syllabi

well, i don't go to parties or have fun exciting adventures in istanbul to document, but i do spend a great deal of time going to school and this is what i do at school everyday...:

the syllabus of my life:


Archaeological Theories: Next semester we will actually recieve hands on training in a new archaeology lab which they are setting up, but for now we are focusing on the philosophies, intellectual developments and theoretical underpinnings of the field of archaeology. We have read articles about New Archaeology, processualism, post-processualism, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, hermeneutics, Binford's theory of 'man's extrasomatic means of adaptation' (or something like that), and Ian Hodder's postmodern refutal and full acceptance of everyone who has an opinion, even the goddess worshippers.



Cultural Heritage Management: This semester we have been focusing on site management (as oppose to next semester where we will be studying more museum studies). We've looked at lots of examples of management plans from Turkish Arch. sites to the plan for Stonehenge. Guest lecturers come from various fields in the industry have come. So far we've covered conservations issues in Turkey, architectural restoration and preservation in Egypt as well as by the Germans in Pergamon (Turkey), the Turkish laws established for historical site preservation work, technological advances in digital restitution and augmented reality, and finally the importance and digital developments of database construction. Lots of fancy jargon but also some really interesting theoretical issues that are often hard to deal with in the real world which can be based on popularity, politics and money. It is always important to stay optimistic and positive!



Anatolian Civilizations: So far we have studied the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and are just beginning to study the Early Bronze Age of Anatolian Civilizations. Due to the specific interests of our current teacher I have a feeling we won't make it to the Hittites, Phyrgians, Greeks or Early Romans. And next semester, somehow, we will be covering Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Its a lot of history for one geographic area, not to mention for one class.



Ancient Greek: I have been reading Xenophon's Anabasis. Back in late 400s/early 300s BC a man named Xenophon, originally from Athens but with strong loyalties to Sparta, went off as a young man to help Cyrus a persian prince try to overthrow his brother. On the way down from the west coast of Anatolia in Sardis, Cyrus amasses his troops and lets the hired greek armies do a little pillaging along the way. There is also a bit of hunting by the generals in the Arabian Desert of ostriches, bustards, gazelles, and wild asses. The battle does not go so well, so the Greek troops split, and take the road north meeting the kurds and armenians along the way and eventually making it to the black sea coast. From here they can march and take boats through Byzantium (Istanbul) and back to their lovely homeland across the Aegean sea. Its a real classic of a travel narrative.
The other day I also had a unique opportunity of looking at recently found mosaic byzantine inscriptions and seeing how far my greek knowledge could actually go in the material world. Not going to quit my day job, but it was a lot fun and a good learning experience.



Turkish: Merhaba! Siz nasılsınız? Ben iyiyim. Şimdi Koç Üniversitesin'de öğrenciyim ve Sarıyer'de oturuyorum. Sarıyer İstanbul'da. İstanbul çok büyük ve çok kalabalık ama çok güzel! Siz ziyaret ediyor musunuz? Görüşürüz!

*this post has not be edited fully so please pardon any mistakes*

sunday morning breakfast...

eggs, bread, tomatoes, carrots, cheese, chocolate, and juice.

tea and coffee.

what music to listen to?

i wonder if there is a website, sort of like pandora, where you could put in the time of day, the weather outside, and what you are presently doing (eg. homework, cooking, reading, etc.) and it would come up with the perfect playlist for you to listen to...

if there isn't, there should be...

okay, back to 'doing' my homework and listening to the rain....maybe some carla bruni?