Literature

Here are the links to the three videos:

1. https://vimeo.com/153682749 Catching Up With Gilgamesh After the Bull of Heaven
2. https://vimeo.com/153686025 Death and the Beginning of Grief for Gilgamesh
3. https://vimeo.com/153718672 Immortality Denied/Return to Humanity

Each video deals with the latter half of the epic. The first catches us up and reminds us of whom Gilgamesh is. The second is teaching Tablet VII in which Enkidu dies by the will of the gods. The third deals with the rest of the tablets, focusing on Gilgamesh’s trip to the Netherworld: his dealings with the ScorpionMen (People), the tavern maid, and his quest for internal life. We see how the gods have answered the prayer of the people in Uruk, bringing Gilgamesh to wholeness.

This epic is a study of the human condition. Gilgamesh faces truths that everyone who lives must face. It is meant to mirror our own experiences with hard events and difficult questions about our lives as human beings. I have a mind map from Mindmeister on our Blackboard site. If you have a Mindmeister account, you should be able to access it. It lists the various characters, along with the themes and other elements of the text. Please look at it: https://www.mindmeister.com/370294930?t=XsoicLbLyW
It is on BB as a pdf and a png file.

 

Assignment
For Video 1, please do the following:

1. Listen to the video. It is about 9 minutes long.
2. Write a comment about the video itself. Does it help you understand the text? Do you feel more connected to the experiences in the book? Then give a general assessment of the book thus far. What have you been learning from it? Do you think it is worth your time, even if you are not a big reader? Explain your answer. Please base your answer on what you have read so far, plus the video. (Don’t go into the latter tablets.)
3. Write a response to another comment by a peer, preferably one that has not already received comments. See it as starting a threaded discussion. You may also respond to a thread that has already been started.
4. You will be doing a total of two comments: one on the video itself and one as a response to a comment from a classmate. Please show respect in all comments.

For Video 2, please do the following:

1. Listen to the video. It is about 25 minutes long. Have your text nearby. (I also suggest you take a break between Video 2 and 3 as both are longer than the first one. You may start getting sick of hearing my voice and listening to videos in general if you do it all straight through, plus your writing may not reflect your best work.)
2. Write a comment about the video itself. Does it help you understand the text? Do you feel more connected to the experiences in the book?
3. What are the themes explored in Tablet VII, along with the discussion I introduce in the video? Name two of those themes. How does the text and video show these themes? Can you relate to them personally? (Don’t tell us anything you would rather we didn’t know, but if you can relate, make a strong comparison. If not, explain why not.)
4. You will be doing a total of two comments: one on the video itself and one as a response to a comment from a classmate. Please show respect in all comments.

 

For Video 3: Please do the following:

1. Listen to the video. It is about 30 minutes long. Have your text nearby. Try to do this after a break between videos or even give yourself a day between videos.
2. Write a comment about the video itself. Does it help you understand the text? Do you feel more connected to the experiences in the book?
3. These tablets are often the most difficult to understand, which is why I try to spell them out, as misunderstanding them will hurt your overall appreciation for the text. So answer the following: What do you think of Gilgamesh now at the end of the epic? How has he changed? Why was it important for him to go to the Netherland? What else did he learn from his very difficult solitary journey there besides that he wouldn’t get immortality? (That is a given statement: he was never going to be made immortal). I argue that the gods answer the prayers of the people in Uruk. Do you agree? Explain your answer. I also argue that this epic reflects the human condition. Do you agree? Explain your answer with how you think it does specifically or how you think it does not. Then conclude your post with what you think of the epic. What makes it valuable? Why do you think Mosaic assigns this as a mandatory text? Do you agree with the decision? What can students learn about life in general from reading and studying this text?
4. You will be doing a total of two comments: one on the video itself and one as a response to a comment from a classmate. Please show respect in all comments.

 

Additional Points and Assistance:

1. This is your final assignment on Gilgamesh. You are not writing a paper after this or taking a test. You are done with the book after this. I wanted to recreate the class experience as much as possible and make all of this your assessment, instead of giving you more work. If you have done all the assignments, read the text, and listened to all the videos, I am hoping you get the book.
2. I have additional videos on BB that are short and fun. One is a rather dated comparison of Kanye West to Gilgamesh. I say dated because it is pre Kim K, pre Taylor Swift and all that. Another is one that sets the story of Gilgamesh to the music of the 80s. Former students of mine did both. One now has a job in advertising. You do not have to watch these, but you may enjoy them, and find them helpful in understanding the text. If you do watch them, mention them in your Vimeo comments as to what you thought of them and how they affected your reading of the epic.

 

 

Here are Tablet IV, V, VI Video as Recalling earlier to help you understand this book.