Creative Project - CLAS 141 - F20

Creative Project

Due: November 30, 2 pm (by email)

You may complete any one of the different options listed below for your creative project.

Creative option #1: Diary entry

 
Over the last few weeks, we have discussed the various roles played by women and helots in Spartan society. For this project, you are going to imagine what a day in the life of one of these figures was like. You will write a diary entry from the perspective of either a free Spartan woman or a helot (female or male).

There are a lot of variables to consider in constructing your character. For instance, the free woman could be young or old, powerful or not, a mother or daughter, some combination of any of these things. Regardless of the character you select, the diary entry will chronicle one day in their life and detail what they did, with whom they met, how they were treated, and their reactions and responses to these events. You will use the different readings from the last few weeks as the evidentiary base for creating your character.

In addition to your diary entry, you will write a short reflection explaining your thought process in crafting your diary entry. Your response will elaborate on how you constructed your entry based on the sources we have gone over in class and discuss the problems with using these sources to reconstruct the lives of women and enslaved people. Be sure to be explicit the assumption you have made about the person’s social, political, and economic status.

A satisfactory project will:

  • Consist of a diary entry (600 – 900 words) and a short reflection (500 words) on your work
  • Include descriptions/details of specific events and interactions that your character had
  • Explicitly state the social, political, and economic status of your character
  • Provide citations and discussion of the relevant ancient sources you used to create your character
  • Consider the problems with using these sources for reconstructing the lives of women and helots

Creative option #2: Artistic rendering

 
Illustrate a scene, object, or practice from any of the works we read this semester related to Sparta, a paragraph describing it as if it were on display in a museum, and another paragraph explaining the sources you used. Any medium (electronic or physical: paint, pencil, sculpture, etc.) is acceptable. Some suggestions include Alcman’s Parthenion, the syssitia (shared eating hall), the agoge (Spartan education for men or women), the krypteia (terrorism of the helots), or the conspiracy of Cinadon. I will be looking to see how (and how creatively) you render details of the text into a visual form, rather than evaluating how good of an artist you are.

A satisfactory project will:

  • Include illustration from a scene assigned in readings for the course
  • Have a thought-provoking title
  • Feature a paragraph describing your illustration as if it were a museum plaque
  • Contain a paragraph that makes clear and cites what scene and what details from your chosen textual account you decided to depict in your artistic rendering

Creative Option #3: Spotify playlist

 
This creative project asks you to curate a playlist of modern music to explicate themes that we’re learning about this semester. You will choose a particular event, personality, or aspect of Spartan history (e.g. Lycurgus, helots, Spartan women) that you’ve learned about this semester and create a 6 song playlist of songs that capture the themes of the subject you selected. Then, write a 3-4 sentence explanation for each song that expresses why you chose that song and how it relates to the event, personality, or aspect of Spartan culture that you selected.

For example, if I chose to build a playlist based on the idea of Spartan rivalry with Athens, I might have in my playlist, “The Final Countdown” by Europe, and then I would choose 5 more songs that capture the feeling or events of the Spartan rivalry with Athens.

A satisfactory project will:

  • Feature a document that clearly states the event, personality, or aspect of Spartan history that you are basing a playlist on
  • Include in the same document the title and artist of each song on your playlist as well as 3-4 sentence explanation of why you chose that song and how it relates to the event, personality, or aspect of Spartan history you chose
  • Have a link in that document to the 6-song playlist on Spotify (if you don’t already have a Spotify account, go to Spotify.com and sign up for one – it’s free!)
  • Give a witty title to your Spotify playlist and include in the description our course number (CLAS 141) and the event, personality, or aspect of Spartan history you’re basing this playlist on

Creative Project #4: Make it a meme

 
This creative project invites you to create memes or Tiktoks that make concepts, ideas, events, and figures from Spartan history accessible to a modern audience.

A satisfactory project will:

  • Feature 3-4 memes or Tiktoks (in any combination: 3 memes, 2 memes + 2 Tiktoks, etc.) that reference concepts, ideas, events, and people from Spartan history
  • Include a 3-4 sentence paragraph per meme or Tiktok explaining the joke as if I didn’t know anything about Classics
  • Be compiled in one document (with embedded images for memes and links for Tiktoks)