RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS

Research Essays = 36% (12% each)

Students will write 3 brief research essays.  Requirements for each entry are listed below.   

BASIC REQUIREMENTS

Word count: 800 minimum words per entry 

GRADING CRITERIA

•   Completeness – all required elements present
•   Accurate information
•   Thoroughness and insightfulness of the descriptions
•   Use of appropriate art historical and architectural language, derived from class lectures, readings, and appropriate websites.

Assignment 1 on Southern Italy (Houses / private life, due M 5/20 at midnight)

Wallace-Hadrill argues that how Romans built their houses and how they spent money on them is a language of social communication with its own grammar and rules, and that it is possible to read the house like a text in order to understand its social function.

Using the arguments and hypotheses he provides, choose a house in either Pompeii or Herculaneum and “read it like a text.” Analyze its social articulation by considering the ways that status differences manifest themselves in the layout and decor of the house. How do the axes of private/public and grand/humble manifest themselves? What conclusions can be drawn about the owner’s self-presentation, aspirations and values based on your analysis?

Assignment 2 on the Forum/Palatine/Campus Martius (due Sunday, 5/26 at midnight)

Choose a stretch of the cityscape either in the Forum or on the Palatine that interested you (this should encompass 3-4 structures). Using the Favro readings as your guide, imagine yourself as an ancient Roman living at a certain point in time (i.e., the late Republic, the early imperial period under Augustus, the high imperial period under Hadrian or the late antique period under Constantine) and try to read the area as a text. 

Imagine the experience of moving through this space (for this I recommend watching this video: https://youtu.be/e_phjB19ZEg and using the Digitales Forum Romanum website). Then write an urban biography of the area that considers its structure, identity and meaning. 

Describe the experience of viewing, walking through or inhabiting these structures. How do the structures relate to one another? What messages do their function, scale, building materials or decoration convey? What is memorable to you about this area’s urban image?

Assignment 3: ARTISTIC THEMES AND CULTURAL CONTINUITY (Due Friday, 5/31 at midnight)

Identify an artistic motif, theme or representation that you saw in the past week in at least TWO different locations: Capitoline Museum, Palazzo Massimo, Vatican Museum or the Ara Pacis museum. It could be a figure (like Venus or Augustus), a mythological narrative (like The Rape of the Sabines), a historical event (like a triumph), or a design element (like a snake or a laurel wreath). It should represented in more than one medium (e.g., painting, sculpture, pottery).

Provide a formal analysis of each object you chose. This should include information such as dimensions, materials, date (if known), artist (if known), condition, provenance (if known) and a general description of the object. Note that the best descriptions give a sense of the experience of looking carefully at the object.

Also provide a photo or sketch of at least one of these objects.

Lastly, write a comparative analysis of the objects that addresses the following questions: What distinct meanings are conveyed by each of these objects and the artistic representations they feature? How do the representations on these objects follow one another or depart from one another? How might different historical contexts of production change or influence these meanings? Why do you think this image or theme was important to the Romans and to later cultures?