The Never Ending Arts Degree

The first assignment offered a choice of three areas to report on our reading of primary sources.

I chose:

Identify and discuss the significant agreements and differences between the creed on Nicea and those who sought to modify this … What do these reveal about the course of the debate in the fourth century.

Rather than wrangle OCR, the print out is OK as a pdf image including comments from the lecturer. I was happy enough with the feedback, although he rightly pointed out an over reliance on secondary sources.

RE113 Nicea

I did this subject in second semester 1991 and it was the last external subject I did in my BA at UQ. I can’t remember when the news came that the federal government was reforming external studies and only some universities would continue to provide that form of study. After this subject I had only 4 units left to get a BA and it seemed unfair that UQ would not be one of the universities continuing with external studies. These days nearly everything is available online, but in the pre-internet days I suppose it was hard to justify the expense. I would have to find away to finish my degree internally.

Rev Dr Ian Gillman took this course and though I didn’t meet him until the following year as an internal student, it was obvious that he was an absolute gem of a man. He had been head of the Department for Studies in Religion but I think he was nearing retirement when he took this course so I am not sure if he was in charge at the time.

I have his book “Many Faith’s One Nation” that I picked up years later. He died in 2005 aged 78 years – see his obituary.

This covers Christian thought to just before the Reformation and External Studies provided the usual excellent lecture notes and course readings.

It was assessed by two assignments and an examination. I note there were study groups offered but I did not take up the offer, nor do I recall attending the vacation school. I find it impressive how much was covered and how little I recall.

The second 3000 word assignment was on the topic:

What image of Peter is presented by Paul’s (authentic) letters and by the Gospel of John (including Chapter 21)?

I found this an interesting topic but it appeared I didn’t have as much spare time as with the other assignment and there is less evidence of preparation. I still got a 6 (out of 7) overall.

The essay was not returned as was often the case for the second assignment of a course in those days.

I kept a latish draft (that was printed in draft) and is too faint for OCR. It has both my wife’s exasperated notes and corrections along with my own. It comes up reasonably well as an image in pdf and may surprise those who never submitted an essay on an early word processor, or even had to print one out for that matter. I think I still was using my odd laptop computer with 2 disk drives and no hard drive and am printing to a trusty dot matrix printer. There is a fair bit proper formatting possible with indents and changing from double to single spacing, so it had a degree of sophistication for 1991.

Peter in Paul and John

Discuss the speeches of Peter and Paul in Acts with reference to authorship, style, form, context and theological content.

Peter and Paul

I’m scanning from quarto pages and I’ve left the end notes as that rather than convert to footnotes. I’m using a new scanning setup and I hope I haven’t left too many errors in the pdf.

Frantzmann’s only comment, apart from correcting innumerable typos, was “Good work” and a mark of 42/50.

I did this course in the first semester of 1991, still as an external student and still working full time as a suburban GP.

One again Associate Professor Michael Lattke was taking the course this time with Dr Majella Franzmann who marked my assignments. Lattke was assisted in the preparation of the course materials by his then PhD student Greg Jenks.

Just to torture myself, as I stayed in General Practice forever, it’s nice to see how these people kicked on with their careers.

if you check her Linked in profile you might say Majella Franzmann has had an amazing career, because she has. Her research has taken her around the world and she was Pro Vice Chancellor Humanities at Otago University and then Curtin University.

Greg Jenks of course got his doctorate and is an Anglican priest in diocese of Grafton where he is the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral.  I have his book, “The Once and Future Bible”. He still lectures at Charles Sturt University and for many years was academic Dean at St Francis Theological College in Brisbane.

It speaks to the quality of the staff at UQ thirty odd years ago.

The course materials were extensive along with the usual indispensable reading guide to use in conjunction with the miraculous Thatcher library. It is sad to think that very soon after this the external studies department was cancelled at UQ.

This was the other assignment for RE101 in 1990. It was not returned, so I have no comments but I had a fair copy, which I have used to scan into a pdf. The process still left some dodgy formatting and the bibilography scanned as an image rather than text so I tacked that on the end.

This essay is a further exercise in the bloody obvious but I got a 6 (out of 7) for the course overall and that was encouraging.

why-was-jesus-killed

The full question the first assignment I had to answer was:

Investigate the motifs of “sending”, “coming” and “going” as they refer to the soteriological role of the Johannine Jesus in the Fourth Gospel and 1 John.

Probably because I wasn’t as rushed this is a much better essay than the previous years work and even makes sense in parts.

John Sending

There wasn’t much feedback, just lots of ticks and corrections of spelling and formatting but I was happy enough with that.

After overreaching in 1989 by trying two subjects at a time, I had a break until second semester 1990 before continuing my never ending arts degree. Under the rules at the time I already had a major in English literature and an unspecified major from previous study. While my two government subjects were quite enough as far as I was concerned, I did note that the only real flicker of interest had been in the religious thinkers so after several years away I went back to Studies in Religion.

I was still studying externally and chose RE101, Biblical Studies: New Testament, which was taken by Assoc. Prof. Michael Lattke. I did not meet him until some year later and, as usual, at the time knew nothing about the lecturer.

Now Emeritus Professor Michael Lattke, he went on to an internationally recognised career and even has a wikipedia page. He was honoured with a Festschrift in 2007 and is now retired. He was in the news in 2011, when his collection of rare books was destroyed in a flood.

I can tell I was much more engaged in this subject and the notes were extensive and engaging. Assessment was with two assignments and by the look of the assignments I had ditched the Commodore 64 and was using a primitive laptop with two disk drives and no hard drive that printed to a decent dot matrix printer.  It had an odd word processor made by the Webster people and I’m not sure what became of the computer. The assignments are double spaced, readable and able to be scanned, but the formatting was dodgy and I’m not sure I knew how to change single to double spacing and do proper indents. Nonetheless it was a big step forward presentation wise.

This was a two hour examination with three questions to be answered out of five.  My notes show that we must have been given a fair idea of what to expect as I was able to scrawl the outlines of the three essays on the exam paper in the perusal period.

I answered a question on Augustine, Machiavelli and analysed Skinner’s book about Machiavelli.

I got a 5, which was generous and I resolved never to do more than one subject at a time again.

Looking at this disjointed essay I can see signs of rushing and poor preparation.  There were missing footnotes which I have restored after all these years. The marker took great pains and a lot of words to point out the deficiencies in the essay.

Aquinas