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Skidmore College
1998
Orientation Study Guide

This webpage was developed for the orientation activities planned for the incoming Skidmore College class of 2002. Students began the year seeing a staged reading of ARCADIA. Later in the semester the Skidmore Theatre presented a fully staged production of the play. The play was discussed in our Liberal Studies I classes and a number of fora and panels were held during the year.

The page is made available for archive purposes. Please realize that the external links are not reviewed and that some, unfortunately, may no longer be active.

Feel free to send comments by clicking on: Professor Lary Opitz

An introduction to the Arcadia Study Guide
The Play's the Thing: Drama versus Theatre	Tom Stoppard: A Brief Biography
Tom Stoppard: An Introduction	Classical Arcadia
Lord Byron in Arcadia	Order and Disorder: Classical and Romantic Physics in Arcadia
Newton, Determinism, and Chaos	Two Mathematical Ideas in Arcadia
The Genius of Place: Landscape Architecture	"Arcadia" and the Aesthetic of Romanticism
A Glossary of Definitions, Terms, Names, Contexts and Allusions in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia
Related Links

Acknowledgments

    I would like to thank the following members of the Skidmore College community for their help in preparing this study guide: Michael Arnush, David Atkatz, Brian Black, Victor Cahn, Mary Crone, Gove Effinger, Barbara Opitz, Seth Opitz, Jon Ramsey, Amelia Rauser, Jay Rogoff, Sheldon Solomon, Anita Steigerwald, and Marc-Andre Wiesmann.

    This web site was designed and executed by Seth Opitz ('98).

    The glossary entries were inspired by and adapted from a wide variety of sources including items submitted by a number of the contributors listed above. For further information on entries, any encyclopedia might be consulted.

Lary Opitz, Department of Theatre

Image Design

    The above image was designed by Lary Opitz and developed and executed by Seth Opitz (Class of 1998). The background text is Pierre de Fermat's "Last Theorem" as reproduced on a page of a seventeenth century edition of Arithmetica, the ancient text written in the third century C.E. by the Greek mathematician Diophantus.

    The image seen through the window is adapted from a portion of Adam and Eve by Albrecht Dürer (born May 21, 1471, Nürnberg, Germany--died April 6, 1528, Nürnberg, Germany), the painter and printmaker generally regarded as the greatest German Renaissance artist. The original oil on panel is found in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

    The apple is a recurring image in Arcadia and Eve's temptation seems an excellent visual metaphor for the quest of both knowledge and love.

Skidmore College 1998 Orientation Study Guide

Skidmore College
1998
Orientation Study Guide