Graduate Courses: Spring 2005
The following
courses may be of interest to those in Medieval Studies.
Listings on this page are in no way guaranteed to give
credit towards the Medieval Studies Certificate. Please
consult the graduate studies page for further information
about required courses and direct questions to the Director
of Medieval Studies. Please direct questions about the
specific courses to either the instructor or their home
department.
These listings
are also not necessarily a complete listing of relevant
classes. If you know of a class that should be listed
here, please email the webmaster.
ARTHIST
739: Medieval Art as a Bible for the Illiterate
Pastan, Th 1:00 - 4:00 PM, MAX:
12
Content:
This seminar examines the implications of Pope Gregory
I¹s statement, ³What Scripture is to the
educated, images are to the ignorant,² (Letter
to Serenus of Marseille, c. 600 CE). Frequently cited throughout the Middle Ages, this
statement became the standard defense of figural painting
and sculpture, a rationalization for the expense
of art making, and an implicit argument about the power
of images. In this course, we will explore the both
textual tradition and image cycles
that could be construed as affirming or contradicting
Gregory¹s dictate.
Other issues to be considered include: how one ³reads² a medieval
image, recent scholarship on the varieties and kinds
of literacy, and
the discrepancies or slippage between the intentions
of a patron and meanings imparted to beholders. Case studies are focused
on, but not
limited to, arts of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries,
a period corresponding to the explosion of imagery in
cathedrals, treasury arts and
manuscript illuminations.
Text: Reserve readings.
Particulars:
Weekly seminar discussions, seminar presentations, and a research paper.
ARTHIST
749: History of Early Modern Printmaking
Melion, M 2:00 - 5:00 PM,
Max: 4
Content: Seminar on the three modes of
mechanical reproduction--oodcut,
engraving, and etching--that fundamentally changed the theory and practice of pictorial imitation between 1400
and 1700. Among the
topics to be considered are the relation between traditional
media and the new print technologies; the propagation
of new kinds of pictorial image--emblematic, meditative, demonstrative;
the rise of print publishing houses and, allied with this, of new methods of making and
marketing pictures;
and the character of the printed image--portable, multiple, affordable--as this impinges on established notion of invention,
manner, and
authority. Printmaker to be examined closely include
Martin Schongauer, Albrect Du"rer, Marcantonio
Raimondi, Giogio Ghisi, Hendrick
Goltzius, and Rembrandt.
Texts:
€ Landau and Parshall, The Renaissance Print
€ Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication
€ Readings on reserve and e-reserve
Particulars: Seminar meets once a week. Grading based on class participation, presentations
on assigned topics, and research paper.
Eng
700R: Studies in Old English Literature
Morey,
MWF 9:35-10:25, Max:12
Content:
The poem
known as Beowulf constitutes approximately one-tenth
of the extant corpus of Old English poetry and it survives in only
one manuscript. This
fraction and number disguise the importance of the poem
to scholars from Elizabethan to modern times, from
its emergence as an antiquarian curiosity
to the ongoing investigations of its historic, mythic, and literary dimensions. Classes will
consist of prepared translation, short
lectures, and spontaneous discussion. Reading in relevant
scholarship will
provide a basis for discussion and for term papers.
Texts: Beowulf: An Edition, eds. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson.
Blackwell, 1998; Beowulf: A
New Verse Translation. Roy Liuzza. Broadview, 2000. A
Critical Companion to Beowulf, Andy Orchard. D.
S. Brewer, 2004.
Particulars: midterm (translation), term paper (approximately 15 pages), and final
examination (translation).
Introductory Old English or equivalent preparation in reading Old English (please see the instructor) is required.
While proficiency
in class translation is not graded per se,
regular attendance and preparation of the material are
crucial to success in the course.
(Written
Permission of DGS required prior to enrollment)
Eng
704R: Chaucer and Gender
Bugge,
Th 1 :00-4:00, Max: 12
Content: The course will consider (define,
test, explore, evaluate, refine) the assertion that Chaucer was the first major writer
in English to concern himself seriously with questions
of gender. It will include careful analysis of Chaucer's
love poetry, including, of course, the Troilus and Criseyde; and
of those Canterbury Tales
in which gender-conflict plays a prominent role, particularly
The Wife of Bath's Tale. Students will be
expected to do substantial collateral work
in gender theory, historical background (especially on
the place of women in
medieval literature and society), and recent critical
work on Chaucer from these perspectives.
Texts: The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry
Benson. 3rd ed.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. (Or any comparably complete
edition.)
Particulars: Students will be asked for
active and voluble participation
in discussion; a short, two-page position paper each
week, conceived of as a basis for that discussion; and
a longer critical essay due at the term, 15-20
pages in length exclusive of notes.
(Written Permission of DGS required prior
to enrollment)
Eng
710R: Studies in Renaissance Literature: Renaissance
Drama and Early Modernity
Cahill,
Tu 4:00-7:00, Max: 12
Content:
An exploration of major works by Christopher Marlowe,
Ben Jonson, John Webster, Elizabeth Cary, Thomas Middleton,
and other Renaissance dramatists, and of some of the
theatrical forms (including history plays, city comedies,
and revenge tragedies) that emerged during the decades
between the opening of London¹s first commercial theater
in 1576 and the official closing of all theaters in 1642.
Over the course of the semester, we will
consider both the historical particulars of the early
modern theatrical enterprise as well as the ways in which
individual plays -- works that modern critics routinely
declare to be dark or disturbing , if not lurid and depraved--may
be inflected by the ideologies and practices of early
modernity. Topics for collective inquiry may include
the representation of sexuality and perversion; ³race² and
reproduction; technology and biopolitics; violence and
the law; commerce and commodification; and rationality
and the uncanny. Our close readings and occasional film
viewings will be supplemented by attention to critical
works (i.e., essays by Callaghan, Dolan, Goldberg, Greenblatt,
Howard, Loomba, Marshall, Masten, Newman, Neill, Paster,
Traub, etc. ) that represent a variety of theories, methodologies,
and approaches to this drama.
No previous expertise in Shakespeare or
early modern literature is required. Rather, this seminar
is designed to offer both a useful survey of Renaissance
drama as well as an introduction to key resources for
further scholarship in the field, such as the STC and
EEBO.
Text:
David Bevington et al., English Renaissance Drama: A
Norton Anthology (New York and London, 2002).
Particulars: Short paper, class presentation,
and a final essay.
(Written
Permission of DGS required prior to enrollment)
History
509: Family, Sex and Gender in Early Modern Europe
Strocchia;
MAX:12
Content:
This course is an introduction to the history of family,
sex, and gender in early modern Europe, circa 1350-1700.
We will consider the complex interplay among family arrangements,
property concerns, social and sexual practices, and the
ideology and representation of gender in a number of
different historical settings. Part of our agenda is
to examine how issues attaching to family, sex, and gender
intersected with larger historical changes that characterize
this period, such as state formation, social discipline,
religious reforms, and the transition to capitalism.
Our readings and discussions will attend to both large-scale
questions of historical structure and process, and to
more intimate questions of personal experience, individual
agency, and the meanings of gender for women and men.
A secondary goal of the course is to acquaint students
with some of the main methodologies and central theoretical
concerns developed by scholars working in this rapidly
growing field.
Texts:
May include Judith Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in
England: Women¹s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600;
Stanley Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice;
Natalie Z. Davis, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century
Lives; Moderata Fonte, The Work of Women; Laura Gowing,
Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern
London; Cynthia Herrup, A House in Gross Disorder: Sex,
Law, and the 2 nd Earl of Castlehaven; Tim Hitchcock,
English Sexualities, 1700-1800; Martha Howell, The Marriage
Exchange: Property, Social Place, and Gender in the Cities
of the Low Countries, 1300-1550; Michael Rocke, Forbidden
Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance
Florence; Lyndal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and
Morals in Reformation Augsburg; Lyndal Roper, Oedipus
and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in
Early Modern Europe; and Guido Ruggiero, Binding Passions:
Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of the
Renaissance.
Particulars: Grading and Requirements: Regular seminar
participation, including weekly contributions to our
LearnLink conference (=50% course grade); one short oral
presentation and written review of an outside reading
(10%); and a bibliographic essay of 15 pages to be developed
in consultation with instructor (40% course grade).
History
585: Heresy & Heretical Cultures of the Medieval
and Early Modern Periods (Same as JS 730 & ILA
770)
Rustow;
MAX:5
Content:
Heretics are paradoxically among the most scrupulous
of religious believers: they think about doctrine and
practice seriously enough to conflict with religious
authorities, or else they are coerced to do so by their
inquisitors. This course, in turn, proposes to take heretics
seriously as historical subjects. Avoiding studies that
describe doctrinal features of religious heresy, we will
instead focus on reconstructions of communities in which
heresy emerged as central problems in Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam, from medieval Languedoc and Crusader Palestine
to republican Amsterdam and Ottoman Istanbul. Our central
themes will be how historians have taken advantage of
texts created by the pursuit of heresy – such as
inquisitorial dossiers and polemical treatises – in
order to reconstruct the lives of heretics, and how understanding
the faults and fissures at work in religious sectarianism
sheds light on the entire society in which it emerged.
Texts:
Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God; Bernard Lewis, The Assassins;
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou; Mark Pegg, The Corruption
of Angels; Lucien Febvre, The Problem of Unbelief in
the Sixteenth Century; Carol Ginzburg, The Cheese and
the Worms; Gershom Scholem, Sabbetai Sevi; works by Natalie
Zemon Davis, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Yosef Kaplan,
David Nirenberg and Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi; and a film
by Luis Buñuel.
Particulars:
Students will be expected to read, summarize, and discuss
a book per week and to give one presentation. Written
requirements include an in-depth review of a book related
to the contents of the course and a final paper of approximately
5,000 words on a topic or historiographic problem related
to both the course and student research interests.
GER
550 000/COMP LIT. 752/ILA 790 - Silence in Literature,
Theater and Aesthetics
Benthien,
Wed. 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Max.: German 5, Comparative Literature
5, ILA 5
This course will be conducted in English
Content:
The course will look at "silence" as a literary,
aesthetic, and anthropological category from early modernism
to the 20th century. It will analyze (1) the modes and
paradoxes of representing silence in literary texts and
on stage; (2) its rhetorics, performativity, and phenomenology;
(3) its functions, semantics, and meanings (e.g. as expression
of a crisis of language or as a means of oppression).
Texts: Authors to be discussed and read
include William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Heinrich von
Kleist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Franz Kafka, Ödön von
Horvath, Samuel Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute, John Cage,
Susan Sontag, Maurice Blanchot, Jean-Paul Sartre, and
Herbert Blau. Other materials taken into account are
early modern emblems, visual poetry, an Ingmar Bergman
movie, a current theater production, as well as further
critical and theoretical texts (from the fields of philosophy,
psychoanalysis, rhetorics, performance theory and literary
criticism.
Particulars: Two short papers in the course of the semester;
one oral presentation; ongoing active participation;
intensive weekly reading of specific literary and theoretical
texts.
RLHT
721S: Ethics of Thomas Aquinas
Reynolds,
Wednesday, 9:00-12:00
(same as RLE 720)
Content:
This seminar focuses on the (mainly philosophical) foundations
of Thomas's ethics, as set out in the prima secundae
pars of his Summa theologiae. Topics include human action,
teleology, free will, the causes of voluntary action,
happiness, the passions, love and hate, habits, virtues
and vices, moral value, sin, law, and grace. We shall
also sample articles from the secunda secundae pars of
the Summa (which is essentially a treatise on the virtues
and vices) to see how Thomas divides morality according
to the schema of seven principal virtues (the three theological
virtues and the four cardinal virtues), and under that
heading we shall consider topics such as supernatural
enlightenment, the seven cardinal sins, the just war,
and the virtue of studiousness.
Texts:
Since the seminar emphasizes close reading of primary
sources (with attention especially to analysis of arguments),
our chief text is Thomas's Summa theologiae, which students
may study either in Latin or in English translation.
(An English translation is available on-line.) For secondary
support, we shall rely mainly on Stephen J. Pope (ed.),
Ethics of Aquinas (Washington D.C., 2002), an excellent
anthology. I shall assign several other secondary readings
passim.
Particulars:
Most sessions will include an informal talk by the professor,
but the chief procedure will be group exposition and
discussion. Students will present summaries as a basis
for some discussions. Assessed work includes two short
expositions, a final research paper, and an annotated
bibliography of secondary literature related (but not
restricted) to the topic of the research paper.
CPLT
752 003 Eros and Theologia: Dante's Spiritual Voyage
Guiliana Carugati
W 4-7
Max 15
Content:
The course approaches Dante¹s oeuvre by privileging the
relation between eros and the discourse on God. The original
solution elaborated by Dante will be shown to be based
on the Neoplatonic tradition - from Proclus to Boethius
to Alanus and the Roman de la Rose. The introduction
of carnal love at the heart of ³theology², and the opening
thereby of a new territory for thought, inaugurates the
modern conception, and practice, of poetry. As it strives
to situate Dante¹s oeuvre in its historical and philosophical
context, the course will raise important theoretical
issues, such as the relation between philosophy, religious
faith, and writing. It will also explore a phenomenon
which transcends a specific historical incarnation -
the idealization of woman.
Texts:
Vita Nuova, selected Rime, Convivio II-III, Commedia.
Texts will be read in translation. Students with Italian
are encouraged to use and apply it in the course.
Particulars:
One research paper and one class presentation based on
the paper.
CPLT
753 000 Violent Mirrors: Literary & Cultural Narcissism
Claire Nouvet
Tu
7-10
Max 5
[Crosslisted with FREN 520]
Content: Through the issue of narcissism,
we will explore the very status of the self as well as
its relation to the other be it one of love,
domination, aggressivity (to the point
of murder) or alienation. After
studying the traumatic violence inherent
in the constitution of one¹s
own self-image (Ovid¹s myth of Narcissus),
we will explore the ways in
which narcissism frames love in the poetry
of the troubadours and the
Roman de la Rose. Chrétien de Troyes¹ Yvain
and Salvador Dali¹s
autobiographical texts stage for their
part the aggressive component of narcissism, its murderous
impulse. As for Nebreda¹s photographs, they testify to
the radical loss of self that the experience of the mirror
induces in schizophrenia. Finally, cultural
narcissism and the
violence that it inflicts upon the other
will be studied in a medieval
epic narrative (La Chanson de Roland)
and in selected works by Fanon
and Spivak.
Text:
Ovid, Narcissus; Guillaume de Lorris, Le roman de la
rose;
Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain; La chanson
de Roland; Salvador Dali, Le
poème de Narcisse, excerpts from Journal
d¹un genie, La vie secrète de Salvador Dali; Fanon, Les
damnés de la terre; Nebreda; Jean Oury,
Création et schizophrénie.
