talking about speaking and such.

just here to learn languages and drink coffee, and i've just finished my coffee // postgrad in linguistics and medieval studies

[maureen2musings]

…

eric.jacobs.pictures

[somerabbitholes]

reading my primary sources and planning essays (again)

[somerabbitholes]

help i underestimated the amount of time it takes to read through old notes

[ceriniity]

✨19.12.2019 // creative writing is taking up most of my time right now, it’s interesting to challenge myself to write in different ways but I’m still enjoying it immensely. I may have to work through the holiday to catch up but hey ho (ho, ho - geddit). Hope everyone is dealing with end of year stress well ✨

[jia-ink]

march 8th, 2021

what a week… well, I’ll share some good things: I got a full score on my art history midterm, and my last midterm is this friday! after that I’m planning to have a proper self care day. I haven’t baked in a while… maybe I should make some strawberry cheesecake? I’ll post pictures if I do 😋what are your favorite desserts?

[studiesque]

Essentials and AP Lit journal 📋🏳📎

[claudiaprocula-deactivated20240]

Women in Classical Antiquity

Hey so I’ve compiled a list of surces I have used at some point or other and/or seen reccomended when it comes to the stuy of Women in Classical Antiquity. Feel free to add anything you have also found useful, though please try to keep it mainly to scholarly and balancrf sources.

Historical Studies

New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-Roman World by Georgia Tsouvala, Ronnie Ancona

Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World by Jean Macintosh Turfa, Stephanie Lynn Budin

Women and Monarchy in Macedonia by Elizabeth Carney

Roman Women by Eve D'Ambra 

Women in Antiquity: New Assessments by Richard Hawley, et al.

A Companion to Women in the Ancient World by Sheila Dillon, Sharon L. James

Pandora’s Daughters: The Role & Status of Women in Greek & Roman Antiquity by Mauren Fant, Mary Lefkowitz

Women in the Classical World: Image and Text by Elaine Fantham, et al.

Women in Greek Myth by Mary Lefkowitz

Women in Classical Antiquity: From Birth to Death by Laura K. McClure

Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity by Sarah Pomeroy

Spartan Women by Sarah Pomeroy

Women’s History and Ancient History by Sarah Pomeroy

Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra by Sarah Pomeroy

Arguments with Silence: Writing the History of Roman Women by  Amy Richland

The Women of Pliny’s Letters by Jo-Ann Shelton

Sourcebooks

Clodia: A Sourcebook by Julia Dyson Hejduk 

Cleopatra: A Sourcebook by Prudence J. Jones

Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation

by Mary Lefkowitz, Maureen B. Fant

Women in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook by Bonnie MacLachlan

Women in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook by Bonnie MacLachlan

Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook by Jane Rowlandson

Biographies

Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra by Nathanael J. Andrade

Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire by Anthony A. Barrett

Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome by Anthony A. Barrett

Sabina Augusta: An Imperial Journey by T. Corey Brennan 

Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life by Elizabeth Carney

Eurydice and the Birth of Macedonian Power by Elizabeth Donnelly Carney

Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great by Elizabeth Carney

Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt by Dee L. Clayman

Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi by Suzanne Dixon

Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska

Julia Augusti: The Emperor’s Daughter by Elaine Fantham

Clodia: A Sourcebook by Julia Dyson Hejduk

Faustina I and II: Imperial Women of the Golden Age by Barbara M. Levick

Julia Domna: Syrian Empress by Barbara Levick

Turia: A Roman Woman’s Civil War by Josiah Osgood

Cleopatra: A Biography by Duane W. Roller

Cleopatra’s Daughter: and Other Royal Women of the Augustan Age by Duane W. Roller

Clodia Metelli: The Tribune’s Sister by Marilyn Berglund Skinner

Terentia, Tullia and Publilia: The Women of Cicero’s Family by Susan Treggiari

Lectures, Documentaries, & Online Sources

Cleopatra: The Most Famous Woman of Classical Antiquity (Lecure by Dr. Duane Roller, 2021)

Lucretia and the Politics of Violence (Lecture by Dr. Mary Beard, 2019)

Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome (2013)

Virgil: Aeneid: Women (lecture by Llewelyn Morgan, 2012)

Women in Antiquity: An Online Resource for the Study of Women in the Ancient World

Women Who Made History: Cleopatra (2015)

Women’s Classical Caucus

[thegrapeandthefig]

Women in Ancient religions

Bona Dea & the Cults of Roman Women by Attilio Mastrocinque

Engendering Aphrodite: Women & Society in Ancient Cyprus by Diane Bolger & Nancy Serwint

Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion by Matthew Dillon

The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece by Sue Blundell & Margaret Williamson

The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity by Stephanie Lynn Budin

Women’s Religious Activity in the Roman Republic by Celia B. Schultz

Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean by Ross Shepard Kraemer

Women in the Roman World

Great Women of Imperial Rome - Mothers and Wives of the Caesars by Jasper Burns

Women and Politics in Ancient Rome by Richard A. Bauman

Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna by Emily A. Hemelrijk

Women and the Roman City in the Latin West by Emily Hemelrijk & Greg Woolf

Engendering Rome: Women in Latin epic by A.M. Keith

War, Women and Children in Ancient Rome by John K. Evans

Misc.

The Athenian Woman by Sian Lewis

A Companion to Women in the Ancient World by Sharon L. James, Sheila Dillon

The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World by Thomas A.J McGinn

Voices at Work: Women Performance and Labor in Ancient Greece by Andromache Karanika

[madamebibliothecarius]

college tips for english majors (or other reading heavy humanities)

making a post because I see a lot of “if you don’t understand a concept, note taking, studying” stuff but i’m well into an English lit degree and it’s not so much understanding a concept, or taking exams as much as it is dividing your time to read 700 pages in a week and writing essays, I’m writing this so I follow my own advice

reading will take longer than you think it will, schedule accordingly

even if you read fast, reading will, and should take longer than when you’re reading for fun. you’re analyzing bb

write in your books

no one will care i promise. underline patterns, highlight writing idiosyncrasies

if you’re reading theory, read out loud

idk if this is an adhd thing, but I cannot read a giant hunk of critical theory. it’s like i’ve suddenly become illiterate. reading out loud helps a lot.

you don’t need to understand every reference of obscure writers in the 1800s

the hardest writing to read is when a famous author rattles off a bunch of names of authors you’ve never read. ignore them. 

try finding an audiobook of the book you’re reading to listen to while reading

once again, reading comprehension can be difficult if you just stare at the page like me. a lot of old books have audiobooks available on youtube for free, plus you can speed it up. listening to it helps hammer it in. (libraries typically have audiobook sources as well)

google words you don’t know

and whip em out at parties to look smart and accomplished

every professor is different when grading essays, especially for different kinds of essays

forget everything you learned in high school about essays. none of it is true. in fact, forget everything you learned about essays every time you take a new class. every professor has their own made up rules. figure out what your prof wants, don’t take bad feedback personally. 

read something you want to read in between

when you’re constantly reading stuff you’re forced to read, even if you enjoy it (and you won’t always) it can be hard to remember why you love books in the first place. read some wonderfully stupid YA novel and that’ll get you back on track

YOU ARE SMART. 

GOD, reading stuff you don’t understand over and over with professors telling you you’re analysis is wrong, sometimes it makes you feel DUMB. I PROMISE YOU ARE NOT. just because you’re not a tenured professor doesn’t make your analysis wrong, and it doesn’t make that professor right. and you’re in school for a reason! if you knew about it then you wouldn’t be in school. 

I cannot stress this enough: TALK TO YOUR CLASSMATES

Discussions are literally the most important part of this entire degree. Zoom University is made even more difficult in this respect, but  reach out! My survey of Irish lit class has no discussions and I’m sad because I want to know what other people think about Oscar Wilde ok? but I found someone who happened to be in that class, and now we chat about it all the time. It makes the class a lot easier to get through. 

[galina]

Could you show us how you use your annotations notebooks since you don't annotate in your books?

a couple of old posts on note taking: [1] [2]

[essayisms]

Hello! If you don't mind can you tell me how you organised your journal for your academics.I am a maths major and I wanted to do that for my proofs as well.I did try searching on the internet but I didn't get anything good.

Thank You in advance xx

It was a really basic format honestly ! So these are all the journals I kept during my whole undergraduate degree.

The black ones were for course and module information, lecture notes, to do lists and essay plans.

The dark and light yellow were a reading journal and a dissertation journal. I wanted to separate my own impressions of texts and I wanted to keep all my dissertation research and planning in one separate place as obviously I was conducting it by myself.

Black Journals

At the start of every year I would write down all the essential information from each of the four modules I was taking. This is an example (I have whited out the name and email of my course convened and lecturer for privacy reasons). But it includes contact information, lecture and seminar hours and locations, learning outcomes and assessment criteria (the things you will be assessed on, obviously paying attention to these helped me get top grades), assessment information (how many essays or exams I had that year and how much they contributed to my final mark and how many words they were) and finally the primary reading list.

This is what a spread of my lecture notes looks like. I always hand wrote my lecture notes because I couldn’t retain information and didn’t enjoy using a laptop. In my first two years I used a rough notebook to write them down then wrote them up neatly later, which was too time consuming for third year. But by that time I had developed my note taking skills and felt confident writing them up as I listened in the lecture. I just wrote the name of the module and the text we were studying and the date for reference. I would change to a red pen for anything I felt was key information. I know most people won’t like this method but I write fast and quite neatly !

My to do lists, essay plans etc didn’t really have a format obviously. I just wrote down what I needed to do, did some rough mind mapping, occasionally put a little doodle in. My essay plans were sort of all over the place but this is where I did my essential planning and then rough work tended to be on scraps of paper or on the draft essay document. The first is a checklist at the end of the year and the second is one of the essay plans/brainstorms for an essay I got a first in.

Yellow Journals

(i.) Reading Journal

I kept a reading journal throughout university, which I wish I had used more. It’s literally just a brain dump of all my thoughts and impressions of what I was reading and any quotes I found relevant. I included secondary reading in this too in my final year. It’s something I’m going to carry on with because I love having somewhere to keep my stream of consciousness about literature. It was so helpful for me to read over this when I was writing my essays because there were some really insightful bits of analysis or key things that I had forgotten and needed reminding of. Highly recommend everyone doing this, if not on paper then on a document on your laptop !

(ii.) Dissertation Journal

There was very little method to this journal. But having it all in one place really kept me organised. It was a place of messy but very important brainstorming, figuring out and rough work. It’s the sort of thing that’s probably only coherent to me. I just wrote down what I needed to do as I went along. So in the early stages there was a lot of trial ideas, there was pages of information about how we should structure and deal with our dissertations from lectures, deadlines etc.

The first image is the first page where I started writing out some vague ideas about the topics I wanted my dissertation to address and which literature that worked with. The last two are just an example of what some of my working out looked like, how I was deciding to structure my argument, and which secondary materials and theorists I would use for each chapter. But there were all sorts of things in there, random tangential points and ideas I needed to note down, tips about how to write an effective dissertation etc. It ended up being my highest grade so this definitely worked for me !

[essayisms]

Feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed with my essays right now, so here’s what I’m doing

I have 6 essays and a dissertation due, which are not staggered for various reasons (deferred a year and had to take a huge break from working on uni stuff for personal reasons), and it makes me extremely stressed and overwhelmed because I don’t have long left to finish them and I’ve still got a lot to go and can’t waste time. 

I’ve recently got into a rut with one I’m working on and realised none of my essays are finished yet. So I’m just sharing what my coping strategies are if you find yourself in a similar position.

1. Create a chart/graph that represents your progress

First of all I make this grid in google docs, and I fill in how far I am with all of my assignments, placing each of them at their individual point of progress. I consider ‘complete’ to be in perfect condition to hand in. As you can see (and it’s the end of Jan, each essay is 3000-4000 words and are all due in May including an 8000 word dissertation) I’ve been STRUGGLING.

Creating this helps me to visualise where my progress is at, and how much I’ve got to go. This reduces my stress because my brain gets overwhelmed and emotional and I realise I feel more behind than I actually am. This gives me a way to positively frame how I think and feel about my essays and how I will achieve handing them in. It gives me a sense of perspective and control, and I can assess what steps I need to take to be finish, e.g. going back and polishing up those couple of essays.

2. Re-visiting the Assessment Criteria

I have found it so hard to find a method to writing my essays. I have a pretty good one atm which I need to stick to better, because I’ve found myself feeling stuck and not knowing what to say. So writing out each essays Assessment Criteria helps refocus my brain, and reminds me what I will be given marks for and therefore what I should be writing. 

3. Switching Essays

I am in a deep rut with my current essay and realised I was wasting time sitting in front of my laptop not doing anything because I didn’t know what to do next. I was waking up dreading writing this one so realised I was in a position in which switching to another essay would be more efficient since they are due around the same time period. It is a little bit stress inducing leaving an essay on hold, if you like things going smoothly and categorising and checking things off like me you will know. That’s why the chart really helps make it feel manageable ! I am now more motivated to start a new essay and my brain is really grateful for a change in topic. Sometimes we need some time and distance away from the essays we are writing.

4. The Essay Writing Steps (How To Write A University Level Essay)

When starting a new essay I write out all the steps I need on how to do to research and formulate my argument and tick it all off as I go. This is the outline of all the steps, in the order I do it, to researching, brainstorming and writing each essay.

+ Read and write out Assessment Objectives and Learning Outcomes for the module.

+ Read and re-write lecture notes on the course introduction and texts.

+ Make a reading list of secondary criticism.

+ Read criticism and take relevant quotes, making notes and points I want to include in the essay underneath in a different colour to differentiate the quotes from my own thoughts.

+ Read and annotate my primary texts (e.g. the novels) using the knowledge I have from my lecture notes and secondary reading and with the Assessment Objectives in mind.

+ When finished reading, flick through the texts and copy out relevant quotes and points in the novels that can be used to support arguments in the essay.

+ Brainstorm the thesis for the essay. Try to summarise in a couple sentences what the overall argument for it will be.

+ With the Assessment Criteria in mind, write out a detailed essay plan. Consider what order to present the arguments in. Include which quotes from both primary and secondary texts to use to support the arguments. 

+ Approach the essay by attempting to write 500 words at a time in intervals between breaks throughout the day. 

Basically that’s it for now. I’ll see how I get on this with this essay by following the steps above that I’ve developed for essay writing and then keeping the assessment criteria in mind and using my lecture notes to supplement my arguments. Hopefully I finish this one all the way through.  If I start to stagnate again, I’ll go back to my google docs chart have a look at an essay I need to polish and work on that, referring to my steps and writing out my Assessment Criteria. I will check each one off as I read my essay and add in any criteria that I missed.

I’ll just repeat that process until they are all finished, which ensures I’m constantly working and not just stuck in paralytic dread every single day. You/I CAN do this, creating perspective and making steps helps !

[essayisms]

Absolutely love your page and aesthetic!! Do you have any advice about holiday reading for an English degree, ie. how to effectively take notes on books and remember details from them etc.? Would rly appreciate any tips you have!

thank you so much !!! holiday reading should probably be anything from your course reading list that you can get your hands on ! and I just kept a reading journal where I wrote down my thoughts and impressions on everything I read, took down quotes from it etc and then underlined and wrote things in the book as I went. I didn't take many exams so I never formulated a method for memorisation because I only needed to do it once

[essayisms]

Hello! First of all thank you for your content. Everything is so perfectly shaped and just motivates me with one picture!

You probably got this asked already but I didn’t seem to find it: I love your papers and notebooks and folders. I just wanted to know what it is your note taking method and how you divide theory and the analysis of the novels/poetry.

Last but not least: Congratulations on your dissertation!

thank you so much !!!! <3 It makes me so happy my photos inspire people.

I basically had two notebooks to separate lecture notes from my own analysis. The black one was for all my module details, to do lists, initial essay question brainstorms and reading lists and lecture notes. The yellow one was my ‘reading journal’ where I would write my thoughts about the books and write down quotes and write my own thoughts in red to distinguish what I thought from the quotes text. Sorry for the poor lighting but this is what they looked like:

In terms of what I would write down, when in in person lectures I would select the most key and relevant information that I could, but when lectures became recorded I spent the time writing down pretty much everything, trying to change the phrasing a little so I could recall it but I always went over and highlighted the information I needed for an essay when I was writing them. 

Hope that’s helpful !

[studyspiration-coffee]

online school/uni study tips

I know this is a little late but I’ve had it in my drafts for a while, hope it’s helpful nonetheless 

this is a rule i implemented at the beginning of 2020 without knowing what on earth was going to happen but it helped me enormously; any time you start feeling stressed, overwhelmed, sad, upset, any of these negative emotions due to school or work, i don’t care whether you’ve got so many lectures to catch up, an exam tomorrow morning or an assignment due at midnight, i want you to physically step away from wherever you’re working, sit in a completely different spot (different corner of the room or different room itself does not matter) and just sit there. Sit. And do whatever you want. Listen to music, watch a youtube video, scroll on tumblr. If you can do something like meditation or reading go for it, but honestly, I know exactly how it feels to not even have the energy to do something that feels like ~productive relaxation~. after maybe around 20 minutes, make the decision as to whether you want to just go to sleep, relax or keep working. check what time it is and that’ll be a good cue; past midnight, you know your answer. 

speaking of sleep, get some. remember you don’t need to be up at 5am watching the sunrise, take baby steps toward building whatever sleep routine you want. i have no legitimate advice for this, i was pretty nocturnal at one point and now i’m awake with the sun before noon most days (some days not so much, even now), and that’s okay.

have a blanket that is specifically for when you’re sitting at your desk and working; not only will it be warm and quite comfortable but also if you start feeling a bit overwhelmed draping it over your shoulders will make you feel better. i have no idea why that specific placement works and maybe online uni (ironically) has made me a bit bonkers, but try it.

use to do lists! pls! but also definitely put down tasks such as showering, eating lunch, making tea etc because not only will it give you a productivity boost, but sometimes it can be difficult to remember to do the little things that give you structure when time feels stretched out and life is on loop.

also re: ‘productive relaxation’, please don’t think you need to spend these extra pockets of time doing something inherently productive. you don’t need to start writing this bestselling novel or suddenly become a pro athlete; you’re allowed to burn a bit of time, trust me. this is freaking me out even to type, but that’s because i know it’s true. find some sort of solace in the silence and slight lethargy. 

[studyfulltime]

Essay planning and tea drinking after uni..

[why-the-heck-not]

a very late january spread, trying to keep it simple now

[inkblue-computerhead]

some things i’ve learned while studying in quarantine

drink more water instead of more coffee.

weekly goals are bullshit. set yourself 3-day goals. you’ll be less laid-back.

don’t just mindlessly stare at words. before you start studying, know your approach to it. have a plan.

summarizing the concept in your own words is the key part of taking notes. don’t just copy things down, convert them into your own way of talking, your own vocabulary, no matter how dumb and unprofessional it sounds.

don’t let the “studyblr aesthetic” fool you. studying doesn’t have to be pretty. summaries and notes can be messy as long as they’re comprehensible. you can always rewrite and reorganize them later. (honestly, you better do. and you better keep them.)

don’t throw away the papers you’ve solved your problems in. staple them to the fucking textbook. you need to see them constantly. cause you’ll need reminders of how far you’ve came, when you’re feeling discouraged.

don’t be an armchair analyst for your issues. if you have an idea then act on it.

remember: the exact point where it becomes difficult, is where your growth begins. take a deep breath, and try to focus on the paragraph in front of you.

get off your high horse and understand that if you’re a zero, you won’t go to 100 in a couple of days. first, you’ll need to reach 30, then from 30 to 60, and then from 60 to 90. nobody is 100 everyday. that happens very rarely.

you need to have fun everyday. you need to have peaceful time every single day. even on exam night. especially on exam night, actually. so make sure you’ve studied enough so you can have some time to yourself.

once you’re on a roll and in need of some challenge to stay on track, start writing down your studying hours. tell yourself you’re not allowed to do less than 80% of what you did yesterday. whatever the hell it was, even just one hour. so if yesterday you really studied for like, say 8 hours, today your goal is to study for at least 6 and a half hours. if you can’t keep up with that, make it 70%, or 60%. 

be forgiving of yourself. be kind to yourself. even if you bounced back and lost your streak. start again. as slowly as you did before. take your time. it’s okay, you were there once you can get there again.