Welcome to SPACE, our adult continuing education program which offers interactive monthly courses for personal enrichment! Learn more here.
Student of the ancient world, speculative fiction, language/linguistics
Shawn Gaffney holds Masters degrees in Linguistics (Boston College) and Egyptology (New York University) and last year completed a Masters in Language and Literature from Signum University.
[see full bio...]
View full bio of Shawn Gaffney
All Modules
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
An examination of who used magic in Egypt, with an emphasis on characters within literary genres and known professions. This includes the story of Khufu, the Nubian sorcerers, the use of Shabtis, and later stories, including Lucian and the inspiration for Fantasia. This also includes priests, heal…
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
The use of fictional languages in science fiction from the good to the bad. This includes fully constructed languages, references to constructed and foreign languages, as well as misuse or misunderstandings of language change. How these subtle points contribute to or detract from world building. Th…
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
This module would be an introduction to the Egyptian Book of the Dead without presuming a knowledge of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. We would read about and discuss the origins, transmission, context, and look closely at some different examples.
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
Introduction to the non-god, non-human, entities in ancient Egypt. Demons were guardians, messengers, and performed other duties, usually as intermediaries between the gods and men. We will consider the category of “demon”, their roles, descriptions, and how they changed over time in the Egyptian w…
Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Beginners Series of 7
The Hieroglyphics series will present students with a basic understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs, grammar, and knowledge about how to proceed with further study. In this series of 4 modules, we will discuss how to translate steles that you are likely to encounter in museums, as well as their cultu…
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
This course introduces the student to the various aspects of geology and how they can relate to worldbuilding and mapmaking. This includes continents, plate tectonics, mountains, water, glaciers, planetary patterns, the distribution of rock types and natural resources, natural disasters and weathe…
Introduction to Ancient Magic Non-Sequential Series
This is the Landing Page for Prof. Shawn Gaffney's series exploring Ancient Magic.
Introduction to Ancient Magic: The Earliest Magic provides a short survey of the earliest known magical texts and objects, including the Pyramid texts, Sumerian exorcism spells, and objects used in …
Lecture-based
Low intensity
Why do people increasingly find Shakespeare challenging to read? Why do we translate Beowulf? How did Latin become Spanish, Italian, French, and other languages? Languages change over time. They are affected by internal and external factors. Many of these changes are recorded, and some fairl…
Lecture-based
Low intensity
How do we group and categorize languages? What does it mean that two languages are related? What is a parent language? Which languages are more closely related and which are not? Some languages are genetically related, meaning they have a common origin, while others are typologically similar, in t…
Lecture-based
Low intensity
Languages come in contact with each other all the time and have done so throughout history. Many of the patterns that emerge from language contact have been studied and can provide some explanation for what happens. Why do English and Spanish drive out some languages? What happens when one language…
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
Morphology is the study of how words are formed and the meaning in their constituent parts. In this module we will explore English morphology first, to build up a vocabulary of useful terms and ideas, and then move on to other languages, both familiar and rare. We will examine different strategies …
Lecture-based
Low intensity
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds (and, in the case of sign languages, how gestures reflect their own meaning). We will explore how sounds are made and heard. Our goal will be to understand the IPA, or International Phonetic Alphabet, how to listen to and write out English, as well as to ex…
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
Phonology is the study of how languages organize their sounds. Each language has its own rules or constraints on what sounds they use, what combinations of sound are allowed, and how sounds change in different environments. This module will first look at some of the patterns of English but will th…
Lecture-based
Low intensity
Sociolinguistics explores how society uses language. This includes how we view a “standard dialect”, how different groups of people or demographics use language differently from that dialect, how languages varies over geographic regions, and how we use language to create identity or exclude. We wil…
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Medium intensity
Demons have played a significant role in ancient cultures beyond just Egypt. Mesopotamia has its own set of liminal entities that reside somewhere between gods and man, with their own responsibilities and roles. This class will explore the features of these beings, including where they are first se…
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Low intensity
The Egyptians had a complex view of non-Egyptians. They were both threatening enemies but also potential Egyptians. This course will look at how the Egyptians viewed and depicted the other, the role of the other, and the change in many cases, of other to countryman. This will include a survey of ar…
Weird Languages Hybrid
Many people do not realize the variety of language structures and strange language phenomena that exist in the world's languages. This class will introduce a number of features that can be found across the globe. These include object agreement, verbs that necessarily encode the shape of items, erga…
No matching modules.