(Summer Camp) the Story of Jason and the Argonauts

This is an *educational* camp, suitable for learners who are genuinely interested in ancient Greek mythology, motivated to learn more, and willing to follow this camp in order to acquire a deeper knolwedge about the masterpiece of Homer and one of the foundational texts of Western Literature: the Odyssey. This is a camp for those learners who believe that reading ancient Greek literature is fun.

The epic circle of Jason's advenutres inspired the third most popular Greek epic poem, called "Argonautica" by Apollonius of Rhodes, a famous teacher and arch-librarian in Alexandria of Egypt who gave us the most detailed version of Jason's "periplous" (travelogue). Our goal in this 5-day camp is to read the 6,000 verses of this poem, divided into four books (or chapters), as well as understand the content, the context and the meaning of "Argonautica". However, the epic travelogue to Colchis and back by Jason and his divine travel companions (some of them as famous as Herakles and Orpheus or or the Dioscouroi and the Boreads) cannot be understood if it is not combined with the history of the ancient Greek society, the broader mythological background of the Greek world, as well as a sense of what this work really meant for the ancient Greeks in their everyday life. 

Therefore, in this four-day journey through the adventures of the hero Jason and his Argonauts we are going to read, explain and learn to appreciate the epic poem "Argonautica". These are the assigned readings per day :

day 1: Introduction - the myth of Phrixos and Helle - the story of the Argonauts from other ancient sources

day 2: book 1
 
days 3: book 2

day 4: book 3

day 5: book 4

The learning process of this camp is based on a combination of a power-point presentation, a lecture that asks students to participate, class dialogue, questions based on the ongoing lecture, and new ideas based on the dynamic of the group. There is not one universal solution to teach. Rather I combine techniques to achieve the maximum of my strengths and of my students. Having taught so far young kids, teenagers, University students and mature learners, I know that teachers need to approach students with understanding, and that is why I try to keep my classes small (up to 6 or 7 students), in order to work with every single one of the participants. After all, a small class has the advantage of binding the group better, and making the combined technique of ppt presentation-lecture-dialogue feasible and efficient. Thanks to Zoom, engaging students and interacting with them is always possible.