Ars docendi 08/2021
Premessa – Vorwort [Adami]
After a relatively peaceful summer – hopefully for all our readers – another “Covid” school year has begun.
Thomas Sonders, a Latin and Greek teacher in Munich, addresses this topic in his essay: lockdown and the educational issues associated with it, but also a diachronic comparison on the subject.
Martina Adami (Bolzano) tells us about a very interesting conference in Graz in July 2021, where several teachers and researchers from Germany, Austria and South Tyrol discussed the situation of ancient languages in their countries and sought to find a common ground, a more intense collaboration between schools and universities – a very important conference, especially after almost two years of solitude and social withdrawal.
Maria Krichbaumer (Munich) presents another teaching unit proposal on the theme of “travel – staying in foreign countries”; this time she focuses on the apostle Paul and his shipwreck on the island of Malta.
Friedrich Maier, the well-known professor of classical philology and ancient language teaching in Munich and Berlin, sent us a very interesting essay on Catullus and Lesbia: he tries to interpret Catullus' work as an intense love story full of emotions, reflected in a very sincere way by Catullus.
Stefano Quaglia (Verona) sent us an essay on St. Bernard's prayer to the Virgin Mary, from the beginning of Canto XXXIII of Paradise, which has never been the subject of particular academic attention, to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante's death.
Two Austrian colleagues, Renate Oswald and Renate Glas, ask how and when original Latin texts can be usefully incorporated into Latin lessons. In the German-speaking world, there is a clear distinction between a grammar phase (with Latin texts written by Latin teachers) and a reading phase after two or three years of Latin.
Martina Adami (Bolzano) tells us about a truly fascinating volume recently published by the University of Saarland. The book aims to analyse the approach to the concept of dictatorial madness from ancient historians to modern journalists.
The eighth volume of Ars docendi aims to provide an overview of the development of classical philology in the modern world, as well as the teaching of ancient languages and culture in European schools.
I hope you all enjoy reading it!
Martina Adami