The influence of the Roman poet Ovid on subsequent art
and literature was considerable. Designed with students of art and
literature in mind, this course surveys the Ovidian tradition from
antiquity to the present. We will consider: Ovid himself, Apuleius,
medieval "moralizers" of Ovid's tales, many writers of the English
Renaissance (especially Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton), Italian
Renaissance poets, composers, and painters, book illustrators from the
sixteenth century through Picasso, French film maker Jean Cocteau, and
contemporary playwright Mary Zimmerman. The course offers students a
chance to survey the extent of the "classical tradition" and to
contemplate Ovid through the eyes of centuries of readers.
CLSS 701.401 - See ENGL 701.401.
Comparative Literature:
COML 234.401 - See ITAL 232.
COML 556.401 (also AMES 356/555, JWST 356/555)
Ancient Interpretation of the Bible
(Benjamin Franklin Seminar)
D. Stern
The purpose of this course is two-fold: first, to study
some of the more important ways in which the Bible was read and
interpreted before the modern period; second, to consider the uses to
which some contemporary literary theorists have put these ancient modes
of interpretation as models and precursors for their own writing. The
major portion of the course will be devoted to intensive readings of
major ancient exegetes, Jewish and Christian with a view to considering
their exegetical approaches historically as well as from the
perspective of contemporary critical and hermeneutical theory. Readings
of primary sources will be accompanied by secondary readings that will
be both historically oriented as well as theoretical, with the latter
including Hartman, Kermode, Todorov, and Bloom.
COML-630.401 - See FREN 630.
COML-632.401 - See ITAL 631.
English:
ENGL 701.401 (also CLSS 701.401)
Piers Plowman
R 12:00-3:00
E. Steiner
This course takes the great kaleidoscopic poem Piers
Plowman as its ostensible subject and point of departure for thinking
about the literary cultures in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries, as well as their continuity with older and indeed later
literary and intellectual discourses.
ENGL 321.301
Medieval Authorship
W 2-5
E. Steiner
This course is an overview of medieval English
literature through the lens of medieval and modern theories of
authorship. We will be reading classic modern essays on authorship by
Eliot, Barthes, Foucault, and Benjamin, alongside fascinating
fourteenth and fifteenth-century literary works: poetry by Geoffrey
Chaucer and William Langland, civic plays, trial records, saints'
lives, heretical sermons, and chronicles of revolt. The goal of the
course is to rethink modern critical assumptions about authorship and
authority in light of medieval notions of the scribe, the patron, the
actor, the commentator, the translator, the plaintiff, and the mystic.
Most of the readings will be in Middle English, but no previous
knowledge of medieval literature or Middle English is required.
Assignments will include an oral report, weekly responses, and a 10-15
page final paper.
Germanic Languages & Literatures:
GERM 008
Superstition & Erudition: Daily Life in the
Middle Ages.
(Freshman Seminar)
F. Brévart
This freshman seminar focuses on daily life in the
Middle Ages, including chronology and astrology, food, the university,
travel, and medicine and pharmacy.
History:
HIST 001
Europe in a Wider World
MW 11-12
T. Safley
The rise and growth of European civilization, from the
decline of the Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages, to the religious
Reformation and the beginnings of overseas expansion.
HIST 201
The Abbey of Saint Denis and the Invention of France
T 5:30-8:40
T. Waldman
The royal abbey of saint-Denis near Paris played an
important role in the history of the French monarchy from the time of
its foundation in the seventh century until it was attacked by the mobs
in the French Revolution. It was the burial place of the French kings,
the place where the crown and scepter were kept for the king's
coronation, and where the official history of France was written. St.
Denis had been the apostle to the Franks, and had been martyred with
his companion in Paris. (It is the place we know as Montmartre; he also
was said to have walked with his head in his hands!)We will concentrate
on Saint-Denis at the time of Abbot Suger (1122-51) who was responsible
for rebuilding the church and for strengthening the relationship to the
monarchy. We are fortunate to have several of his writings, and we will
examine them closely. We will also look at the architecture, sculpture,
stained glass, and liturgical objects, as well as the abbey's liturgy.
In this way we will gain insight into two major themes -- the
connection of the abbey with the political history of France and the
abbey as a cultural and artistic monument. Each student will write two
oral reports and write a research paper.
HIST 308
Renaissance Europe
TR 10:30-12
A. Moyer
This course will examine the cultural and intellectual
movement known as the Renaissance, from its origins in
fourteenth-century Italy to its diffusion into the rest of Europe in
the sixteenth century. We will trace the great changes in the world of
learning and letters, the visual arts, and music, along with those
taking place in politics, economics, and social organization. We will
be reading primary sources as well as modern works.
HIST 338
The University and Society from the Origins to the
Present
TR 9-10:30
E. Peters
This course will deal with the university in society as
its main theme, but it will also necessarily consider the roles of
intellectual history and institutional identity, emphasizing both
continuity and change. Because the university was an invention, the
course will pay considerable attention to why and how it was invented,
and by whom and when. Because it survived centuries of otherwise
drastic and extensive intellectual, institutional, and social change,
its history of continuity and self- (and externally-stimulated)
adaptation must also be considered, even during those centuries when
the university was allegedly a minor element in larger-scale and
otherwise located change and when around 1800 serious arguments for its
utter abolition were mounted. And because it has not only survived but
thrived, having become virtually indispensable in a very different
world, its history is essential to its present identity.
HIST 551 - See JWST 550.
History of Art:
ARTH 100.302
The Image of the Absent: The Icon & Visual
Revelation
W 4:30-7:30
W. Woodfin
Byzantine worshipper in the middle ages might be
expected, on entering a church, to be able to recognize a large number
of saints from their portraits. Although legend held that images of
Christ and the Virgin had been painted in their own lifetimes, most
saints depended on revelation through dreams and visions in order that
a true likeness be made. In this course, we will examine the
interchange between visionary text and visible image in forging the
gallery of Byzantine saints. We will look at the debates over the
nature of the icon and its connection to the represented subject, its
prototype, in the eighth and ninth centuries. We will also examine
images that seem to contradict the strict of iconographic likeness
settled on by the Orthodox Church in its official theology.
ARTH 240/640
Medieval Art
MWF 11-12
R. Maxwell
An introductory survey, this course investigates
painting, sculpture, and the “minor arts” of the Middle Ages. Students
will become familiar with selected major monuments of the Late Antique,
Byzantine, Carolingian, Romanesque, and Gothic periods, as well as
primary textual sources. Analysis of works emphasizes the cultural
context, the thematic content, and the function of objects. Discussions
focus especially on several key themes: the aesthetic status of art and
the theological role of images; the revival of classical models and
visual modes; social rituals such as pilgrimage and crusading; the cult
of the Virgin and the status of women in art; the “beautiful” and the
“ugly”; and, more generally, the ideology of visual culture across the
political and urban landscapes.
ARTH 260/660 (also DTCH 230)
Northern Renaissance Art
TR 10:30-12
L. Silver
Tues, Thurs 10:30-12
Survey of the principal developments in Northern Europe
during the “early modern” period, i.e. the transition from medieval to
modern art-making during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Principal attention to painting and graphics with additional
consideration of developments in sculpture, particularly in the regions
of the Netherlands and German-speaking Europe. Attention focused on the
works of the following artists: Van Eyck, Bosch, Durer, Holbein,
Bruegel, and on topics such as the rise of pictorial genres, urban art
markets, Reformation art and art for the dynastic courts of emerging
nation-states.
ARTH 518 (also AAMW 518/AMES 617)
Art of Iran
R 2-4
R. Holod
This semester, the pro- seminar will deal with the study
of a 16th century copy of the Khamsa of Nizami. The manuscript was
copied in Shiraz, Iran, by Qasim Katib (?), Muharram - Jumada II, 992
H. / 1584CE. It comprises 359 folios, twenty-seven paintings,
illuminations in the form of tinted papers, carpet pages, chapter
headings, and has two double - page illuminations interleaved with a
frontispiece throne scene, and a double page finispiece showing a
banquet scene.
The pro-seminar will examine the manuscript using several different
approaches and methods. Among these will be text and image concerns
such as choice and rate of illustration; aspects and uses of
codicology; the problem of ‘court’ versus ‘provincial’ production
centers; and issues concerning literacy, and those dealing with reading
as well as oral performance. We will also consider the place of the
Nizami stories within Persian culture.
The members of the seminar will prepare an exhibition to
be held in the Rare Books Gallery through the spring, 2005. They will
also participate at a roundtable tentatively planned for late January
about the manuscript in its social and artistic context.
ARTH 562
Global Art History 1450-1650
M 3-5
L. Silver
The seminar aspires to take responsibility for the contemporary call to
imagine a “global” art history. To do so, it will consider the period
of most intense interaction between naval power provided both trade and
conflict (colonies). This is also the era of “gunpowder” empires and
the rise of centralized, large-scale, dynastic states from East Asia to
Western Europe. In addition to new forms of visual culture, such as
maps, this is also a moment of enhanced artistic exchange through
travel, leading to the formation of large collections, including
“exotic” objects. Emphasis will focus on shared readings and will
endeavor to consider other world regions, chiefly Islamic Asia and East
Asia, along with emerging colonial regions, such as Spanish America,
alongside Europe, considered broadly.
Jewish Studies:
JWST 257/555 (also AMES 257/RELS 226)
Introduction to Midrash Literature
TR 3-4:30
D. Stern
This course is intended to introduce students to
midrash, the activity of Biblical interpretation as practiced by the
Rabbis in the ancient world; to its literature, its literary forms, and
its techniques of interpretation; and to modern scholarship on midrash.
We will study various texts from different periods in the history of
Midrashic literature, and attempt to apply different critical and
disciplinary methodologies--literary, historical, theological--to the
task of analyzing these texts. We will also seek to situate midrash
within the larger history of Jewish Biblical interpretation and within
the context of Jewish literary creativity through the ages, including
our own. Class discussion will be held in English, but students must be
able to read unpointed Hebrew texts. No other previous background in
the literature is necessary.
JWST 356/555 - See COML 556.401.
JWST 522 (also RELS 522)
Aspects of Rabbinic Culture in Medieval Ashkenaz
T 5-7
E. Kanarfogel
The rabbinic elite in northern France and Germany
(Ashkenaz) during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries produced a
voluminous, innovative corpus of talmudic commentaries and legal texts
for which they are best known. This seminar will explore the (less
studied/less remarked) literary creativity of these rabbinic figures in
other areas of religious thought and interpretation, focusing
especially on their biblical commentaries and mystical teachings. The
implications of this material for the intellectual history of medieval
European Jewry (and within the larger societal context) will also be
considered. The seminar will include the close reading of original
Hebrew texts, but (otherwise qualified) students without Hebrew
[language skills] may also enroll/participate.
JWST 551 (also HIST 550)
The Transformation of Jewish Culture in Early
Modern Europe
T 2-5
D. Ruderman
This course addresses the issue of periodization of the
early modern period as a distinct cultural epoch in Jewish history. It
deals roughly with the history of Jewish culture from 1492-1750 in both
Western and Eastern Europe, especially Italy, Holland, Eastern Europe,
and the Ottoman empire, focusing primarily on intellectual and cultural
history. The course will consider both the broad trends and common
markers of the period as well as specific texts and authors that
illustrate these trends. Reading in Hebrew and in other European
languages is highly desirable. Contact the instructor for any
additional clarification, and for all undergraduate students,
permission to enroll in the seminar.
Linguistics:
LING 310
Linguistic History of English
D. Ringe and A. Kroch
Music:
MUSC 120
History of Music in the Middle Ages
MWF 12-1
E. Dillon
An introduction to musical theory and styles of the
Middle Ages (polyphony, chant, motet). Special attention paid to
medieval manuscripts and notation and to the contexts (liturgical,
urban, private, etc.) of medieval musical forms.
Near Eastern Languages & Literatures:
NLL 631
Topics in Islamic Studies
J. Lowry
Religious Studies:
RELS 143 (also AMES 136)
Introduction to Islamic Religion
TR 1:30-3
B. von Schlegell
A comprehensive introduction to Islamic doctrines,
practices, and religious institutions in a variety of geographic
settings from the rise of Islam in the seventh century to the present.
Translated source materials from the Qur’an, sayings of Muhammad, legal
texts, and mystical works will provide an overview of the literary
expressions of the religion. The course aims, as well, to view Islam in
the immediacy of everyday life. Among the topics to be covered are: The
Qur’an as scripture and as liturgy; Conversion and the spread of Islam;
Muhammad in history and in the popular imagination; Concepts of the
feminine; Muslim women; Sectarian developments; Transmission of
religious knowledge and spiritual power; Sufism and the historical
elaboration of mystical communities; Modern reaffirmation of Islamic
identity; and Islam in the American environment.
RELS 226 - See JWST 257/555.
RELS 433
Christian Thought 200-1000
TR 1:30-3
E. Ann Matter
This course gives an overview of Christian culture from
the early church to the first age of reform (200-1000). Topics covered
will include the intellectual tradition (systematic theology and
debates about orthodoxy, heterodoxy, heresy) as well as lived religion
seen in liturgy, spirituality, and forms of communal religious life.
The course will feature attention to the role of laity, especially
women and readings from a variety of primary and secondary sources.
RELS 438
The Song of Songs: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern
Interpretations
T 6-9
J. Treat
This course introduces students to the development of
Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation by focusing on ancient,
medieval, and modern interpretations of the Song of Songs. Students
will encounter a variety of important interpreters, guided by
appropriate secondary materials. The course will touch on issues of
gender and religious language, on allegory and interpretation, on
mystical and feminist readings of scripture, and on the interplay of
the ascetic and the erotic in religion. This course has no
prerequisites. The readings will be made available in English. The Song
of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon and as Canticles) is part
of the Hebrew Bible. The book appears to be a collection of poetry on
the theme of human love, but most interpreters have understood it as an
allegory. Its evocative, enigmatic, and often frankly erotic poetry
raises significant issues of interpretation in Western culture. It was
“the most frequently interpreted book of medieval Christianity” and it
inspired many medieval Jewish commentaries as well. There has been a
rebirth of interest in the Song during the last two decades, especially
among feminist circles, because it provides non-traditional ways of
understanding scripture.
See the course website for more information.
RELS 522 - See JWST 522.
RELS 545 (also AMES 534)
The Qu’ran
B. von Schlegell
Romance Languages & Literatures:
FREN 630
Discourse, Power, and Selfhood in Medieval French
Literature
M 2-5
K. Brownlee
An introduction to Medieval French literature by close
readings of key representative works from among hagiography, chanson de
geste, romance, lyric, historiography and theater. The course will
consider the creation and the functioning of these new generic forms in
the French vernacular, with particular attention to questions of
authority, "truth," and language. Focus will be on the first-person
authorial subject, politicial and religious ideologies, and
representations of gender. Texts to be studied include La Chanson de
Roland, Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, la Quête du Graal, Joinville's
Vie de Saint Louis, Christine de Pizan's Cité des Dames, and François
Villon's Lais.
ITAL 232
The World of Dante
TR 10:30-12
V. Kirkham
The Divine Comedy will be read in the context of Dante
Alighieri's fourteenth-century cultural world. Discussions, focussed on
selected cantos of the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, will connect
with such topics as: books and readers before the invention of printing
(e.g, how manuscripts were made from sheepskins, transcribed, and
decorated); life in a society dominated by the Catholic church (sinners
vs. saints, Christian pilgrimage routes, the great Franciscan and
Dominican religious orders); Dante's politics as a Florentine exile
(power struggles between Pope and Emperor); his classical and Christian
literary models (Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, the Bible); and
his genius as a poet in the medieval structures of allegory, symbolism,
and numerology. Illustrations of the Comedy, from early illuminated
manuscripts to Renaissance printed books in the University of
Pennsylvania Rare Book Collection and contemporary film will trace a
history of the forms in which the poem has flourished for seven hundred
years. Class conducted in English. The Divine Comedy will be available
in a text with facing English and Italian versions. May be counted
toward an Italian Studies major or minor.
ITAL 631
Dante's Commedia
W 2-5
K. Brownlee
A close reading of the Inferno, Purgatorio and the
Paradiso which focuses on a series of interrelated problems raised by
the poem: authority, representation, history, politics, and language.
Particular attention will be given to Dante's use of Classical and
Christian model texts: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Virgil's Aeneid, and the
Bible. Dante's rewritings of model authors will also be studied in the
context of the medieval Italian and Provençal love lyric. The course
will be taught in English and cross-listed with Comparative Literature.
Students taking it for Italian credit will do the readings and written
assignments in Italian.
SPAN 630
Media Medieval: Information and Technology in the
Iberian Middle Ages
T 2-5
M. Solomon
Drawing on recent media theory, this seminar will
identify and explore medieval systems of information that emerged from
the Iberian Peninsula. Using as our point of departure Alfonso X's
massive codicological enterprise, we will examine phenomena such as
medieval cartography, Galenic hygiene, the digital writing of the
cuaderna via, and the idea that writing in its material and semiotic
forms function as an extension of the human body. Primary works include
Alfonso X (Estoria de España, Cantigas de Santa María, Las siete
partidas), El libro de Alexandre, Ramón Llull (Llibre de les
maravillas, Blanquerna, Ars Brevis), and Juan Ruiz's enigmatic Libro de
buen amor.
See the course
website for more information.
