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
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