13.0552 new Cicero edn (STOA)

From: Humanist Discussion Group (willard@lists.village.virginia.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2000 - 07:21:49 CUT

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                   Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 13, No. 552.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
                  <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

             Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 08:16:54 +0100
             From: Ross Scaife <scaife@pop.uky.edu>
             Subject: Latin letters (Stoa)

    [Members of Humanist may know about STOA, <http://www.stoa.org/>, "a
    consortium for electronic publication in the humanities" that is involved
    with several most worthy projects, to date concentrating in classical
    studies. Following is an announcement of an initiative to produce an online
    commentary to the letters of Cicero, passed on from the STOA list. Even if,
    inexplicably, you are not interested in Cicero, you will likely profit from
    watching the online commentary (and other STOA projects) develop. --WM]

    Stoa Announcement
    (http://www.stoa.org/letters/)

    Latin teachers have expressed their need for an easily available and
    student-friendly commentary on Cicero's Letters. Under the leadership of
    Jacques A. Bailly (jbailly@zoo.uvm.edu, Assistant Professor of Classics,
    University of Vermont) we intend to develop a complete on-line guide to reading
    and appreciating those writings. We plan to address the interests of both those
    who need immediate help with the Latin of the letters and, increasingly as time
    passes, also those readers with more involved scholarly concerns.

    We anticipate two sorts of contributions:

    1. basic commentaries for each letter, providing thorough grammatical
    assistance and any cultural information (from gladiators to Epicureans)
    necessary to understand the letter under scrutiny;

    2. ancillary resources (essays, charts, diagrams, guides) on topics relating to
    the letters.

    At this point we seek especially contributors who would like to submit their
    commentaries on individual letters. The basic commentaries should remain
    focused on helping students read the Latin. The ancillary resources should
    relate directly to the letters and can take any appropriate form or level of
    scholarly complexity. All materials will be subject to editorial approval.
    Hypertextual linking will connect the commentaries back into the source texts.
    Individual Latin words will be linked via the Perseus morphological parser to
    the on-line Lewis and Short. We expect to generate vocabulary lists for each
    letter by computational methods. We may provide printer-friendly versions
    (perhaps PDF files) for distribution of printed copies to students. Beyond
    that, we are still considering what particular models and features will be most
    effective in this medium, and we are open to suggestions. We expect to put some
    initial examples in place over the next few months.

    Finally, though we do want to begin with Cicero, we can foresee the evolution
    of this work into a considerably larger project on Latin Letters, one that
    encompasses not only Cicero's letters but also those of Petrarch and many other
    Latin writers through the ages.

    Please check the web site periodically for developments
    (http://www.stoa.org/letters/), and contact Jacques A. Bailly
    (jbailly@zoo.uvm.edu) to contribute your materials or suggestions. Also please
    feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.

    ________________________________

    Ross Scaife (scaife@pop.uky.edu)
    Classics Department (POT 1015)
    University of Kentucky
    Lexington, KY 40506-0027

    web: http://www.uky.edu/~scaife/
    vox: 606 257 3629 fax: 606 257 3743

    The Stoa Consortium
    http://www.stoa.org

    [material deleted]



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