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Showing posts from September, 2019

The Hellfire Club

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  “Just past the weir (going up) is Danes’ Field, where the invading Danes once encamped, during their march to Gloucestershire; and a little further still, nestling by a sweet corner of the stream, is what is left of Medmenham Abbey.   The famous Medmenham monks, or “Hell Fire Club,” as they were commonly called, and of whom the notorious Wilkes was a member, were a fraternity whose motto was “Do as you please,” and that invitation still stands over the ruined doorway of the abbey. Many years before this bogus abbey, with its congregation of irreverent jesters, was founded, there stood upon this same spot a monastery of a sterner kind, whose monks were of a somewhat different type to the revellers that were to follow them, five hundred years afterwards.  The Cistercian monks, whose abbey stood there in the thirteenth century, wore no clothes but rough tunics and cowls, and ate no flesh, nor fish, nor eggs. They lay upon straw, and they rose at midnight to mass. They spen...
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Scholarly Journals as Original Sources of Data

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The significance of identifying scholarly journals as original sources of data is first understood by noting the distinction between scholarly books and journals. The contents of a book are static while journals are fluid. In other words, the book represents an attempt to be a comprehensive treatise on a subject while academic journals record current professional activity, conversation. The academic journal is the meeting place of minds, a formal interchange of ideas, and the documentation of the current study, statistics, and debate. “Journals are scholarly or professional periodicals available primarily in academic libraries and by subscription. . . . Journals are not the same as magazines, which are usually intended for a more general readership.” (Turabian, 254) In other words, subscriptions and a specialized audience are other distinctions that elevate the scholarly journal over a book. Discovering the vast array of academic societies represented by journals is as rewarding as dis...
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Books as original sources of data

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The first course in my doctoral program began by allowing us a discussion on "What is the significance of identifying books as original sources of data?" My contribution is as follows: Books are simply the concentrated efforts of authors and editors devoting attention to the development and discussion of one subject. Books will be the original source of data in this writer's particular research as articles and other sources were not developed or known until times more modern; therefore, this technicality already establishes the kind of material one must handle in research. This writer intends to make Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations”, the centerpiece of the project. The “book” is simply a piece of ancient literature from which one intends to develop an index of contents as well as extrapolate applicable principles for Christian leaders. "Meditations" itself is the original source of data; therefore, it is crucial that works that were written on the subject be corr...
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Two Ways to read Homer's Odyssey (focus: the life lesson of the second option)

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"One way to read The Odyssey is that it’s a story of human perseverance. Odysseus is cunning and determined, he’s willing to do everything and anything to get back to Ithaca...and eventually, because of that, he finally does. That’s certainly the interpretation of Tennyson in his poem 'Ulysses ': 'We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.' But there is also a way to read The Odyssey as illustrating the exact opposite lesson. Because basically every delay and impediment on Odysseus’s long journey home is completely his fault. He says he wants to get back to Ithaca, and then proceeds to constantly undermine himself. It’s only towards the end when he finally stops and actually listens to the gods (most of whom favor him) that he quickly makes any real progress. In f...
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