MA Internship Report of Ancient Greek

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MA Internship Report of Ancient Greek

Full Name: Alexandros Balatsoukas

Student Number: 3777316

Course: Master Multilingualism

Organization: University of Groningen

Internship Supervisor: Saskia Peels - Matthey

Supervisor MA Multilingualism: Charlotte Gooskens

Duration of the internship: February- May 2019

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Preface

This work is a result of a lot of effort. I would like to thank the coordinator Joana Da Silveira Duarte and my masters’ supervisor Charlotte Gooskens that gave me the opportunity to experience this internship. More importantly, it would be impossible to learn so many things and accomplish so much during this internship without the precious guidance of the professor S. Peels-Matthey. She has offered a lot of her free time to guide me during this internship and the least that I could do is to thank her for her direct instructions and kind advice.

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Abstract

This report details the internship that I conducted during the second semester of the academic year 2018-2019. I worked as a scholar in Ancient Greek Linguistics. The institution that I worked for was the department of Classics, Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen. The objective of the research was to study in depth Ancient Greek texts, find commentaries of others scholars, add them to an archive and create a database out of it. The projects refer to ancient Greek descriptions and rituals of the Goddess Artemis. The skills acquired are presented at the last chapter of the internship report.

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Groningen. This university is one of the top 100 universities of the world that realizes innovative and specified research. I realized the internship at the Faculty of Arts in the Department of Classics under the supervisor of the professor Saskia Peels – Matthey. This faculty focuses on an in depth analysis of ancient Greek and Latin texts examining many different perspectives. In this report, I will present the research done during my internship.

First things first, I will describe how I acquired this internship. Later, I present the projects and my view on these that I came in contact with, explaining my contribution on them. Furthermore, I will display my responsibilities, initial goals and the results of this internship. In the last chapter, I offer an evaluation of the project focusing on the skills and knowledge that were acquired. In addition, I present you the contribution and communication with my supervisor, and my own understanding of the projects and the percentage of achieving the initial goals that I had set before. Lastly, I analyze the skills that will be of use in my career.

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2. Description of the internship 2.1 Finding the internship

The search for the internship started during Christmas, before the end of the first semester. There were some reasons that I had the desire to study the Ancient Greek Language. Firstly, I always loved Ancient Greek. I am studying it since my childhood. Secondly, I wanted to experience how research on Ancient Greek is done in the Academic system of the Netherlands. Thirdly, I desired to involve myself on a research on a language that is not anymore spoken – a dead language-, since I study MA Multilingualism. This phenomenon (research on an ancient language that is no more used) attracted me more during the first semester. Finally, I chose this to challenge myself by not only translating Ancient Greek to English, but also to explain its meaning and its content to a language that is not my mother tongue.

Thereupon, in late January, I came into contact with professor S. Peels of the department of Classics, Faculty of Arts. I presented myself and expressed her my desire to realize an internship under her supervision regarding the Ancient Greek Language. After exchanging mails for the requirements of the internship, we had a meeting during her office hours. Then we agreed to work together on a project concerning the Ancient Greek Linguistics section. On 31 of January, we signed the Placement Contract and the Placement Plan. As a result, I officially started my internship on February 1st.

2.2 Location and duration of the internship

My Masters’ supervisor proposed me to work in an office in Harmony Building, where the professors are actually working. I got the key and the access soon. However, it was not convenient, because I was not allowed to make use of dictionaries of Ancient Greek outside of the university library, because it is prohibited to loan them. So I decided, after consulting my supervisors, to study at the library. In addition, I was using many different books on a daily basis, so it was impossible to loan them all. In addition, the access to the books was easier at the library of the University. The internship, as stated, started at February 1st and ended on May 31st_{. The total ECTS of the internship were 10, 280 hours. I was working five}

days a week for 4 hours, 20 hours a week. The internship lasted 17 weeks. During the last two weeks of April and the first week of May, I did not work on the internship, because of the Catholic and the Orthodox Eastern. Therefore, I worked on the internship for 14 weeks, 20 hours per week, in total 280 hours.

2.3 Projects of the internship

2.3.1 Project 1: A collection of Greek ritual Norms.

In this project, ancient texts that are based on ancient inscriptions were selected from a specific database. The objective is to search and find all the previous work done from previous scholars, find the inscription, if possible, and make an electronic archive gathering all the information. The last step is to present the meaning of the inscriptions, according to the previous scholars’ views, using always citation.

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2.3.2 Project 2: Goddess Artemis and her cult in historical sources.

The objective of this project was to find the occasions in which Artemis appeared and write them down in a file. The second step was to find in texts of the Ancient Greek historian authors passages that the goddess appeared. The objective was to describe the instances that Goddess Artemis shows up. In addition, in the instances that I observed the worship of the goddess, I was writing a commentary on this passage based on previous works of scholars. In rare cases, I took the initiative to add my own view of the passage, supported always by the previous scholars. This project concluded by writing a short overview based on the texts of the ancient authors.

3. Student’s position and tasks

Both projects are presented and described in this section. However, I will extensively explain my contribution to the second project “Goddess Artemis and her cult in historical sources”, given the fact that I dedicated nine out 10 ECTS on it and 1 out of 10 ECTS on the first project “A collection of Greek ritual Norms”. The reason behind it is that after working for one week on the first project we found out that the task was not appropriate for my skills. After a discussion that I had with my supervisor, we concluded that the Artemis project was more suitable and more interesting for me on the one hand and on the other closer to the field of Multilingualism, since I got the chance to translate the ancient Greek texts to English and Modern Greek.

3.1 Project 1: A collection of Greek ritual Norms.

The first project that I participated “A collection of Greek ritual Norms” was a part of CGRN (Collection of Greek Ritual Norms). CGRN is a center that is focused on the study of Ancient Greek religion. It is a project that is under the “aegis of the Collège de France and the

University of Liège”. The major goal of the project is to collect epigraphs concerning the ancient Greek rituals and make them available to the public. Its second important goal is to provide precise and scientific tools to scholars that want to investigate more this religion. The project that my supervisor and I agreed to participate was “A collection of Greek ritual Norms”. The topic of the project was the study of religious rituals. Specifically, this project concerns “leges sacrae” “sacred laws” from Ancient Greek inscriptions. These texts involve Ancient Greek cultural traditions, religion and rituals. These inscriptions can be found in texts published by previous scholars. These texts are uploaded to the CGRN database.

Firstly, we arranged a meeting so that my professor could explain to me the requirements of this project. She clarified the way of using the tools needed to find the sources and translate ancient Greek inscriptions that were lacking or missing a lot of information. She also explained to me that this project focuses on searching for previous scholars’ work on these inscriptions. Then she show me how to cite these required references. The last step was to build a database that will have organized every information in folders. After receiving the necessary material and understanding the tasks, I worked for one ECTS on a set of five inscriptions.

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Nonetheless, this project focused mainly on searching scholars work, and less on experiencing the Ancient Greek Language. It was a project that did not have to do so much with the field of linguistics, but with the way of researching and finding scholars work, using databases. Unfortunately, I was not experienced on this kind of research. After using all the tools that were explained and putting much effort, this task was proved too demanding for a student without experience of heuristic methods in this field. As a result, after exchanging mails, we organized a second meeting during the second week of the internship, in order to change the project to a more linguistically based.

Summary of tasks of “A collection of Greek ritual Norms” project:

 Translating material from Ancient Greek to English and Greek.  Search the publications of the inscription.

 Searching for previous scholars’ work and commentary on the inscription.  Summarize the found information in a brief explanatory text.

 Organize a database of all the findings.

3.2 Project 2: Goddess Artemis and her cult in historical sources.

At the end of the second week of the internship, we had a meeting on changing the project that I had taken on. My supervisor, professor Peels, first talked with the masters’ supervisor to give us the green light to change our initial plans. Therefore, the second project that we decided to work on was the “Goddess Artemis and her cult in historical sources”. The professor had just started a new project. Its objective was to track down all the passages that goddess Artemis appeared and analyze them. During this particular meeting, the professor, using an electronic tool, had already located the passages that Artemis was mentioned in texts of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Pausanias. She taught me how to use the tools she also uses for this kind of research.

I studied in depth passages that Artemis appeared in a great variety of books. The texts that were examined were “The Histories” of Herodotus, “History of the Peloponnesian War” by Thucydides, “Agesilaus”, “Anabasis” “Cynegeticus” and “Hellenica” by Xenophon,

“Description of Greece: Book I Attica” and “Description of Greece: Book II Corinthia” by Pausanias. The objective was not only to translate the texts in English, but also to formulate and fill a descriptive and analytical database each time that Artemis appeared. In this

database, I was writing down the location of the instance, the existence, or not of a sanctuary, the actions and the epithets of the goddess, the way of worshipping her and lastly extra information about the goddess.

During the first week of the second project, I focused on translating and comprehending the texts and the way that the database works. In order to understand the passages better, I translated them in my mother tongue, Greek, and then to English. This procedure cost more time than directly translating to English, but this way I was able to have a better

understanding of the texts and the information that I needed to insert into the database. Moreover, this fact made the project more interesting and multilingual for me. I also had the chance to witness the difference of understanding and writing between Greek and English translation.

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The second step of this project was, after translating and understanding the texts, to find online others’ scholars translations and dictionaries (in a digital way) in order to support the project. We had another meeting with the professor during the last week of February to clarify the way of writing down the database and finding the books and what kind of information were needed. The professor explained me again the way of using the new tools that she presented me.

To be sincere, the digital tools that the professor equipped me with helped me a lot and improved my efficiency. These tools also organized my project more, because I was able to compare the translation of the classic dictionaries with the digital ones. During March, when a good part of the translation and the database were completed, we had a meeting in order to locate other scholars’ commentaries and write summaries of them in .doc files. The professor explained me the way of finding the commentaries that were in the library of the university. She also explained me exactly where the section of the Ancient Greek books was. In addition, she showed me how to use a very practical and organized annotation system for this project and how to archive the information in folders. The most important detail of this meeting was that she showed me how to make references on translations of others scholars’ work. She also introduced me to the different perspective of the Dutch academic system, explaining the mentality of research in the Netherlands, which is different from what I had previously experienced.

Following her useful instructions, I started studying the commentaries of Herodotus in

English. I did my best to add annotations in an academic way to everything that I had put into my writings and organized in a better way the database. Up until this week, I was using e mail to send my job. However, after we discussed during the last meeting with professor Peels, we created a common Google Drive archive that included all the work, so that we could

cooperate better. This way, I was able to upload my job and the professor had access to everything. She could also add comments, proposals and the communication improved as well.

During the last week of March, we had a meeting, because the commentary on Herodotus was partly done. I had already received feedback, but the professor wanted to highlight some points. She emphasized the importance of interconnections between passages and the significance of expressing others’ scholars work academically. After having a discussion on the differences of explaining scholars’ work between the Greek and Dutch academic systems, she pointed out the importance of referencing carefully. The most important was that she indicated me how to present in a more academic and official way other people’s work and not to be timid with my opinion. As a result, I reformed the scholars’ comments in a more

academically acceptable way. In April, two more important meetings were held in order to analyze the commentaries and the work overall. The evaluation of it was very positive. Professor Peels taught me how to differentiate and make it clear when I introduce my own opinion. Until Eastern, I was working on implementing all these new information to the commentary of Herodotus and at the same time, I continued translating texts and enriching the database.

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Until the Easter vacation, I focused on finalizing the translations and the database of Artemis. After asking for advice from my supervisor, she proposed me to try to analyze the text in a deeper level, paying more attention to the scholars’ work and to the ancient text. We had a conversation on how to interpret the passages in a clearer way in order to provide meaningful discussions and context (sessions). Actually, I found very interesting to read analysis of the texts that I Artemis appeared in English, so that I would get a wider understanding of the text. Additionally, this helped me to understand the way of explaining instances that occurred in ancient times described in an Ancient –dead- language. At the last part of the internship, due also to lack of commentaries for Xenophon and Pausanias, I focused on improving the quality of the database and achieving a deeper connection with the ancient texts of Herodotus, by comparing English translations and analysis dedicating my thinking on this task. This deeper understanding of Ancient Greek, using analysis that are not written in my mother tongue, led me to rewrite from the start the section of the database that was referred to the actions and the way of worshipping Artemis.

Summary of tasks of “Goddess Artemis and her cult in historical sources” project:  Make an organized personal programme to meet expectations.

 Find the instances that Artemis appeared in Ancient texts of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Pausanias.

 Build structured databases that entail all the information of Artemis needed for the project. The databases should provide detailed information for every entry ( A/A, author, Book, Passage, description of incident, Epithet of Artemis, Other gods that appear, if there is sanctuary, Location of the incident, function of Artemis, other information, extra explanation and suggestions for further research).

 Write a doc file in Ancient Greek providing a personal translation in Modern Greek and an English translation, using online dictionaries and translations from other scholars.

 Focus on specific information and delve deeply into them.

 Use the university tools and library database effectively to find the necessary sources.  Study, understand and summarize other scholars’ commentaries in a concrete text.  Annotate others’ scholars work using footnotes and APA style in a practical way.  Write commentaries, mainly of Herodotus, for Ancient Greek texts using Greek and

English translations and commentaries.

 A double of important commentaries to the text.  A copy of an edition of Greek text, if possible.

 Express my own opinion in a more academic accepted way.

 Make comparison of Greek and English sources to understand Ancient Greek from a multilingual, totally different and enriched point of view.

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4. Evaluation of the placement

4.1 What new knowledge and skills the student has acquired?

Apart from all the skills that were mentioned above because of the internship, hereby I present you a list of the skills that were acquired:

 Communicating directly and organizing my work and programme using e-mails.  Skill to adapt to a new project and courage to challenge myself implementing new

strategies (new annotation system, translating, commenting and expressing others and my own opinion in a different way than what I was used to.)

 Translating and understanding Ancient Greek and English better thanks to studying the analysis.

 Using footnotes and annotations in an academic way.

 Precision because I was able to pinpoint my comments on the focal point of our project.

 Improvement in understanding of the English and Ancient Greek language, because I translated in English and read many commentaries in English.

 I also improved writing and explaining in English, because I was summarizing the other commentaries and expressing my own.

 Improve critical thinking, because I needed to pick specific information from all my readings.

 Better use of the means of the library (hardcopy sources, books) and digital databases and sources in order to find the information, reference or source needed to analyze the Ancient Greek texts.

 Improve my citation and reference skills.

 Improve my search skills in the internet to find the books and the sources – dictionaries.

 Organizational skills. I needed to schedule a weekly programme in order to achieve my weekly goals and at the same time apply all the innovative proposals that my supervisor suggested in every meeting.

 Be very specific and very cautious when citing my own opinion.

 Be extremely careful of how I use a scholars’ work and how to cite it. Double check that the text is not the same in any parts with the original. If it is, put it into brackets.  Active listening. During every meeting, I was paying all my attention in order to

“absorb” every piece of advice, useful knowledge and handy information that professor Peels kindly offered.

 Different ways of formulating and organizing a research dossier, which is usable and understandable for all the collaborators.

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4.2 How the internship has tied in with professional practices?

I personally believe that this internship was a unique educational experience for me. Given the fact that I desire to conduct research after completing the Masters Programme, I am sure that this internship was more than helpful. We also managed to include in the second project the theme of the MA Multilingualism, since I translated in two languages and combined sources from the English and Greek language to understand and analyze the Ancient Greek texts. Looking for commentaries of other scholars and evaluating them to produce a particular text sharpened my critical thinking. I also think that it served as a practice and preparation for a scholar’s work. The frequent meetings with the professor made the whole project more official, interesting and personal at the same time. I was feeling that I was cooperating with the professor to achieve a common goal. In order to achieve the results of the project, I scheduled in a daily, weekly and monthly basis my expected outcomes. Additionally, I learnt a way of referring to other people’s works and commenting based on it. Most of all, I

experienced a unique collaboration with a person that had as priority the academic efficiency through coordination and effective communication with her collaborators.

4.3 Initial learning goals of the student

First things first, I would like to point out that bellow I will present the learning goals that I set before beginning the internship:

 Participate in a research project of the University of Groningen to take a taste of how research job is done.

 Work with people in this project that are specialized and can transmit their knowledge to me.

 To take on a specific part of the project and accomplish it individually.

 To form part of a team that works on the same project. In addition, to coordinate and communicate effectively with people and understand their own point of view on the project, enriching it with my own perspective.

 To work with different people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  To witness if there is any difference in writing and understanding between the Greek

and English scholars’ points of view on the same Ancient Greek texts.

I can say with certainty that I have accomplished my initial expectancies in a big percentage. I presented myself to professor Peels as a MA Multilingualism and Honours Master student that has already a lot of experience on Ancient Greek. My previous studies on Spanish Philology and the Research Master on Intercultural Education created high expectances for me. I was very eager to learn as much as possible and accomplish my goals. I had the opportunity to participate in two research programmes with a person that not only knows a lot about her expertise, but she is also very capable of transmitting her knowledge to others.

Furthermore, I have to admit that she entrusted me with entire texts to study in depth, giving me feedback, in a weekly basis. Forming a team composed of two people, I believe that we were able to understand each other and coordinate up to a great point. As for the difference between the Greek and English academic scholars on Ancient Greek texts and the efficient collaboration with people from a different cultural background, I am convinced that I could not have done a better choice.

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4.4 What the supervision was like?

The responsible people for this internship were professor Duarte, Gooskens and Peels. Professor Duarte was responsible for the internship in general, providing all the students of the MA with the necessary information and sources in order to acquire one. She gave us precise instructions and examples of previous students that did an internship. Professor

Gooskens was my supervisor of the MA Multilingualism. She provided me with a room at the Harmonie Building and helpful advice on how to organize my internship set a schedule and follow it. We had also two very informative meetings about the internship. We also

communicated via e-mail and she always provided me with all the required information, guidance and assistance when needed.

The last supervisor was professor Peels. She was responsible for my projects and my progress and at the same time the person that I was the most in contact with. She was always accurate on time and precise on what she asked from me. She organized meetings at least every two weeks, but had also given me the permission to communicate with her via e-mail, if there was any difficulty with the internship. Every time that I came into contact with her, she responded directly and fast with structured instructions.

She was also very patient and creative teacher. She could explain what the tasks of the project required in a very understandable way. She also was very willing to help and pass her

knowledge. During our meetings, she was showing and explaining me how the new tools that we used and the annotation system should be used. In addition, every time she was providing me with examples to read and experiment on my own. She was also offering time to listen and understand my opinion on a dead-end situation.

4.5 How did the placement help the student to sharpen his career goals?

Before starting the internship, I had to communicate with my supervisors, follow the official procedures, find the required forms and deposit them to the responsible office, in order to achieve the internship. This bureaucratic process following specific deadlines was a unique experience for me that will be of use soon.

My objective in the future is to realize academic research at the Academia. During this Internship professor Peels guided me in an exceptional way. She showed to me how to express my own opinion in an academic way. Furthermore, she gave me many examples on how to communicate my point of view and comment an ancient Greek text. She also taught me how to refer to other’s opinions in an academic way. She insisted on how to do better references and organize in a structured and acceptable way my footnotes using APA style. Lastly, she introduced me to the scholar work and research.

Thanks to this internship, I took the responsibility of a specific part of a project. This made me more knowledgeable. Building a database and an electronic archive shared by google drive helped me evolve my organizational and digital skills. I truly believe that these in combination with the effective collaboration will be a very useful asset for my own career goals.

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5. Conclusion

During this internship, I learned how to be more organized, how to cooperate with a professor on a common project, how to be more concise, accurate and laconic and a lot more. I

understood that a joint project needs trust and understanding in order to succeed. I needed to be very hard working and consistent, in order to achieve not only my personal, but our joint goals as well. However, many things are really worth remembered from this internship. I believe that one of the most important is that I encountered people that are trying their best to learn and transmit their own knowledge. These people serve as examples of academic

behavior and values. Hence, before concluding this internship report, I would like to thank all the people that contributed to its realization, but most of all professor Peels, that show me a path of challenging myself and trusting other people to achieve a common goal.

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6. Appendix

In the appendix there are photos of the digital archive, the organization of the files, their separation according to authors, texts and passages. The databases, some texts with translations and some files are also presented.

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MA Internship Report of Ancient Greek