upper-class" women in the Iliad and the Odyssey as well? [1200-1500 word essay: also include what can be said (or not said) about women in Mycenaean and Minoan cultures]

2. Pomeroy notes that xenia played an important role in Greek foreign relations (p 49)--in fact, others have noted that the allies in a pan-Greek war towards the end of the "Dark Age" were based on guest friendships. In your essay, compare and contrast the examples of xenia in the selections of the Odyssey which we have read, along with the meetings of Odysseus and the priest Chryses in book 1 of the Iliad and Achilles and Priam in book 24 of the Iliad. In your essay also hypothesize how these examples of xenia would impact the particular foreign relations of those involved.

3. George F. Will noted that an underlying assumption within the US is a belief that "a particular kind of civic order -- democracy, representation, the rule of law, a large sphere of privacy and individual autonomy -- is right for the fulfillment of human nature" ("Grand Delusions," Washington Post, Sept 30, 2004--registration required). Argue which, if any, of these mesh with what the evidence from the Iliad and the Odyssey suggests as the underlying assumptions of the "Dark Age" Greeks.