Classical Studies:


CLST 618
Medieval Education--See ENGL 524




Comparative Literature:

COML 257
Maimonides and his Image--See RELS 223

COML 521
Boccaccio in a Kaleidoscope--See ITAL 537

COML 601
Medieval Education--See ENGL 524

COML 630
Intro to Medieval French Literature: Discourse, Authority, and Selfhood--See FRE 630



East Asian Literatures & Cultures:

No listings available.



English:


ENGL 229.401
Classic Epic and Medieval Romance
TR 10:30-12:00
Rita Copeland

Ancient epics had a curious and rich afterlife in the Middle Ages. The epics of Virgil and Statius were taught in schools, read for their moral content, and revered as philosophical teaching. But their literary afterlife involved a remarkable shape-shifting into the genre romance: narratives in which erotic love, individual quests, imaginary or exotic settings, and the unpredictability of adventure replace the epic emphasis on duty, collective warfare, history (including mythic history), and the determinacy of fate. We will read Virgil’s Aeneid and Statius’ Thebaid, along with some late antique literary and philosophical treatments of classical epic, in order to set the stage for medieval receptions of the classical narratives. Among medieval romances of pagan antiquity, we will read two important French texts (in English translation) from the twelfth century: the Roman d’Eneas (Romance of Aeneas) and the Roman de Thebes (indirectly based on Statius’ work). Then we will turn to some of the best known medieval English romances with classical themes or elements, including Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale and Troilus and Criseyde, and Chaucer’s own quasi-epic, the House of Fame. We will look especially closely at the treatment of the figure of Dido in medieval poetry and thought. Course requirements: several short papers, a take-home final, and a research project on which you will report to the class.


ENGL 524
Medieval Education
M 9-12
Rita Copeland
This course will cover various important aspects of education and intellectual culture from late antiquity (c. 400 A.D.) to the later Middle Ages (c. 1400 A.D.) across Europe. We will look especially at how the arts of language (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) were formalized and "packaged" in late antique encyclopedias, treatises, and compendia, and at how later theorists and systematizers recombined and reconfigured knowledge systems for new uses (monastic schools, cathedral schools). We will trace how the earlier and later Middle Ages differentiated between elementary and advanced reading, how children and childhood are represented in educational discourse, and how women participated in (or are figured in) intellectual discourse. Finally, we will consider how universities changed ideas of intellectual formation, and how vernacular learning in the later Middle Ages added yet another dimension to the representation of learning. Along with the standard evidence of treatises, institutional statutes, and student "guides" (from various periods), we will also look at examples of intellectual biography and reminiscences of famous teachers by their students. While the focus will be primarily on the language arts, we will have some opportunities to consider the impact of new learning in the sciences of the quadrivium.

Cross-listed as COML 601, CLST 618



Germanic Languages & Literatures:


GRMN 008
Suspicion and Erudition: Daily Life in the Middle Ages
TR 10:30-12:00
Francis B. Brevart
Cross-Cultural Analysis Course - Class of 2010 and after
All readings and lectures in English. No knowledge of German is required.

Individuals in medieval times lived basically the same way we do today: they ate, drank, needed shelter, worked in a variety of ways to earn a living, and planned their lives around religious holidays. They talked about the weather and had sex, they had to deal with cold, hunger, illness, epidemics and natural catastrophes. Those fortunate few who could afford the luxury, went to local monastic schools and learned how to read and write. And fewer still managed to obtain some form of higher education in cathedral schools and nascent universities and became teachers themselves. Those eager to learn about other people and foreign customs traveled to distant places and brought back with them much knowledge and new ideas. The similarities, we will all agree, are striking. But what is of interest to us are the differences, the alterity (keyword) of the ways in which they carried out these actions and fulfilled their goals.

This course concentrates on two very broad aspects of daily life in the Middle Ages (12th-16th centuries). The first part, Erudition, focuses on the world in and around the University. Taking Paris and Bologna as our paradigms, we will discuss the evolution of the medieval university from early cathedral schools, the organization, administration, financing, and maintenance of such an institution, the curriculum and degrees offered at the various faculties, and the specific qualifications needed to study or to teach at the university. We will familiarize ourselves with the modes of learning and lecturing, with the production of the instruments of knowledge, i.e. the making of a manuscript; we will explore the regimented daily life of the medieval student, his economic and social condition, his limited, but at times outrageous distractions, and the causes of frequent conflicts between town and gown. Finally, we will investigate the role of the medieval university in European history.

The second part, Superstition, revolves around astrology, medicine and pharmacy, and magic. Focusing on the theological, sidereal, and terrestrial causes of the Black Death according to scholastic thinkers, and on the German Volkskalender, a practical guide for everyday activities and an indispensable medical companion for professional physicians and the family caretaker alike, as our point of departure, we will gain insights into the ubiquitous role of astrology in the daily life of medieval individuals and into the precarious medieval healthcare system and prevalent medical theories of the time. Special topics on medieval wonder drugs, embryology, gynecology, and misogyny will illustrate diverse aspects of medieval daily life.



History:


HIST 101.302
The Norman Conquest and Twelfth-Century England
R 1:30-4:30
Thomas Waldman

This freshman seminar will be an introduction to the study of English medieval history based primarily on the reading of original sources. We will cover three major topics. First, Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest of 1066. We will read portions of Bede's History of the English Church and People paying particular attention to the introduction of Christianity into England, the organization of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and military organization. Second, we will discuss the Conquest itself examining the contrasting versions contained in the Norman and English chronicles. Finally, we will discuss the career and death of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. In this case we will explore the growth of the monarchy and the role of the aristocracy in the twelfth century, and we will read several eye-witness accounts of the murder. In addition to written sources, we will look at archaeological and manuscript evidence, as well as the Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the events of the Conquest. We will also look at film treatments and plays (by T.S. Eliot and Jean Anouilh) of the Becket story.


HIST 140
History of Jewish Civilization II-- See JWST 157


HIST 201
The World of Charlemagne: Europe, 700-900
Edward Peters
M 2-5
Departmental major seminar. If not fully subscribed by History majors, open to anyone interested.,
The eighth and ninth centuries in European history may be approached in many different ways (including, but not in this course, historical tourism). This course will approach the period and place by focusing on one remarkably (if idiosyncratically) documented figure, Carolus filius Pippini, Charles, son of Pippin, or Charles the Great (Karl der Grosse, Charlemagne, Carlo Magno). It is emphatically not a course in the great man theory of history, but rather one that uses a convenient single figure and a distinctive constellation of source materials to get an understanding of a particular world at a particular time. Our method will be that of a close reading of original source materials (in English translation) and some of the best recent scholarship. We will also consider the later Charlemagne-memories and -myths that survived in later European societies.


HIST 219
Medieval Russia: Origins of Russian Cultural Identity
Julia Verkholantsev
This course offers an overview of the literary and cultural history of Medieval Rus' from its origins through the Late Middle Ages, a period which laid the foundation for the emergence of the Russian Empire. Three modern-day nation-states - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - share and dispute the cultural heritage of Medieval Rus', and their political relationships even today revolve around questions of national and cultural identity. The focus of the course will be on the Kievan and Muscovite traditions but we will also note the differences (and their causes) of the Ukrainian and Belarusian cultural histories. The course takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the evolution of the main cultural paradigms of Russian Orthodoxy viewed in a broader European context. Students will explore the worldview of medieval Orthodox Slavs by delving into such topics as religion, spirituality, art, literature, education, music, ritual and popular culture. The legacy of the Rus' Middle Ages has a continuing cultural influence in modern Russia. This legacy is still referenced, often allegorically, in contemporary social and cultural discourse as the society attempts to reconstruct and reinterpret its history. Similarly, the study of the medieval cultural history of Rus' explains many aspects of modern Russian society, and, in particular, the roots of its Imperial political mentality. Those interested in the intellectual and cultural history of Russia, and Eastern Europe in general, will find that this course greatly enhances their understanding of the region and its people.


HIST 342
European Intellectual History, 1300-1600
Ann Moyer
This course will examine the formation of European traditions of scholarship and letters, including medieval, Renaissance and early modern writings. Topics will include court literature and romance; scholastic thought and university scholarship; political thought; the humanist tradition. It will consider the rise of printing, the formation of the "republic of letters," and the development of popular literature.


HIST 410
The King's Two Bodies: Power and Rationality in Early Europe
Edward Peters
T 1:30-4:00
Three inventions of late antiquity – the monk, the monarchical bishop (later the pope), and the king of a people – had long and influential afterlives, shaping by mutual influence and antagonism the course of both spiritual and temporal authority in western Europe from the fifth century until well after the fifteenth. Their history created distinctive uses and definitions of power and rationality in both the spiritual and temporal spheres and traces the emergence of a distinctive kind of civic order that has ever since characterized the European experience. The title of the course is taken from the classic book by Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Thelogy (1957), which will be a central text in the course. Political theology is, after all, an –ology and hence makes implicit claims on reason. A second study, Ken Pennington’s The Prince and the Law: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (1993), will be used as a thematic guide parallel to the work of Kantorowicz. There will be extensive other reading, including primary sources (in English translation or the original languages, depending on the particular student). The course will proceed roughly chronologically, from the fifth century to the sixteenth, and the materials drawn on will consist of material as well as textual sources. Course requirements: several oral reports turned into short essays and a longer research paper.


HIST 533
Jews and Christians in Late Antique Syria-- See RELS 533


HIST 620
A History of Culutural History: the Renaissance
Wed 2-5
Ann Moyer
What is cultural history: a set of research methods? questions? topics? interpretive assumptions? metanarratives? In this course, we will address these questions through a historical approach. After a survey of eighteenth-century scholarship, we will examine some of the major writings of the early cultural historians of the nineteenth century, chart the broad expansion of cultural history in the twentieth, and discuss some of the implications for doing history in the century that lies before us. We will devote particular attention to the central importance of the era of the European Renaissance (and the history of early modern Europe) in the development of cultural history. In that process we will treat a range of the interdisciplinary themes, issues, and methods that have come to be known as cultural history, and the ways in which fields such as history, literary studies, the history of art, and anthropology have intersected over the years in the study of Europe 1300-1600. Authors will include: Burckhardt; Huizinga; Cassirer; Panofsky; Gombrich; Yates; Geertz; Ginzburg; Foucault; Greenblatt.


History of Art:


ARTH 101
Art and Civilization before 1400
TR 9-10:30
Robert Ousterhout

This is a double introduction: to looking at the visual arts; and, to the ancient and medieval cities and empires of three continents - ancient Egypt, the Middle East and Iran, the Minoan and Mycenaean Bronze Age, the Greek and Roman Mediterranean, and the early Islamic, early Byzantine and western Medieval world. Using images, contemporary texts, and art in our city, we examine the changing forms of art, architecture and landscape architecture, and the roles of visual culture for political, social and religious activity.br>

ARTH 240, (also ARTH 640)
Introduction to Medieval Art
Robert A. Maxwell
MWF 11-12

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; and, more generally, the ideology of visual culture across the political and urban landscapes.


ARTH 241 (also ARTH 661)
Netherlandish Art
Larry Silver
TR 10:30-12

Dutch and Flemish painting in the 15th and 16th centuries with special emphasis on the contributions of Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden, Bosch, and Bruegel.


ARTH 301.303
Undergraduate Seminar: Historic Building Techniques
M 3-6
Robert Ousterhout

This undergraduate seminar will examine special issues concerning design and construction in the architecture of ancient Rome, Byzantium, and medieval Europe. We will discuss various aspects of building technology, including wall and vault construction, use of geometry in building design, and the role of architectural drawings in the design and transmission of architectural ideas. Class participation will involve both theory (i.e., research in the library) and practice (i.e., hands-on exercises). Seminar meetings will alternate between lectures, discussions based on assigned readings, and do-it-yourself projects including (weather permitting) laying out the chevet of a Gothic cathedral full scale using medieval tools.


ARTH 541
Glossed Books and Medieval Learning
W 2-5
Robert A Maxwell and E. Ann Matter

In 2006, Penn purchased an extraordinary medieval manuscript, one of the earliest known glossed Psalters (c. 1090). This seminar will study this manuscript and will explore the realm of monastic learning that gave rise to a culture of “glossing.” Topics will include practices of monastic reading and devotion, exegesis, the rise of cathedral schools, and the expansion of the manuscript trade. Representative of a particular kind of manuscript art, glossed books played an important role in monastic learning’s “visual curriculum,” and we will study this art-historical range – exegetical diagrams, illuminated encyclopedias, decorated compendia (e.g., Peter of Poitiers), etc.

A significant component of this course is the close study of the Penn manuscript itself. As one of the earliest (if not earliest) extant glossed Psalters, it offers an exceptional opportunity to explore how its author (Anselm of Laon?) composed the text that would later become the standard gloss. The Penn text, however, is hardly standard, filled to the margins with lots of scribbles and notations in a tiny bookhand. The Penn codex is also worn and rubbed – signs of use – and so to aid us in our study, we will employ new technology developed by SCETI for ultra-high resolution facsimile pages. We envision the creation of a web-based tool for studying this manuscript and possibly a small conference to announce the results of our research.

Students in Religious Studies, History of Art, Classics, History, English, and Romance Languages are especially encouraged to participate. Some knowledge of Latin required; French useful.

Cross-listed as RELS 536



Jewish Studies:


JWST 157.401
History of Jewish Civilization II
TR 1:30-3:00
David Ruderman
Fulfills Hist & Trad Sector (all classes); Cross Cultural Analysis for 2010 and after.

TExploration of intellectual, social, and cultural developments in Jewish civilization from the dawn of rabbinic culture in the Near East through the assault on established conceptions of faith and religious authority in 17th century Europe. Particular attention will be paid to the impact of Christian and Muslim “host societies” on expressions of Jewish culture.

Cross-listed as HIST 140, RELS 121, NELC 052


JWST 533
Jews and Christians in Late Antique Syria-- See RELS 533



Linguistics:

No listings available.



Music:

No listings available.



Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations:


NELC 052
History of Jewish Civilization II-- See JWST 157.


NELC 158
Maimonides and his Image-- See RELS 223.



NELC 238
Introduction to Islamic Law
TR 3-4:30
Joseph Lowry
Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only.

This course will introduce students to classical Islamic law, the all-embracing sacred law of Islam. Among the world's various legal systems, Islamic law may be the most widely misunderstood and even misrepresented; certainly, misconceptions about it abound. Islamic law is, however, the amazing product of a rich, fascinating and diverse cultural and intellectual tradition. Most of the readings in this course will be taken from primary sources in translation. Areas covered will include criminal law, family law, law in the Quran, gender and sexuality, the modern application of Islamic law, Islamic government and other selected topics.

Cross-listed as RELS 248


ARAB 436 (NELC)
Introduction to Classical Arabic Texts
F 2-5
Joseph Lowry
Prerequisite(s): Completion of ARAB 035, Advanced Intermediate Arabic; or permission of the instructor.

This course aims to provide incoming graduate students and advanced undergraduate students with an introduction to issues in Arabic grammar and syntax that commonly arise in pre-modern Arabic texts. Students will also be introduced to, and expected to consult, the standard reference works used as aids in reading such texts. Students will be expected to prepare a text or set of texts assigned by the instructor for each session. Preparation means, for these purposes, supplying all vowels and other necessary diacritical marks, as well as looking up unfamiliar words and constructions in appropriate dictionaries or other reference works. Regular attendance and thorough preparation are essential to success in this course. It is intended that, upon completion of this course, students will be able to work independently with a wide variety of pre-modern Arabic texts.


Religious Studies:


RELS 121
History of Jewish Civilization II-- See JWST 157


RELS 135.001
Christian Origins
TR 9-10:30
Annette Reed
Dist Cr History & Tradition sector, CL of 09 & Prior

Jesus and his first followers were all Jews. How, then, did Christianity emerge as a distinct religion? This course will explore this question with special reference to New Testament literature. On the one hand, we will ask whether and how the Jesus movement fits within the diversity of both Second Temple Judaism and Greco-Roman religions (esp. “mystery religions”). On the other hand, we trace the emergence of a distinctively Christian identity, asking how followers of Jesus in the first and second centuries articulated their self-definition as distinct from Jews and “pagans.”



RELS 223
Maimonides and his Image
M 2-5
Talya Fishman

Moses Maimonides, a Jewish thinker of twelfth century Andalusia and Egypt, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Revelation’s teachings with the insights of the intellect. But was he an arch-rationalist or a mystic? Through readings in English translation from Maimonides’ code of law, his philosophical treatise and other writings, this course will explore his conceptions of the ideal curriculum, the purpose of religious observance, love and fear of God, the nature of idolatry, the role of Christianity and Islam in the divine scheme and the Messianic Age. The course will also consider the image of Maimonides at different moments in the history of Jewish culture.

Cross-listed as COML 257, JWST 153, NELC 158


RELS 248
Introduction to Islamic Law--See NELC 238


RELS 438
The Sermon on the Mount: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Interpretations
T 6-8:40
Jay Treat

This course introduces students to the development of Christian biblical interpretation by focusing on ancient, medieval, and modern interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is part of the Gospel of Matthew and is often considered to summarize the essential teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Students will encounter a variety of significant interpreters (including Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, the Glossa Ordinaria, Thomas Aquinas, Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Søren Kierkegaard, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Schweitzer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Hans Dieter Betz), guided by appropriate secondary materials.

The course has no prerequisites. Readings will be made available in English. The seminar will utilize a combination of lecture, discussion, student presentations, close reading, collaborative writing, and a research paper. Students will do original research in the primary sources.


RELS 533.401
Jews and Christians in Late Antique Syria
T 1:30-4:30
Annette Reed

Dist Cr History & Tradition sector, CL of 09 & Prior

This course will explore the early history of Jewish/Christian relations through a focus on Syria. We will consider evidence for contacts, conflicts, and competitions between Christians and Jews from the first to the sixth centuries. Readings will include selections from the New Testament, Patristic writings, “pseudepigrapha” and “apocrypha,” and classical Rabbinic literature. Areas of special interest will include the question of whether “Jewish-Christian” traditions may have flourished in Roman Syria (esp. Edessa) and how interactions between Babylonian Jews and Syriac Christians in the Persian Empire may have differed from those of their counterparts in the Roman Empire.

Cross-listed as HIST 533, JWST 533


RELS 536
Glossed Books and Medieval Learning
W 2-5
E Ann Matter and Robert A Maxwell

In 2006, Penn purchased an extraordinary medieval manuscript, one of the earliest known glossed Psalters (c. 1090). This seminar will study this manuscript and will explore the realm of monastic learning that gave rise to a culture of “glossing.” Topics will include practices of monastic reading and devotion, exegesis, the rise of cathedral schools, and the expansion of the manuscript trade. Representative of a particular kind of manuscript art, glossed books played an important role in monastic learning’s “visual curriculum,” and we will study this art-historical range – exegetical diagrams, illuminated encyclopedias, decorated compendia (e.g., Peter of Poitiers), etc.

A significant component of this course is the close study of the Penn manuscript itself. As one of the earliest (if not earliest) extant glossed Psalters, it offers an exceptional opportunity to explore how its author (Anselm of Laon?) composed the text that would later become the standard gloss. The Penn text, however, is hardly standard, filled to the margins with lots of scribbles and notations in a tiny bookhand. The Penn codex is also worn and rubbed – signs of use! – and so to aid us in our study, we will employ new technology developed by SCETI for ultra-high resolution facsimile pages. We envision the creation of a web-based tool for studying this manuscript and possibly a small conference to announce the results of our research.

Students in Religious Studies, History of Art, Classics, History, English, and Romance Languages are especially encouraged to participate. Some knowledge of Latin required; French useful.

Cross-listed as ARTH 541


Romance Languages & Literatures:


FRE 330
Medieval Literature
TR 10:30-12
Kevin Brownlee

The course explores one of the greatest literary creations of medieval France: the world of King Arthur. We will study the parameters of this world in the contexts of fiction and history, politics and fantasy. Texts to be studied include Tristan (Béroul and Thomas), Perceval (Chrétien de Troyes), Les Lais (Marie de France), the Lancelot en Prose, and the Mort du roi Arthur. All reading and discussion in French.


FRE 630
Intro to Medieval French Literature: Discourse, Authority, and Selfhood
M 2-5
Kevin Brownlee
An introduction to Medieval French literature by close readings of key representative works from among hagiography, chanson de geste, romance, lyric, historiography, theater, and “autobiography.” 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, religious and socio-political contexts, and representations of gender. Texts to be studied include La Vie de Saint Alexis, La Chanson de Roland, Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, Christine de Pizan's Cité des Dames, and René d’Anjou’s Livre du Cœur d’Amour épris.

Cross-listed as COML 630


ITAL 232
The World of Dante
TR 12:00-1:20
Victoria Kirkham

The Divine Comedy will be read in the context of Dante Alighieri's fourteenth-century cultural world. Discussions, focused 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 537
Boccaccio in a Kaleidoscope
TR 4-6
Victoria Kirkham


Readings across the full range of Boccaccio’s writings, from his earliest fiction (/Diana’s Hunt, Filostrato, Filocolo/, the epic /Teseida/), to his mid-career activity (/Life of Dante, Decameron/), late biographical writings (e.g., /Famous Women/ and Dante commentary). Emphasis (about half the course) on the /Decameron/ with selections from the other works, including his correspondence with Petrarch. Texts will be explored through multifaceted approaches that have characterized specifically Boccaccian traditions of interpretation. These will include philological foundations of textual analysis, literary-historical readings, feminist scholarship, word-image studies applied to the rich visual heritage inspired by Boccaccio’s encyclopedic textual corpus (some 8,000 images during the manuscript era), and a distorting reception history that has narrowed his identity to the supposedly “lewd” author of racy novellas. Our aim will be to restore a fuller sense of a writer both medieval and proto-humanist, situating him in his relationship to classical antiquity, his venerated Dante, and his revered friend Petrarch. Reading knowledge of Italian preferred but not required. Texts will be available in both languages; class conducted in English.

Cross-listed with GSOC 537 for 08C and COML 521



Slavic Languages & Literatures:

SLAV xxx
Medieval Russia: Origins of Russian Cultural Identity--See Hist 219