Spring 2010
Major Italian artists and works c. 1300-1550, emphasizing developments in Florence, Rome, and Venice. Considers changing functions, meanings, and styles of art being produced to serve princely, papal, civic, and private patrons. The focus is chiefly on painting and sculpture, with selective looks toward architecture and prints. Includes visits to the National Gallery of Art.
Spring 2010
Professor Sarah McNamer
This course seeks to introduce students to the vibrant, polylingual literary culture of medieval England from the eighth century to the eve of the Renaissance. Beginning with Beowulf (in the wonderful translation by Seamus Heaney), we will read both canonical and noncanonical texts, situating them in the various social, intellectual, visual and performance contexts that can restore for us a sense of their original meanings and functions. Genres will range from the familiar to the strange: we will encounter elegiac poetry, chivalric romances, a prose rhapsody, a travel narrative, miracles of the Virgin, love lyrics, a gynecological treatise, riddles, mystery plays, revelations from God, a beast fable, a bawdy fabliau and a sobering sermon on the Seven Deadly Sins. English writings will be our focus, but we will also sample (in translation) some of the abundant Latin and French texts which circulated in medieval England, in part as a reminder of the prestige these languages enjoyed and the lowly status of English during much of this period. Indeed the politics of language use will be one of our abiding concerns, as will more general questions surrounding textual production and cultural authority. Virtually all readings will be in modern English translation; we will, however, read some Old and Middle English aloud in order to experience something of the weight and music of English in its earliest days.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
This course will involve readings in medieval English literature, both in translation and in the original Middle English. Its readings will range from the Old English epic poem Beowulf, through such Middle English works as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, numerous lyric poems, and selections from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and including as well works reflecting late medieval religious practices, Julian of Norwich's Revelations, the Cloud of Unknowing, and the Book of Margery Kempe. It will include three papers and a final exam, and there will be a creative option offered for two of the papers.
Also listed as MVST 247-01
J.R.R. Tolkien was a medievalist and a philologist who, by writing fiction and poetry, created a world in which his languages could live. We will read widely in medieval works from Irish, Finnish, Old English, Middle English, Icelandic and French contexts, and examine Tolkien’s biography, letters, critical and scholarly publications, and lesser known fictional works, all to get a better sense of what Tolkien knew and worked with as he wrote. We will read some of his scholarship, poetry, translations, draft work, and unfinished pieces as well as the major works /The Silmarillion/ and /The Lord of the Rings/. Our interests focus on Tolkien as both writer and scholar. The final one third of the course will be spent on careful re-reading of /The Lord of the Rings/ in light of our extensive contextual study. Students can expect to keep a regular critical journal, research and report on supplementary topics on Blackboard, write a paper on medieval texts, and finish with a substantial take-home exam. Everyone taking the course must have read /The Lord of the Rings/ prior to the first day of class, as it is simply too large and complex to come to for the first time in this class. The Jackson movies are definitely not a substitute!
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: All students must have read The Lord of the Rings prior to the beginning of class.
Professor Dover
Reading medieval secular literature was an interactive, multi-media performance, combining verbal and pictorial narratives. We will examine the traditional animal imagery that fired the imagination of medieval artists, then study how writers and illustrators use animals in diverse written narratives and pictorial narratives. We will consider how the two forms are interconnected in illustrated medieval manuscripts. This course fulfills the upper-division pre-1800 literature requirement for the French major.
This course will examine the medieval crusading movement from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries. We will attempt to integrate and understand the crusades from the three traditions directly affected by the movement, that of western Christian Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic Eastern Mediterranean. In addition the course will examine the important consequences on the Jewish communities both in Europe and in the Holy Land.
While tracing the rise and fall of the movement, the course focuses on a variety of themes in this chronological context. We will certainly examine the origins of the crusading movement and what might cause thousands of men, women and even children to leave their established lives and undertake the arduous journey to Jerusalem. In addition, the course will also focus on the role of the Western church, the colonizing activities of the Franks in the Holy Land, the crusading orders and the popular crusading responses and legends, and then growing disillusionment with the crusades.
Since the memory of the medieval crusades remains a touchstone for the modern discourse regarding the Middle East, we will look at a modern understanding of the crusades. The course will look at modern depictions of the Crusades in both film and literature to see how current popular culture understands or misinterprets the historic legacy of these events, including the recent film Kingdom of Heaven and of course the treatment of the crusading orders in modern literature like The Da Vinci Code. More importantly, however, we will examine the legacy of Crusades and how this affects current world events outside of the relatively unimportant aspects of popular culture. This course will help you to understand the importance of this historically defining movement, which in the minds of some is still an ongoing concern
There will be some reading in the primary sources, an emphasis on the art and architecture of the time, and a concern to examine the cultural clashes and accommodations between the Latin West and the Islamic East.
In this colloquium we will explore the relationship of official religion to magic, approaches to the study of the natural world, and healing practices in Western Europe from late antiquity to the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century. Although the course will concentrate on ideas and events in Western Europe, important points of interaction between Christian and Islamic worlds will be taken up (the practice of alchemy, after all, received its name in the Arab world). Relying on historical documents and other evidence, we will place varieties of magic and superstition in historical context. Throughout the course we will examine underlying assumptions about God, the supernatural, the preternatural, and the natural. Because the role of superstition and magic receded -- but did not completely disappear -- by the seventeenth century, the course will address the reasons why much of what was normal and normative from antiquity to the Middle Ages became marginalized by the seventeenth century. At the same time, neither Christianity nor early modern science was intrinsically hostile to forms of magic; instead, both incorporated it in positive ways during their formative years. It is precisely this paradoxical combination of faith and reason on the one hand, and unreason on the other, that we will seek to understand in the course.
This course will present the Byzantine or East Roman empire from 602-1204 AD, giving equal attention to internal political and religious history, in an effort to understand how this state overcame numerous crises to last from Antiquity to the dawn of the modern age. It will give much attention to the pivotal role of Byzantium between the Islamic world, the kingdoms of Western Europe, Bulgaria, Russia, the Turks and the Crusades. The course will also consider how Byzantium preserved and spread classical culture and Christianity. Lectures will be rare; most sessions will focus on class discussion of primary texts and will require constant and active participation.
The objective of this course is to explore the medievalism of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. To do this we need to go back to their medieval antecedents in the 12th-15th centuries, which will allow us to contrast and compare the old and the new. We will read masterpieces of imaginative storytelling from French, German, and English medieval literature in addition to selected Harry Potter volumes, but we will also consult Plato and Joseph Campbell. The old and the new are linked thematically in that they are all narratives about growing up and finding one’s identity: a complex, mysterious, and sometimes arduous process that the hero/heroine experiences as a magical world where the natural laws governing human existence are suspended, the unexpected is bound to occur, and marvels are reserved for the chosen few. The readings and discussion are in English.
Theme: "Ghost Literature of the Middle Ages." This course is designed for Medieval Studies majors, who need access to medieval texts but are not majoring in Classics. Other students are welcome.
The fourteenth-century Spanish "Book of Good Love" ("Libro de buen amor") is a most perplexing book. Its author, Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, promises readers that his book will be 1) a manual for salvation; 2) a manual for sexual seduction; and 3) a manual for the composition of poetry. This class will take Juan Ruiz's philosophical, comic, and literary tour de force as a central text for an introduction to medieval studies. To understand the "Book of Good Love" we will delve into the medieval history, theology, philosophy, and arts of rhetoric that produced it. We will pay special attention to the cultural crossroads of Al-Andalus, where the traditions and languages of Christianity, Judaism and and Islam coexisted. In addition to key works of the Middle Ages by St. Augustine, Boethius, Maimonides, and Ibn Hazm of Cordoba, we will read selections from Ruiz's near contemporaries Boccaccio and Chaucer. In order to better understand medieval texts and to hone their own writing skills, students will do in-class writing exercises that introduce some of the same techniques learned by medieval authors and readers. Readings and discussion are in English.
Required for the Medieval Studies major, minor, and SFS Certificate, but open to other freshmen, sophomores and juniors; seniors by permission only. Can also count toward the English major and fulfills the Humanities & Writing II requirement.
Ethical questions regarding life and death are of great concern. For example, is it ever morally permissible to execute criminals, to commit suicide, to kill in war? And if it is, under what conditions? These issues were the subject of intense discussion in medieval thinkers, from St. Augustine in the late 4th and early 5th centuries to thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas and others in the 13th and 14th centuries and later. Whether we agree with their views or not, their theorizing on these issues has deeply affected the way in which we think about these matters – the distinction between just and unjust wars, for example, largely stems from them. This course will study medieval discussions of these issues. In particular, we will consider medieval views on the killing of animals versus humans, killing in self-defense, killing in war, the killing of criminals, suicide, abortion and contraception. The most philosophically rich discussions of these issues in the middle ages take place in the writings of theologians. The readings for this course are therefore drawn from medieval theologians and as such will make reference to Christian teaching and scripture, although we will approach the material as philosophers, not theologians, focusing on the arguments presented for their views and philosophical issues they raise. At the end of each section of the course we will briefly survey some developments in the present-day philosophical literature.
Professor Rameh
Detailed study of problems in the linguistic description of the Portuguese language as spoken in different countries. Topics will be announced in the schedule of classes.
A survey of Spanish peninsular literature covering a wide range of texts and authors belonging to the main cultural periods of Spanish history from the Middle Ages to the present. Students will be exposed to different genres--including poetry, drama, narrative, and the essay--as they are introduced to basic concepts of literary criticism and textual interpretation. These are discussion-based survey courses with active participation by all students required.
This course, designed for undergraduates, will guide students through the complete Spanish text of Don Quijote de la Mancha. We will analyze this early modern Spanish masterpiece from diverse perspectives—literary, cultural, historical, philosophical, and spiritual. We will examine the text not only with regard to content, but also in terms of style, purpose, audience, tone and voice. Choosing themes suggested by the readings, students will write three compositions and give one oral report during the semester. Class participation is required. Required reading: Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quijote de la Mancha, Vols. I and II. Ed. John Jay Allen. Madrid: Cátedra, 2000.
The platform of every modern "Islamist" political party calls for the implementation of "the shari‘a". This term is invariably (and incorrectly) interpreted as an unchanging legal code dating back to 7th century Arabia. In reality, however, Islamic law is an organic and constantly evolving human project at ascertaining God’s will in a given historical and cultural context. This course offers a detailed and nuanced look at the Islamic legal methodology and its evolution over the last 1400 years. The first half of the semester is dedicated to "classical" Islamic jurisprudence, concentrating on the manner in which jurists used the Qur’an, the Sunna (the model of the prophet), and rationality to articulate a coherent legal system. In the second half of the course, the focus shifts to the ways in which Muslim jurists have responded to issues of contemporary importance/controversy, ranging from gender equity (in marriage, divorce, economic rights) to medical ethics (abortion, euthanasia, organ donation, female circumcision). The format of the class will vary from topic to topic but students should anticipate *extensive* participation through in-class debates.
This courses focuses on five medieval women mystics: Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Hadewijch of Antwerp (early 13th century), Angela of Foligno (ca. 1248-1309), Julian of Norwich (ca. 1343-1416), and Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). Our analysis of each mystic will be threefold: (1) we shall begin with her historical, cultural, and political context; (2) we shall undertake a close reading of the theological content of her writings and examine her methodology; and (3) we shall undertake a comparative study in which we consider such issues as religious authority, 'holy anorexia', and the role of physicality and the senses in mysticism.
The history of the Jews of Spain represents one of the most varied and remarkable chapters in the history of the Jewish people. This course will explore the major social, cultural and intellectual trends of Jewish civilization in the Iberian Peninsula through secondary readings and the analysis of medieval religious and literary texts. A central theme will be the way in which medieval Islamic and Christian society helped to shape that of Iberian Jewry.
The term qur’ân can mean reading or recitation. Any approach to the text is a reading of it, and any reading is an act of interpretation. We will begin with an exploration of the Qur’ân’s styles and structures, its content and aesthetic, and then proceed to examine how it has been and is being read by different groups. This will include classical and more modern tafsir, jurists’ readings, and sufi readings. We will study readings by modernists, Islamists, orientalists and literary theorists, as well as women’s and liberationist readings.
This course will not presume an extensive knowledge of Islam, but a basic familiarity is necessary and may need to be supplemented by extra reading at the outset of the course. Arabic it not required, but students who are able to work with Arabic texts will have an opportunity to do so.
MVST-247-01 Tolkien and Medieval Roots (3 credits)
Professor: K. Wickham-Crowley
Scheduled Meeting Times: MW 2:40 -3:55 pm
J.R.R. Tolkien was a medievalist and philologist who, by writing fiction and poetry, created a world in which his languages could live. We ill read widely in medieval works from Irish, Finnish, Old English, Middle English, Icelandic and French contexts, and examine Tolkien's biography, letters, critical and scholarly publications and lesser known fictional worlds, all to get a better sense of what Tolkien knew and worked with as he wrote. We will read some of his scholarship, poetry, translations, draft work, and unfinished pieces as well as major works/The Silmarillion/ and /The Lord of the Rings/. Our interest focus on Tolkien as both writer and scholar. The final one third of the course will be spent on careful re-reading of /The Lord of the Rings/ in light of our extensive study. Students can expect to keep a regular critical journal, research and report on supplementary topics on Blackboard, write a paper on medieval texts, and finish with a substantial take-home exam. Everyone taking the course must have read /The Lord of The Rings/ prior to the first class as it is simply too large and complex to come to for the first time in class. The Jackson movies are definitely not a substitute!
Prerequisites: None
PHIL-320 -01 Text Seminar: Thomas Aquinas (3 credits)
Professor: M. Henninger
We will dedicate the text seminar to Thomas Aquinas's classic "The Treatise on Human Nature". Thomas Aquinas was the most influential philosopher of the middle ages, and he had as one of his central projects the understanding of human nature. His point of departure for this were the works of Aristotle, so a close reading of this Treatise will afford students not only with an in-depth look at the detailed and articulated series of discussions by Aquinas, but will also help familiarize students with the thought of Aristotle, specifically his discussion of the soul.This is what Aquinas concentrates on and hence we will be reading an influential medieval examination of topics today found in the philosophy of mind, action theory and epistemology.
Specifically, we will be reading Aquinas's Treatise as found in questions seventy-five to eighty-nine of the first part of the Summa Theologiae, in which he concentrates much of this discussion, not on the human body, but on the human soul. In discussing what exactly it is, he does not opt for a Cartesian mind/body dualism, nor is reductionist of mental states to bodily states. Other topics include the relation of the soul to the body, the workings of the sense and intellect, the will and the passions, sensuality, and personal identity.
We will be reading the new translation of Robert Pasnau in the Hackett Aquinas, The Treatise of Human Nature: Summa Theologiae 1a, 75 - 89 Hackett Publishing Company, 2002. I will also recommend getting the study of this material by Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Each student will make a presentation in the course of the semester, and though there will be no exams, there will be one or two papers to submit.
PHIL-384 History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (3 credits)
This course surveys some of the major themes of ancient Greek and Medieval Philosophy: Knowledge and opinion, Being and Becoming, God and the First Causes, Cosmos, Soul and Immortality, Reason and Faith. The continuity between two periods will be stressed. We will read works of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and Aquinas. Medieval Philosophy was born from the creative interaction of biblical faith with Greek philosophy. The issue, the relationship between philosophy and religious faith, is complicated because among western Christians, medieval philosophy mostly existed in the context of various theologies. But, throughout the course, we will consider the implications of Etiennne Gilson's remark:"A philosophy may draw inspiration from a revelation and be true, it is because it is good philosophy" (Spirit of Medeival Philosophy [New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 1940], p. 406). Until the thirteenth century, Neoplatonism (which attempted to unify the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions) provided the dominant philosophical framework for speculative theology. The most illustrious of the Neoplatonists, Plotinus (205 - 270 A.D.), profoundly influenced Augustine (354 - 430), especially in regard to the mind's approach to divine reality through interior recollection. Augustine himself dominated subsequent western theology, as can be seen in the writings of Anselm of Canterbury (1033 - 1109 ), until, in the late twelfth century, the translation and introduction of Aristotle into the Latin west provoked a philosophical revolution in regard to the prevailing Augustinianism. But the "Christian Aristotelianism" of Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274), which marks a new stage in the development of medieval philosophy, was, in fact, a creative synthesis of the Augustinian-Neoplatonic tradition (especially as mediated through the Procline Neoplatonism of Pseudo-Dionysius) with Aristotole
Professor: D. Bradley
HIST-434 Sex and Celibacy in Premodern Europe (3 credits)
Professor: A. Leonard
From the beginnings of Christian Europe, the role of sex and celibacy have been highly contested and debated areas. The development of a celibate clergy, the role of sex within marriage, and the relative merits or not of virginity have formed a core part of the development of western culture. By studying the debates over sex and celibacy from the perspective of two specific groups of women (nuns and prostitutes) who were intimately defined by the categories "sexual" or "celibate," this course analyzes their role in society and history. The course begins with a discussion of sex and celibacy in general and theological debates over them in early Christianity and the Middle Ages. It then looks more specifically at the role of nuns and prostitutes in premodern Europe-- their social utility, religious justifications, changing role in culture-- paying special attention to reform movements (both lay and religious) which focused on "cleaning up" abuses with nuns and prostitutes were often conflated in premodern Europe, in large part because their sexualized identity--either shunning sex or wallowing in it-- and desires to control or reform these groups crossed religious, geographical, political, and even chronological boundaries. The course will include readings from primary and secondary sources, as well as some video events throughout the semester. Requirements include attendance and participation, two short papers on the weekly readings, and a longer bibliographic essay.
THEO -119 Kabbalah in Its Contexts (3 credits)
Professor: Ori Z. Soltes
Scheduled Meeting Times : T, TH 4:15 - 5:30 pm
This course will address the question of what "mysticism" is--how it differs from "normative" religious experiences-- and therefore how Jewish, Christian and Muslim mysticism differ from (and are rooted in) normative Jewish, Christianity and Islam. It will also address the question of how Jewish, Christian and Muslim mysticism differ from and share common ground with each other.
The course will follow a two-fold path. One will be conceptual: we will be constantly asking how what we are reading, talking and thinking about is specific and not specific to what Jewish or Christian or Muslim mysticism. The other will be historical: all three mystical traditions undergo centuries of development and part of grasping them is seeing how they change even as they remain consistently focused on the same essential issues. (And those issues, not unique to mysticism or to these three "types" of mysticism , but uniquely addressed by each of them, include: why are we here? what, if anything, created us? for what purpose, if any? how can we know what It/He/She is and wants of us? how can we grasp that Other without losing hold of ourselves?--and so on...)
There is a number os books that we will read from (xeroxes will be provided, either in class or on reserve or through BLACKBOARD), and a basic text-- I apologize, there's only one that covers the ground of all three Abrahamic traditions--Soltes: Mysticism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Searching for Oneness. But in a sense the primary text is the outline of the syllabus and the lectures and discussions that grow from that syllabus and the handouts that follow with it along the way. SO BE IN CLASS!
Grades will be determined by a take-home mid-term exam, take-home final exam and a final paper. The subject of the paper will be of the student's choosing, in consultation with the instructor.
INAF-224 Symbols of Faith: Art in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (3 credits)
Professor : Ori Z. Soltes
Scheduled Meeting Times: TH 10:15 - 12:05
This course will consider the common origins and divergent and often convergent directions of the three Abraham faiths; and how those origins and directions affect their respective visual vocabularies. How have all three traditions adopted and adapted visual ideas from pagan art that predates all of them as well as from each other ? How have they transformed or reinterpreted the meanings of common symbols in order to express their distinct sense of God and of the relationship between divinity and humanity? How have Judaism and Islam visually expressed God without the possibility of figurative imaging and how has Christianity gone beyond the limits of figurative expression in visually articulating God? How is the legacy of antiquity and the medieval period still palpable in the era of both modern and contemporary art?
The recommended test is Soltes: Our Sacred Signs: How Jewish, Christian and Muslim Art Draw from the Same Source (Perseus Books). Grades will be based on in-class midterm and final exams as well as on a short paper on a topic of your choosing.
ARAB-490 Greek and Arab Science and Philosophy Across Borders (3 credits)
Professor: Gannage
