Discussion

W2 Discussion 1

Your initial post should be roughly 250 words and you should address the specific materials assigned, citing your sources appropriately. Remember that at the center of our Discussion Board work is the interpretation of primary sources. Once you have posted your initial post, please respond substantively to at least two other students. Thereafter your instructor will guide the conversation.

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Topic 1: Law Code of Hammurabi

Required Reading:

Kevin Reilly, The Human Journey, Chapter 2

Website: Law Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon – http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/law-code-hammurabi-king-babylon

Website: Code of Hammurabi: Ancient Babylonian Laws – http://www.livescience.com/39393-code-of-hammurabi.html

Website: 8 Things You May Not Know about Hammurabi’s Code – http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-hammurabis-code

Primary Source:

Website: Hammurabi, The Code of Hammurabi [-2250] (scroll about half way down the page past the transliteration to the English translation) http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hammurabi-the-code-of-hammurabi

Discussion Prompts:

After reading Chapter 2 and the material at the websites, and viewing the videos, please make a 250-word initial post that answers the following discussion prompt about the primary source:

You can see from the web readings and the video that there is disagreement about the purpose, nature, and fairness of Hammurabi’s Code, a primary source created at the time of Hammurabi. There are 282 “laws” in the Code. Scan the whole Code at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hammurabi-the-code-of-hammurabi and then read 28 “laws” (10%) carefully before answering the discussion prompts: How is the Code organized? Why do you think some laws are first? What do the laws tell you about the nature of early urban life? What seem to be major concerns? Do the laws seem just? Why or why not?

W2 Discussion 2

Kevin Reilly, The Human Journey, Chapter 3

Website: British Museum, Athens – http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/athens/home_set.html

Website: British Museum, Sparta – http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html

Primary Sources:

Website: Thucydides (c.460/455-c.399 BCE): Pericles’ Funeral Oration from the Peloponnesian War (c. 430 BCE) – http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/pericles-funeralspeech.asp

Website: Xenophon (c.428-c.354 BCE): The Polity of the Spartans, c. 375 BCE – http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/xeno-sparta1.asp

Discussion Prompts:

After reading Chapter 3 and the material at the websites, and viewing the video, please make a 250-word initial post that answers the following questions about the primary sources:

Who do you think were the intended audiences of Pericles’ Funeral Oration and Xenophon’s description of the Spartan state? How might their purpose and intended audience affect their tone? Can we take these accounts at face value? Why or why not? What else would you like to know from the author?

W3 Discussion 1

Your initial post should be roughly 250 words and you should address the specific materials assigned, citing your sources appropriately. Remember that at the center of our Discussion Board work is the interpretation of primary sources. Once you have posted your initial post, please respond substantively to at least two other students. Thereafter your instructor will guide the conversation.

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Topic 1: Silk Roads

Required Reading:

Kevin Reilly, The Human Journey, Chapter 4

Website: Silk Road – http://asiasociety.org/education/silk-road

Website: Silk Road History – http://www.thesilkroadchina.com/fact-v11-the-silk-road-history.html

Primary Sources:

Website: The Journey of Faxian to India (ca. 400 CE) – http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/faxian.html

Website: The Travels of Marco Polo (ca. 1300 CE) – read Chapter 1 through Chapter 18) – https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Travels_of_Marco_Polo/Preface/Chapter_1

Discussion Prompts:

After reading Chapter 4 and the material at the websites, and viewing the videos, please make a 250-word initial post that answers the following questions about the primary sources:

Faxian and Marco Polo lived 900 years apart, near the beginning and end of the Silk Road. What values do their narratives promote? What similarities and differences do you see in their narratives? How are those similarities and differences related to the kinds of journeys they undertook, the purposes of their journeys, and the times in which they composed their travel narratives?

W3 Discussion 2

Once you have finished all of the required reading, post an answer to the discussion prompts for your chosen Discussion Board topic. Make sure you identify in the subject line which topic you are addressing.

Your initial post should be roughly 250 words and you should address the specific materials assigned, citing your sources appropriately. Remember that at the center of our Discussion Board work is the interpretation of primary sources. Once you have posted your initial post, please respond substantively to at least two other students. Thereafter your instructor will guide the conversation.

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Topic 1: The Song Dynasty

Required Reading:

Kevin Reilly, The Human Journey, Chapter 5

Website: The Song Dynasty in China – http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/ (click on the links in the categories of Economic Revolution, Technology, Cities, Confucianism, and Outside World, at the top of the webpage)

Website: Song Dynasty Art (960-1279), History, Types and Characteristics – http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/east-asian-art/song-dynasty.htm

Discussion Prompts:

After reading Chapter 5 and the material at the websites, and viewing the video, please make a 250-word initial post that answers the following questions:

Considering artistic style and subject matter, what insights do the paintings give you into the concerns, hopes, and preoccupations of Song China during the Northern and Southern dynasties? What do you find most striking about each painting? Why? What might be limits to using art to understand the concerns, hopes, and preoccupations of a society? Analyze one pictorial image from the Northern Song and the Southern Song dynasties below to answer these questions about the primary sources.

Northern Song:

Palace Banquet – http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2010.473/

Summer Mountains – http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1973.120.1/

The Classic of Filial Piety – http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1996.479/

Southern Song:

Emperor Xuanzong’s Flight to Shu – http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/41.138/

Viewing plum blossoms by moonlight – http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1986.493.2/

Poet strolling by a marshy bank – http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1989.363.14/

W4 Discussion 1

Website: The Empires of the Western Sudan – http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wsem/hd_wsem.htm (read The Empires of the Western Sudan page and all the primary essays listed on the right-hand side of the page: 1) The Empires of the Western Sudan: Ghana Empire; 2) The Empires of the Western Sudan: Mali Empire; 3) The Empires of the Western Sudan: Songhai Empire; 4) Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa; 5) The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade (Seventh–Fourteenth Centuries)

Primary Sources:

Website: Al-Bakri, Roads and Kingdoms (1067 CE) – http://users.rowan.edu/~mcinneshin/5394/wk05/albakri.htm

Website: Kingdom of Mail (Al-Umari, ca. 1330 CE) – http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/k_o_mali/

Website: Leo Africanus describes Timbuktu (1652 CE) – https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/med/leo_afri.asp

Website: Proverbs from Ghana – http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/gp/

Discussion Prompts:

After reading Chapter 6 and the material at the websites, and viewing the videos, please make a 250-word initial post that answers the following questions about the primary sources:

Al-Bakri and Leo Africanus were not native to the areas they discussed. What difference might that make to their view of Ghana and Mali? How might their background have influenced what they saw and described? Did they see everything they described, or were things described to them by others? Did they think the culture that they were writing about was lesser than their own or equal to it? How does Al-Umari’s discussion of Mali differ from Leo’s? What might account for those differences? What do the Ghanaian proverbs add to your understanding of that culture?