The lesson plan looks like my blog
When discussing how we can get a feel for ancient Celtic culture, one student at the front of the Thursday morning’s British Survey I class remarked that "in those days they had a magical world view."
Professor Matlock tactfully compared that believing in some dude up on his cross or whatever, just to show that people really haven’t changed so much since then.
She showed us a slide of a Lindisfarne Gospel. It was covered with red velvet, and gems were attached all along the border. It was magnificent. The process of making it; preparing the paper and the material that covered it, obtaining the red dye from a special beetle in another country, meticulously copying the Word of God onto parchment (by daylight only); "this is a life’s work," she said.
"How does this function as a tool of conversion," she posed. If you’re some Anglo warrior, and you can’t read or write, and you see this book, what do you think of this religion?"
After a brief silence, another front-row student chimed in. "That religion’s awesome."
"That’s a little facile," Matlock swiped, "but yeah, you’d probably think that."
It looks like half of the discussion will be the trading of light barbs at each other, like I imagine WASP-ey college professors do whenever they get together. It sounds fun, but it’s definitely much easier when everyone’s drunk. At 9:30 in the morning, that should be doable as long as I make sure to wake up extra early for, uh, breakfast.
