From jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Mon Jan 3 12:22:45 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id MAA16452 for ; Mon, 3 Jan 2000 12:22:44 -0800 Received: from ccat.sas.upenn.edu (CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU [165.123.88.70]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id MAA23884 for ; Mon, 3 Jan 2000 12:22:44 -0800 Received: (from jod@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id PAA11629; Mon, 3 Jan 2000 15:22:42 -0500 (EST) From: jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (James J. O'Donnell) Message-Id: <200001032022.PAA11629@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> Subject: a new Augustine seminar To: humanist@lists.princeton.edu, classics@u.washington.edu Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 15:22:42 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23-upenn3.3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In spring 1994 I taught an Internet seminar on the work and thought of Augustine of Hippo, with 500 auditors from around the world. Now, about three generations later in Internet time, I propose to repeat the seminar, with multiple improvements. In spring 2000 (beginning 1/17/2000) I will teach a course for advanced undergrads and grad students at Penn called "The Unknown Augustine". For now, see http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augsem.html. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to Augustine and his work, but to do so in a nontraditional way. We will begin by emphasizing his "ordinary" work -- sermons and letters, including texts newly discovered in the last twenty years -- in order to form a picture of the man and his message and his style. Only then will we return to the more familiar works, concluding rather than beginning the course by reading the Confessions. It is being offered at Penn as Latin 409 (for those who will do substantial reading in the original) and Religious Studies 432 (for those who will do most or all readings in English). I am writing to offer you two ways to participate in this course. (1) A small number of individuals will be invited to be full participants alongside the students who meet in a Penn classroom. We have new software systems to facilitate this and it would be a good experiment in just how far and well "distance learning" can interact with traditional forms. This is the most exciting option. The University has agreed to allow us to do this for a one-time fee of $200 and I will limit the number of participants in this form to no more than one "virtual" student for each registered traditional student. If you are interested in this option, please write me directly. You will be expected to participate fully and perform all assignments, but your work will be non-graded and not-for credit. (2) If you would simply like to "audit" a limited set of the course's activities (mainly an e-mail discussion facilitated by weekly summaries of the in-class discussion), please send e-mail to listproc@ccat.sas.upenn.edu with the simple message "subscribe augsem Your Name" -- and you will be added to that list. This old list (augustine@ccat.sas) will be discontinued after I send this message -- many of the addresses have gone bad and many of the recipients are no longer interested. There is no charge for this kind of participation, which will resemble (for those of you who were there) the 1994 internet seminar in form. With best wishes to all for the new year: I hope many of you will choose to join us in wrestling with Augustine in all his brilliance, obstreperousness, charm, and stubbornness! Jim O'Donnell Classics, U. of Pennsylvania jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu .