Magic Under Construction: TOMU 2-12
May. 6th, 2011 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinStarted: 5/6/2011
Status: In Progress
Word Count: ~2400
Hours Writing: 2
[2 hours in.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided that we would give the Arch a try for lunch later on and we would definitely be back for dinner.
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as he'd always had kind of an acerbic manner... but he was informative and interesting, and fair with his grades.
The classroom was in the familiar environs of Smith Hall, the building that housed the offices of the history department. It was an upstairs classroom with big arched windows all along one wall... actually the tops of arches that on the outside of the building extended down to the ground. A set of folding chairs had been set up in a circle in the middle of the classroom, with desks pushed off to one side. Two men were seated in a pair of chairs in the middle of the circle.
One of them I recognized... a man with strong if somewhat stormy features, salt-and-pepper hair, and as a new touch a sort of scruffy beard. Professor Hart had taught the Early Republican History class that I transferred into after transferring out of Elven History class to get my GPA out from under Ariadne's biased thumb.
The other man looked older, though both of them could easily have been well within a decade of each other. He was on the short side and somewhat slight of frame. Though he was wearing a suit and not robes, he looked like the sort of person who might comfortably affect wizardly garb.
The two instructors were chatting quietly with each other. There were already five students in the classroom when I arrived, and they were all still getting situated, like they'd just arrived. Another four or five people seemed to follow in right behind me. It seemed like I wasn't the only one eager for this class... which made sense, as everybody was there because they wanted to be.
This brand new class was not a specific graduation requirement for anyone. It counted towards the requirements for at least three majors but no one's academic plan of attack depended on it. It was part of a handful of new classes that had been proposed and planned over the course of the previous spring as an initiative to modernize the MU curriculum in the same way that the campus was being overhauled.
It was still a few minutes before the actual start of class when the last chair was filled. Professor Hart broke off from whatever he was saying, stood up, and glanced around the room. He counted heads, then picked up his chair. He carried it to a gap in the circle, set it down, and then went over and closed the door.
"Good morning. I am Professor Aaron Hart," he said. He gestured to the other man. "This is my colleague from the College of Bardic Arts, Lore Department... Professor Fenwick Hall."
"Do not, I pray, allow my name to deceive you," Professor Hall said, not quite stifling a chuckle. He stood and moved his chair to the spot opposite where Hart had put his. "I am an instructor, not a building."
"Uh, right," Hart said. He went back and stood by his empty seat. "This is our first time teaching this class, and our first time team-teaching, so it may be a bit of a bumpy ride sometimes. The explosion in these interdisciplinary discussion courses is yet another brainwave from our glorious leader, peace be upon her name, Chancellor of Our Souls Bethany Davies. The ziggurat is still on order, I understand, or we'd be meeting there."
"Also, please note!" Hall added, with considerably more excitement. "This class is meant to be an investigation more so than a lecture. Our purpose here as instructors is not to tell you answers but to lead you ever-so-gently towards questions."
Professor Hart rolled his eyes and mouthed the words "ever-so-gently".
"The fact is," Hall continued, "that there has never been much in the way of a systematic interrogation of the intersections of received lore and recorded history. You students have the honor of traveling into unexplored terrain, and we are honored to be your guides and fellow travelers."
"We are ever so honored," Hart said.
"Yes, quite ever so," Hall said. While I knew from experience that Hart's effectiveness as a teacher was hampered when he was performing under protest, I was kind of heartened to realize that I wasn't the most oblivious person in the room.
"Then let's get ever so started," Hart said. "Here's the format my colleague and I have agreed upon for the class. Each time we meet we'll agree on a topic of discussion for the next class, a time and a place for which there is both a proper historical account and... some lore. You, in the time between sessions, will do your own reading and research on the chosen topic."
"Note that when Professor Hart says 'we will agree', he means you as well as the two of us," Hall said. "You are included in the decision."
"Yeah, yeah, ever so included," Hart said. "The thing is that it'll be a round table discussion, and you'll be graded on participation as well as the strength of your ideas. Now, obviously you know we didn't assign any topic for the first class so this is going to be a bit more free-form. Professor Hall and I are going to talk a bit about our disciplines and how we each would approach the same set of events."
"Indeed," Professor Hall said. "And in doing so it is our sincerest hope that you will learn to incorporate both approaches into your own interrogations."
"Or that you'll see that one is superior to the other," Hart said.
"Er. Oh. Yes, or that," Hall said.
"The study of history is an interesting contradiction," Hart said. "You might think that the longer the world goes on, the more history we have to study, and that's true. The contradiction is that it's recent. The more 'historical' a time is compared to the present, the less we know of it's history.
"If you look back ten years ago, we know quite a bit about things that happened all over the world. Fifty years ago, we still have pretty complete records for anywhere the human empires or any other world power was operating. One hundred years ago, things start to get sketchy around the edges. Two hundred years ago, we know an awful lot about what we were doing but not much else. A thousand years before that, there are entire nations that we know less about than we know about specific individuals of the past two centuries. When we get as far back as the dawn of time... well, there's a reason we call the earliest eras 'pre-historic'."
"The, ah, 'history' of lore is less straightforward," Professor Hall said. "But it is in some ways the inverse of that of history. As written records have become more reliable, and communication has increased in range, speed, and reliability, the role of lore in recording and transmitting important information has decreased. New information, I should say. Of course all the old lore hasn't disappeared."
The two professors went back and forth for a bit, explaining the actual differences between their fields of study. It would be too much of a simplification to say that history was written and lore was oral, as both were developed from multiple sources and either one involved things that could be written down or told. It was more about the matter of approach and purpose. History was interested in why and how things happened. Lore was more about what they meant. History was more systematic and focused on the truth, when it could be determined. Lore was more utilitarian. It didn't matter if the story itself contained some elements that weren't factual, as long as it was still a useful story to know.
It was hard to judge how much of Hart's apparent contempt for lore was real and how much of it was a side-effect of him not wanting to be co-teaching a class about it. I made a mental note to find out how he felt about any of his classes I considered taking before actually signing up for them.
[]
"Let's consider, for example, the Thylean exploration of the Westering Lands," Hart said. "That there were Thyleans in Magisteria is now considered to be a historical fact, on the basis of evidence uncovered at their settlements and corroborating accounts from dwarven clans willing to discuss prior contact with humans, as well as a now-famous interview with a barrow-wight discovered at one of the settlements. Before that, we merely had stories... poetic sagas about lands beyond the sea that were so vague that they could easily have been based on the fact that there was a sea and the possibility that there might be land beyond it."
"Well, Aaron, these stories you call 'vague' were in fact specific enough that after the settlements in northeastern Magisteria were uncovered, no fewer than seventeen specific geographic details of the Voyages were found to directly correspond with the locations of the settlements," Professor Hall said. "And of course, the existence of a land across the sea was also supported by innumerable other bits of lore..."
"Like every story that begins with a stranger coming from a land across the sea?"
"Well, yes, and the sagas of Athanasia, which attested to an elven empire that spanned three continents, including one that was completely unknown to human historians before the age of exploration," Hall said.
"My point is that with so many different stories all talking about a land across the sea, the only way to pin down whether or not there's any factual basis for one is to find some way of verifying it," Hart said. "Otherwise we don't have any idea what previous generations actually did, only what they told each other."
"And that, in a nutshell, is why studying the intersection of lore and history is so fascinating," Hall said. "The ancient wisdom of lore acting as an expert guide to the young and inexperienced discipline of history..."
That was the first time that Hall seemed to stray at all into a comparison of the virtues of his field versus Professor Hart's, and he was so matter-of-fact and sincere about it that I could kind of understand Hart's frustration with the situation. Hart was making no secret of his opinion, but Hall didn't seem to be aware that what he was voicing was an opinion at all... much less an unflattering one. If anything, his tone suggested that he was being magnanimous towards the "young discipline".
"So, to back up," Hart said. "We had stories from the Thyleans suggesting they'd traveled to the west and even settled there. A band of delvers exploring a hollow hill in Terra Nova uncovered what we later learned was the first Thyleans burial chamber to be found in the Westering Lands. Comparisons of the weapons and armor they looted from the chamber to similar gear in use 'back home' tell us that this happened approximately a thousand years ago, a time period when the northlands were independent nations and thus outside the records kept in the Mother City."
"Also the timeframe established in the sagas," Hall said. "And it is from the saga that we were able to ascertain the identity of the gold-bedecked figure previously known as the Cairn-Dweller, the Thylean chief Asvald."
"The barrow-wight told us that," Hart said. "When the cairn was breached, he declared 'Here lies Asvald, Son of the Wolf'. In later interviews conducted by a modern-day Thylean cleric, he gave us Asvald's full lineage and an account of day-to-day life as one of the chief's retainers."
"Accounts that were confirmed by lore," Hall said.
[1.5 hours in.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided to give the Arch a try for lunch.
[]
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as we'd butted heads
"I am Professor Aaron Hart," he said. "This is my colleague from the College of Bardic Arts, Lore Department... Professor Fenwick Hall."
"Do not, I pray, allow my name to deceive you," Professor Hall said, not quite stifling a chuckle. "I am an instructor, not a building."
"Uh, right," Hart said. "This is our first time teaching this class, and our first time team-teaching, so it may be a bit of a bumpy ride sometimes. The explosion in these interdisciplinary discussion courses is yet another brainwave from our glorious leader, peace be upon her name, Chancellor of Our Souls Bethany Davies. The ziggurat is still on order, I understand, or we'd be meeting there."
"Also of note!" Hall added, with considerably more excitement. "This class is meant to be an investigation more so than a lecture. Our purpose here as instructors is not to tell you answers but to lead you ever-so-gently towards questions."
Slightly behind him, Professor Hart rolled his eyes and mouthed the words "ever-so-gently" over the rim of his coffee cup.
"The fact is," Hall continued, "that there has never been much in the way of a systematic interrogation of the intersections of received lore and recorded history. You students have the honor of traveling into unexplored terrain, and we are honored to be your guides and fellow travelers."
"We are ever so honored," Hart said.
"Yes, quite ever so," Hall said. While I knew from experience that Hart's effectiveness as a teacher was hampered when he was performing under protest, I was kind of heartened to realize that I wasn't the most oblivious person in the room.
"Then let's get ever so started," Hart said. "Here's the format my colleague and I have agreed upon for the class. Each time we meet we'll agree on a topic of discussion for the next class, a time and a place for which there is both a proper historical account and... some lore. You, in the time between sessions, will do your own reading and research on the chosen topic."
"Note that when Professor Hart says 'we will agree', he means you as well as the two of us," Hall said. "You are included in the decision."
"Yeah, yeah, ever so included," Hart said. "The thing is that it'll be a round table discussion, and you'll be graded on participation as well as the strength of your ideas. Now, obviously you know we didn't assign any topic for the first class so this is going to be a bit more free-form. Professor Hall and I are going to talk a bit about our disciplines and how we each would approach the same set of events."
"Indeed," Professor Hall said. "And in doing so it is our sincerest hope that you will learn to incorporate both approaches into your own interrogations."
"Or that you'll see that one is superior to the other," Hart said.
"Er. Oh. Yes, or that," Hall said.
"The study of history is an interesting contradiction," Hart said. "You might think that the longer the world goes on, the more history we have to study, and that's true. The contradiction is that it's recent. The more 'historical' a time is compared to the present, the less we know of it's history.
"If you look back ten years ago, we know quite a bit about things that happened all over the world. Fifty years ago, we still have pretty complete records for anywhere the human empires or any other world power was operating. One hundred years ago, things start to get sketchy around the edges. Two hundred years ago, we know an awful lot about what we were doing but not much else. A thousand years before that, there are entire nations that we know less about than we know about specific individuals of the past two centuries. When we get as far back as the dawn of time... well, there's a reason we call the earliest eras 'pre-historic'."
"The, ah, 'history' of lore is less straightforward," Professor Hall said. "But it is in some ways the inverse of that of history. As written records have become more reliable, and communication has increased in range, speed, and reliability, the role of lore in recording and transmitting important information has decreased. New information, I should say. Of course all the old lore hasn't disappeared."
The two professors went back and forth for a bit, explaining the actual differences between their fields of study. It would be too much of a simplification to say that history was written and lore was oral, as both were developed from multiple sources and either one involved things that could be written down or told. It was more about the matter of approach and purpose. History was interested in why and how things happened. Lore was more about what they meant. History was more systematic and focused on the truth, when it could be determined. Lore was more utilitarian. It didn't matter if the story itself contained some elements that weren't factual, as long as it was still a useful story to know.
It was hard to judge how much of Hart's apparent contempt for lore was real and how much of it was a side-effect of him not wanting to be co-teaching a class about it. I made a mental note to find out how he felt about any of his classes I considered taking before actually signing up for them.
[]
"Let's consider, for example, the Thylean exploration of the Westering Lands," Hart said. "That there were Thyleans in Magisteria is now considered to be a historical fact, on the basis of evidence uncovered at their settlements and corroborating accounts from dwarven clans willing to discuss prior contact with humans, as well as a now-famous interview with a barrow-wight discovered at one of the settlements. Before that, we merely had stories... poetic sagas about lands beyond the sea that were so vague that they could easily have been based on the fact that there was a sea and the possibility that there might be land beyond it."
"Well, Aaron, these stories you call 'vague' were in fact specific enough that after the settlements in northeastern Magisteria were uncovered, no fewer than seventeen specific geographic details of the Voyages were found to directly correspond with the locations of the settlements," Professor Hall said. "And of course, the existence of a land across the sea was also supported by innumerable other bits of lore..."
"Like every story that begins with a stranger coming from a land across the sea?"
"Well, yes, and the sagas of Athanasia, which attested to an elven empire that spanned three continents, including one that was completely unknown to human historians before the age of exploration," Hall said.
"My point is that with so many different stories all talking about a land across the sea, the only way to pin down whether or not there's any factual basis for one is to find some way of verifying it," Hart said. "Otherwise we don't have any idea what previous generations actually did, only what they told each other."
"And that, in a nutshell, is why studying the intersection of lore and history is so fascinating," Hall said. "The ancient wisdom of lore acting as an expert guide to the young and inexperienced discipline of history..."
That was the first time that Hall seemed to stray at all into a comparison of the virtues of his field versus Professor Hart's, and he was so matter-of-fact and sincere about it that I could kind of understand Hart's frustration with the situation. Hart was making no secret of his opinion, but Hall didn't seem to be aware that what he was voicing was an opinion at all.
[1 hour in. On more of a roll now that the class has started.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided to give the Arch a try for lunch.
[]
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as we'd butted heads
"I am Professor Aaron Hart," he said. "This is my colleague from the College of Bardic Arts, Lore Department... Professor Fenwick Hall."
"Do not, I pray, allow my name to deceive you," Professor Hall said, not quite stifling a chuckle. "I am an instructor, not a building."
"Uh, right," Hart said. "This is our first time teaching this class, and our first time team-teaching, so it may be a bit of a bumpy ride sometimes. The explosion in these interdisciplinary discussion courses is yet another brainwave from our glorious leader, peace be upon her name, Chancellor of Our Souls Bethany Davies. The ziggurat is still on order, I understand, or we'd be meeting there."
"Also of note!" Hall added, with considerably more excitement. "This class is meant to be an investigation more so than a lecture. Our purpose here as instructors is not to tell you answers but to lead you ever-so-gently towards questions."
Slightly behind him, Professor Hart rolled his eyes and mouthed the words "ever-so-gently" over the rim of his coffee cup.
"The fact is," Hall continued, "that there has never been much in the way of a systematic interrogation of the intersections of received lore and recorded history. You students have the honor of traveling into unexplored terrain, and we are honored to be your guides and fellow travelers."
"We are ever so honored," Hart said.
"Yes, quite ever so," Hall said. While I knew from experience that Hart's effectiveness as a teacher was hampered when he was performing under protest, I was kind of heartened to realize that I wasn't the most oblivious person in the room.
"Then let's get ever so started," Hart said. "Here's the format my colleague and I have agreed upon for the class. Each time we meet we'll agree on a topic of discussion for the next class, a time and a place for which there is both a proper historical account and... some lore. You, in the time between sessions, will do your own reading and research on the chosen topic."
"Note that when Professor Hart says 'we will agree', he means you as well as the two of us," Hall said. "You are included in the decision."
"Yeah, yeah, ever so included," Hart said. "The thing is that it'll be a round table discussion, and you'll be graded on participation as well as the strength of your ideas. Now, obviously you know we didn't assign any topic for the first class so this is going to be a bit more free-form. Professor Hall and I are going to talk a bit about our disciplines and how we each would approach the same set of events."
"Indeed," Professor Hall said. "And in doing so it is our sincerest hope that you will learn to incorporate both approaches into your own interrogations."
"Or that you'll see that one is superior to the other," Hart said.
"Er. Oh. Yes, or that," Hall said.
"The study of history is an interesting contradiction," Hart said. "The farther back you go, the less of it we have. If you look back ten years ago, we know quite a bit about things that happened all over the world. Fifty years ago, we still have pretty complete records for anywhere the human empires or any other world power was operating. One hundred years ago, things start to get sketchy around the edges.
[0.5 hours in. Slow start, had to get the "morning" stuff out of the way.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided to give the Arch a try for lunch.
[]
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as we'd butted heads
Status: In Progress
Word Count: ~2400
Hours Writing: 2
[2 hours in.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided that we would give the Arch a try for lunch later on and we would definitely be back for dinner.
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as he'd always had kind of an acerbic manner... but he was informative and interesting, and fair with his grades.
The classroom was in the familiar environs of Smith Hall, the building that housed the offices of the history department. It was an upstairs classroom with big arched windows all along one wall... actually the tops of arches that on the outside of the building extended down to the ground. A set of folding chairs had been set up in a circle in the middle of the classroom, with desks pushed off to one side. Two men were seated in a pair of chairs in the middle of the circle.
One of them I recognized... a man with strong if somewhat stormy features, salt-and-pepper hair, and as a new touch a sort of scruffy beard. Professor Hart had taught the Early Republican History class that I transferred into after transferring out of Elven History class to get my GPA out from under Ariadne's biased thumb.
The other man looked older, though both of them could easily have been well within a decade of each other. He was on the short side and somewhat slight of frame. Though he was wearing a suit and not robes, he looked like the sort of person who might comfortably affect wizardly garb.
The two instructors were chatting quietly with each other. There were already five students in the classroom when I arrived, and they were all still getting situated, like they'd just arrived. Another four or five people seemed to follow in right behind me. It seemed like I wasn't the only one eager for this class... which made sense, as everybody was there because they wanted to be.
This brand new class was not a specific graduation requirement for anyone. It counted towards the requirements for at least three majors but no one's academic plan of attack depended on it. It was part of a handful of new classes that had been proposed and planned over the course of the previous spring as an initiative to modernize the MU curriculum in the same way that the campus was being overhauled.
It was still a few minutes before the actual start of class when the last chair was filled. Professor Hart broke off from whatever he was saying, stood up, and glanced around the room. He counted heads, then picked up his chair. He carried it to a gap in the circle, set it down, and then went over and closed the door.
"Good morning. I am Professor Aaron Hart," he said. He gestured to the other man. "This is my colleague from the College of Bardic Arts, Lore Department... Professor Fenwick Hall."
"Do not, I pray, allow my name to deceive you," Professor Hall said, not quite stifling a chuckle. He stood and moved his chair to the spot opposite where Hart had put his. "I am an instructor, not a building."
"Uh, right," Hart said. He went back and stood by his empty seat. "This is our first time teaching this class, and our first time team-teaching, so it may be a bit of a bumpy ride sometimes. The explosion in these interdisciplinary discussion courses is yet another brainwave from our glorious leader, peace be upon her name, Chancellor of Our Souls Bethany Davies. The ziggurat is still on order, I understand, or we'd be meeting there."
"Also, please note!" Hall added, with considerably more excitement. "This class is meant to be an investigation more so than a lecture. Our purpose here as instructors is not to tell you answers but to lead you ever-so-gently towards questions."
Professor Hart rolled his eyes and mouthed the words "ever-so-gently".
"The fact is," Hall continued, "that there has never been much in the way of a systematic interrogation of the intersections of received lore and recorded history. You students have the honor of traveling into unexplored terrain, and we are honored to be your guides and fellow travelers."
"We are ever so honored," Hart said.
"Yes, quite ever so," Hall said. While I knew from experience that Hart's effectiveness as a teacher was hampered when he was performing under protest, I was kind of heartened to realize that I wasn't the most oblivious person in the room.
"Then let's get ever so started," Hart said. "Here's the format my colleague and I have agreed upon for the class. Each time we meet we'll agree on a topic of discussion for the next class, a time and a place for which there is both a proper historical account and... some lore. You, in the time between sessions, will do your own reading and research on the chosen topic."
"Note that when Professor Hart says 'we will agree', he means you as well as the two of us," Hall said. "You are included in the decision."
"Yeah, yeah, ever so included," Hart said. "The thing is that it'll be a round table discussion, and you'll be graded on participation as well as the strength of your ideas. Now, obviously you know we didn't assign any topic for the first class so this is going to be a bit more free-form. Professor Hall and I are going to talk a bit about our disciplines and how we each would approach the same set of events."
"Indeed," Professor Hall said. "And in doing so it is our sincerest hope that you will learn to incorporate both approaches into your own interrogations."
"Or that you'll see that one is superior to the other," Hart said.
"Er. Oh. Yes, or that," Hall said.
"The study of history is an interesting contradiction," Hart said. "You might think that the longer the world goes on, the more history we have to study, and that's true. The contradiction is that it's recent. The more 'historical' a time is compared to the present, the less we know of it's history.
"If you look back ten years ago, we know quite a bit about things that happened all over the world. Fifty years ago, we still have pretty complete records for anywhere the human empires or any other world power was operating. One hundred years ago, things start to get sketchy around the edges. Two hundred years ago, we know an awful lot about what we were doing but not much else. A thousand years before that, there are entire nations that we know less about than we know about specific individuals of the past two centuries. When we get as far back as the dawn of time... well, there's a reason we call the earliest eras 'pre-historic'."
"The, ah, 'history' of lore is less straightforward," Professor Hall said. "But it is in some ways the inverse of that of history. As written records have become more reliable, and communication has increased in range, speed, and reliability, the role of lore in recording and transmitting important information has decreased. New information, I should say. Of course all the old lore hasn't disappeared."
The two professors went back and forth for a bit, explaining the actual differences between their fields of study. It would be too much of a simplification to say that history was written and lore was oral, as both were developed from multiple sources and either one involved things that could be written down or told. It was more about the matter of approach and purpose. History was interested in why and how things happened. Lore was more about what they meant. History was more systematic and focused on the truth, when it could be determined. Lore was more utilitarian. It didn't matter if the story itself contained some elements that weren't factual, as long as it was still a useful story to know.
It was hard to judge how much of Hart's apparent contempt for lore was real and how much of it was a side-effect of him not wanting to be co-teaching a class about it. I made a mental note to find out how he felt about any of his classes I considered taking before actually signing up for them.
[]
"Let's consider, for example, the Thylean exploration of the Westering Lands," Hart said. "That there were Thyleans in Magisteria is now considered to be a historical fact, on the basis of evidence uncovered at their settlements and corroborating accounts from dwarven clans willing to discuss prior contact with humans, as well as a now-famous interview with a barrow-wight discovered at one of the settlements. Before that, we merely had stories... poetic sagas about lands beyond the sea that were so vague that they could easily have been based on the fact that there was a sea and the possibility that there might be land beyond it."
"Well, Aaron, these stories you call 'vague' were in fact specific enough that after the settlements in northeastern Magisteria were uncovered, no fewer than seventeen specific geographic details of the Voyages were found to directly correspond with the locations of the settlements," Professor Hall said. "And of course, the existence of a land across the sea was also supported by innumerable other bits of lore..."
"Like every story that begins with a stranger coming from a land across the sea?"
"Well, yes, and the sagas of Athanasia, which attested to an elven empire that spanned three continents, including one that was completely unknown to human historians before the age of exploration," Hall said.
"My point is that with so many different stories all talking about a land across the sea, the only way to pin down whether or not there's any factual basis for one is to find some way of verifying it," Hart said. "Otherwise we don't have any idea what previous generations actually did, only what they told each other."
"And that, in a nutshell, is why studying the intersection of lore and history is so fascinating," Hall said. "The ancient wisdom of lore acting as an expert guide to the young and inexperienced discipline of history..."
That was the first time that Hall seemed to stray at all into a comparison of the virtues of his field versus Professor Hart's, and he was so matter-of-fact and sincere about it that I could kind of understand Hart's frustration with the situation. Hart was making no secret of his opinion, but Hall didn't seem to be aware that what he was voicing was an opinion at all... much less an unflattering one. If anything, his tone suggested that he was being magnanimous towards the "young discipline".
"So, to back up," Hart said. "We had stories from the Thyleans suggesting they'd traveled to the west and even settled there. A band of delvers exploring a hollow hill in Terra Nova uncovered what we later learned was the first Thyleans burial chamber to be found in the Westering Lands. Comparisons of the weapons and armor they looted from the chamber to similar gear in use 'back home' tell us that this happened approximately a thousand years ago, a time period when the northlands were independent nations and thus outside the records kept in the Mother City."
"Also the timeframe established in the sagas," Hall said. "And it is from the saga that we were able to ascertain the identity of the gold-bedecked figure previously known as the Cairn-Dweller, the Thylean chief Asvald."
"The barrow-wight told us that," Hart said. "When the cairn was breached, he declared 'Here lies Asvald, Son of the Wolf'. In later interviews conducted by a modern-day Thylean cleric, he gave us Asvald's full lineage and an account of day-to-day life as one of the chief's retainers."
"Accounts that were confirmed by lore," Hall said.
[1.5 hours in.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided to give the Arch a try for lunch.
[]
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as we'd butted heads
"I am Professor Aaron Hart," he said. "This is my colleague from the College of Bardic Arts, Lore Department... Professor Fenwick Hall."
"Do not, I pray, allow my name to deceive you," Professor Hall said, not quite stifling a chuckle. "I am an instructor, not a building."
"Uh, right," Hart said. "This is our first time teaching this class, and our first time team-teaching, so it may be a bit of a bumpy ride sometimes. The explosion in these interdisciplinary discussion courses is yet another brainwave from our glorious leader, peace be upon her name, Chancellor of Our Souls Bethany Davies. The ziggurat is still on order, I understand, or we'd be meeting there."
"Also of note!" Hall added, with considerably more excitement. "This class is meant to be an investigation more so than a lecture. Our purpose here as instructors is not to tell you answers but to lead you ever-so-gently towards questions."
Slightly behind him, Professor Hart rolled his eyes and mouthed the words "ever-so-gently" over the rim of his coffee cup.
"The fact is," Hall continued, "that there has never been much in the way of a systematic interrogation of the intersections of received lore and recorded history. You students have the honor of traveling into unexplored terrain, and we are honored to be your guides and fellow travelers."
"We are ever so honored," Hart said.
"Yes, quite ever so," Hall said. While I knew from experience that Hart's effectiveness as a teacher was hampered when he was performing under protest, I was kind of heartened to realize that I wasn't the most oblivious person in the room.
"Then let's get ever so started," Hart said. "Here's the format my colleague and I have agreed upon for the class. Each time we meet we'll agree on a topic of discussion for the next class, a time and a place for which there is both a proper historical account and... some lore. You, in the time between sessions, will do your own reading and research on the chosen topic."
"Note that when Professor Hart says 'we will agree', he means you as well as the two of us," Hall said. "You are included in the decision."
"Yeah, yeah, ever so included," Hart said. "The thing is that it'll be a round table discussion, and you'll be graded on participation as well as the strength of your ideas. Now, obviously you know we didn't assign any topic for the first class so this is going to be a bit more free-form. Professor Hall and I are going to talk a bit about our disciplines and how we each would approach the same set of events."
"Indeed," Professor Hall said. "And in doing so it is our sincerest hope that you will learn to incorporate both approaches into your own interrogations."
"Or that you'll see that one is superior to the other," Hart said.
"Er. Oh. Yes, or that," Hall said.
"The study of history is an interesting contradiction," Hart said. "You might think that the longer the world goes on, the more history we have to study, and that's true. The contradiction is that it's recent. The more 'historical' a time is compared to the present, the less we know of it's history.
"If you look back ten years ago, we know quite a bit about things that happened all over the world. Fifty years ago, we still have pretty complete records for anywhere the human empires or any other world power was operating. One hundred years ago, things start to get sketchy around the edges. Two hundred years ago, we know an awful lot about what we were doing but not much else. A thousand years before that, there are entire nations that we know less about than we know about specific individuals of the past two centuries. When we get as far back as the dawn of time... well, there's a reason we call the earliest eras 'pre-historic'."
"The, ah, 'history' of lore is less straightforward," Professor Hall said. "But it is in some ways the inverse of that of history. As written records have become more reliable, and communication has increased in range, speed, and reliability, the role of lore in recording and transmitting important information has decreased. New information, I should say. Of course all the old lore hasn't disappeared."
The two professors went back and forth for a bit, explaining the actual differences between their fields of study. It would be too much of a simplification to say that history was written and lore was oral, as both were developed from multiple sources and either one involved things that could be written down or told. It was more about the matter of approach and purpose. History was interested in why and how things happened. Lore was more about what they meant. History was more systematic and focused on the truth, when it could be determined. Lore was more utilitarian. It didn't matter if the story itself contained some elements that weren't factual, as long as it was still a useful story to know.
It was hard to judge how much of Hart's apparent contempt for lore was real and how much of it was a side-effect of him not wanting to be co-teaching a class about it. I made a mental note to find out how he felt about any of his classes I considered taking before actually signing up for them.
[]
"Let's consider, for example, the Thylean exploration of the Westering Lands," Hart said. "That there were Thyleans in Magisteria is now considered to be a historical fact, on the basis of evidence uncovered at their settlements and corroborating accounts from dwarven clans willing to discuss prior contact with humans, as well as a now-famous interview with a barrow-wight discovered at one of the settlements. Before that, we merely had stories... poetic sagas about lands beyond the sea that were so vague that they could easily have been based on the fact that there was a sea and the possibility that there might be land beyond it."
"Well, Aaron, these stories you call 'vague' were in fact specific enough that after the settlements in northeastern Magisteria were uncovered, no fewer than seventeen specific geographic details of the Voyages were found to directly correspond with the locations of the settlements," Professor Hall said. "And of course, the existence of a land across the sea was also supported by innumerable other bits of lore..."
"Like every story that begins with a stranger coming from a land across the sea?"
"Well, yes, and the sagas of Athanasia, which attested to an elven empire that spanned three continents, including one that was completely unknown to human historians before the age of exploration," Hall said.
"My point is that with so many different stories all talking about a land across the sea, the only way to pin down whether or not there's any factual basis for one is to find some way of verifying it," Hart said. "Otherwise we don't have any idea what previous generations actually did, only what they told each other."
"And that, in a nutshell, is why studying the intersection of lore and history is so fascinating," Hall said. "The ancient wisdom of lore acting as an expert guide to the young and inexperienced discipline of history..."
That was the first time that Hall seemed to stray at all into a comparison of the virtues of his field versus Professor Hart's, and he was so matter-of-fact and sincere about it that I could kind of understand Hart's frustration with the situation. Hart was making no secret of his opinion, but Hall didn't seem to be aware that what he was voicing was an opinion at all.
[1 hour in. On more of a roll now that the class has started.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided to give the Arch a try for lunch.
[]
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as we'd butted heads
"I am Professor Aaron Hart," he said. "This is my colleague from the College of Bardic Arts, Lore Department... Professor Fenwick Hall."
"Do not, I pray, allow my name to deceive you," Professor Hall said, not quite stifling a chuckle. "I am an instructor, not a building."
"Uh, right," Hart said. "This is our first time teaching this class, and our first time team-teaching, so it may be a bit of a bumpy ride sometimes. The explosion in these interdisciplinary discussion courses is yet another brainwave from our glorious leader, peace be upon her name, Chancellor of Our Souls Bethany Davies. The ziggurat is still on order, I understand, or we'd be meeting there."
"Also of note!" Hall added, with considerably more excitement. "This class is meant to be an investigation more so than a lecture. Our purpose here as instructors is not to tell you answers but to lead you ever-so-gently towards questions."
Slightly behind him, Professor Hart rolled his eyes and mouthed the words "ever-so-gently" over the rim of his coffee cup.
"The fact is," Hall continued, "that there has never been much in the way of a systematic interrogation of the intersections of received lore and recorded history. You students have the honor of traveling into unexplored terrain, and we are honored to be your guides and fellow travelers."
"We are ever so honored," Hart said.
"Yes, quite ever so," Hall said. While I knew from experience that Hart's effectiveness as a teacher was hampered when he was performing under protest, I was kind of heartened to realize that I wasn't the most oblivious person in the room.
"Then let's get ever so started," Hart said. "Here's the format my colleague and I have agreed upon for the class. Each time we meet we'll agree on a topic of discussion for the next class, a time and a place for which there is both a proper historical account and... some lore. You, in the time between sessions, will do your own reading and research on the chosen topic."
"Note that when Professor Hart says 'we will agree', he means you as well as the two of us," Hall said. "You are included in the decision."
"Yeah, yeah, ever so included," Hart said. "The thing is that it'll be a round table discussion, and you'll be graded on participation as well as the strength of your ideas. Now, obviously you know we didn't assign any topic for the first class so this is going to be a bit more free-form. Professor Hall and I are going to talk a bit about our disciplines and how we each would approach the same set of events."
"Indeed," Professor Hall said. "And in doing so it is our sincerest hope that you will learn to incorporate both approaches into your own interrogations."
"Or that you'll see that one is superior to the other," Hart said.
"Er. Oh. Yes, or that," Hall said.
"The study of history is an interesting contradiction," Hart said. "The farther back you go, the less of it we have. If you look back ten years ago, we know quite a bit about things that happened all over the world. Fifty years ago, we still have pretty complete records for anywhere the human empires or any other world power was operating. One hundred years ago, things start to get sketchy around the edges.
[0.5 hours in. Slow start, had to get the "morning" stuff out of the way.]
It might seem like the second day of class should feel more routine than the first one did, but it didn't. It was the second day of classes... the only part of it that would be at all familiar was the last class of the day, which was still Fighting To Disable, and that wasn't exactly a comforting routine. Even with having Coach Callahan's class every day, it would probably be the end of the semester before I was able to be comfortable with it.
That aside, I was excited to start the day because the majority of it was composed of classes that I wanted. I had to get through one hour of fighting at the end of the day, but there was two hour-and-a-half classes between me and it and I was looking forward to both of them.
Breakfast in the Arch was somehow less impressive than dinner had been. The slightly fancier breakfast fare just didn't seem to benefit as much from its tacitly improved quality. The scrambled eggs looked more like something you would see pictured in a menu, being paler and with little flecks of herbs in them, but they were unsatisfying, somehow. The diced potatoes weren't really as satisfying as the hash browns I was used to. They made omelets to order... but so did the old dining hall, and theirs were heavier and fuller.
"This isn't breakfast food," was how Two's friend Hazel put it. "It's brunch food."
That plus how much more of a hike it was from the towers in the morning compared to the student union led us to decide that we'd stick with the old place for breakfast, though we decided to give the Arch a try for lunch.
[]
My first class of the day was not in support of my major, but I'd been too intrigued by the concept to pass up on it: "The Making of the World: An interdisciplinary investigation of history and lore from the dawning days to the dawn of the modern era." As a time period, "from the creation of the world until roughly the day before yesterday" maybe sounded a little broad, but as I understood it the specific focus of the class wasn't on the period of time, it was on the things we could point to in the modern world and trace back through time.
Also, it was taught in part by an instructor I respected. I couldn't say he was my favorite teacher, as we'd butted heads