Classical Studies:

CLST 321 - See ENGL 021.

Comparative Literature:

COML 235 - See RUSS 234 (also HIST 219/SLAV 517).

COML 531 - See FRE 630.


East Asian Literatures & Cultures:

EALC 137/537 (also RELS 178)
Religion on the Silk Road
N. Schmid
W 5-8
 
In this course we will examine the socio-economic and cultural factors which gave rise to the rich diversity of religions in Inner Asia, specifically along what has come to be known as the Silk Road.  From the late Bronze age to the rise and fall of the Mongol Empire, an axis of regular trade and communication existed between western and eastern Asia allowing for a number of religious traditions to flourish and interact: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam.  Although focusing on Buddhism, we will approach all these traditions and their development through reading a variety of their classic and/or sacred texts, supplementing these with lectures and secondary studies.  To broaden our understanding of the role of non-textual material in the development of religions along the Silk Road, we will also focus on the wealth of non-literature religious expression, such as art, ritual, and iconography.

English:
   
English 020.001
Literature Before 1660
B. Riebling
MW 3:30-5

This course introduces students to the range of poetry, prose, and drama written in England between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. It examines, in particular, the ways in which writers represented the relationship of English men and women to the worlds that they inhabited. How does literature portray England’s place in the universe and on the globe? What can we learn from idealized visions of familiar landscapes-and from realistic ones? To what extent do changes in literary representations of space reflect shifts in English history and culture, including religion, politics, science, and class and gender relations? Students should expect that discussion will constitute a large portion of class meetings, and that participation will therefore factor considerably into final grades. Assignments will include two papers, a mid-term and a final exam, and reading quizzes as necessary.


ENGL 021.401
Medieval Epic and its Classical Legacy
R. Copeland
R 9-10:30

This course will examine aspects of the epic genre in medieval English literature by looking at classical epic and its reception. We will begin with Virgil’s Aeneid and consider how its reception in late antiquity, through Augustine’s Confessions and through philosophical commentators, prepared the way for medieval responses to the form. Readings in the medieval tradition will include Beowulf, some early Arthurian writings that stress an imperial theme, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer’s House of Fame and Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and Malory’s Morte Darthur. Some theoretical and historical readings may also be included in the syllabus. Grading will be based on several short papers and one longer writing assignment.


English 258.301
Celtic Literature in Translation: Curse Tablets, Cattle Raids, Camelot, and CyberCeltica
R. Blyn-LaDrew
TR 3-4:30

This survey focuses on literature originally written in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh, and more briefly examines Breton, Manx and Cornish. We first look at the earliest Celtic carvings and inscriptions though these are not “literature” as such. Early texts include the Mabinogi, Sweeney's Madness, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, and Fionn Mac Cumhaill. Later medieval selections include the love poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym and the first post-Norman Irish poets. The Early Modern and Modern periods see the beginnings of contemporary genres although there are still strong bardic, epic, and mythological influences. The Ossianic controversy triggers a discussion of the translation of Celtic works in general, and in this case, "translation" from a non-existent original. By the 19th and early 20th centuries, novels and contemporary stage drama emerge as part of the Celtic Revival. The formalized collecting of Celtic folklore texts begins and several selections are from folk autobiographies or tradition. We conclude with such recent or current writers as Máirtín Ó Cadhain (frequently compared to Joyce), Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Kate Roberts, Sorley Maclean, and the various pioneers of Celtic free verse. Several lectures are devoted to King Arthur material, beginning with its Welsh sources. Women writers are also featured, wherever feasible, and their works are seen in the context of the powerful role of women in early Celtic society and its legacy.

As time permits, we look at some of these literary works recast as pop culture or fine art (King Arthur on Broadway and in Hollywood) and explore Celtic language writing on the Internet. Perhaps by the end of the course, we can address the comment by the Greek historian, Strabo, that the ancient Celts “... are easily handled by those who desire to outwit them.” This course emphasizes, but is not limited to, selections that have inspired English-medium writers from the late 19th century onwards, from Yeats to Joyce and Heaney, but will not formally include their works. Relevant films or excerpts will be shown wherever possible. No knowledge of Celtic languages is required although students who are able will be encouraged to read the texts in the original.


English 525.401
Chaucer: Poetics, Performance, and Gothic Returns
D. Wallace
M 12-3

In July 2006 hundreds of scholars and teachers from all over the world will gather at Lincoln Center, NYC, to contemplate an English medieval poet: Geoffrey Chaucer. Medievalists have long reminded us that their epoch gave us universities and table manners, jury trials and urban space: foundationalist claims that seem increasingly irrelevant today. In the imaginings of modern urban cultures, however, the Gothic does not wait its turn for historical recuperation: it erupts through the floorboards, seizing the present moment. New York City has the Cloisters and St Patrick's Cathedral: but it may be Gotham City that resonates most interestingly with a medieval poet in its midst.

Such eruptive power, that we will seek to help realize in this class, has long been contained or repressed by later periods that would keep the Middle Ages at bay, asserting its cultural and religious foreignness and historical distance. Yet no such disavowal can be complete: not all medieval fragments (still lurking in our language and culture) can be fully digested or incorporated into the Renaissance and Protestant NEW. The uncanny strangeness/familiarity of the medieval--perhaps first fully appreciated in the Romantic period-- inheres in its sound: voicings like our own, yet not; foreign tongues close to home. Medieval texts were written to be heard, and heard by a group; in this class we will recover something of this collective modality. We'll pay considerable attention to quite how and why we voice the text, mindful that every reading is an act of interpretation.

Another element of Chaucerian strangeness is generic heterogeneity: The Canterbury Tales is the most generically diverse (least generically stabilized) poem in English literary history. Such formal and hermeneutic lability was, again, not appreciated in Renaissance England (which opted for homogenized, Italianate forms). We will see how Chaucer exploits the unmateched plasticity of his English to explore an extraordinary range of forms: classical romance, fabliau, saint's life, Ovidian metamorphosis, anti-feminist fable, feminist fairytale, Saracen romance, anti-Semitic defamation, manual for female advocates and treatise on the Seven Deadly Sins. Students will be free to explore later outworkings of such forms in their own literary periods. Each class member will give one report to the class; examination will be by a single long essay.


Germanic Languages & Literatures:

GRMN 507
Elementary Middle-High German
A. Speyer
MWF 1-2

Designed to familiarize the student with the principal elements of Middle High German grammar and to develop skills in reading and translating a major work of the twelfth century. Limited text interpretation.


History:

HIST 156 - See JWST 156 (also RELS 120).

HIST 201.301
The World of Charlemagne
E. Peters

The eighth and ninth centuries in the history of Europe may be approached in many ways (including, but emphatically not in this course, historical tourism). The course will focus on the earliest, and most extensively (if idiosyncratically) documented figure, Charles, son of Pippin, or Charles the Great (Charlemagne, Karl der Grosse, Carlo Magno). It is not a course in the "great man" theory of history, but rather one that uses a prominent single figure to get at a better understanding of a world in a particular time. We will use original sources in English translation and the best recent scholarship. We will also consider the long shadow of Charlemagne across time down to the present.


HIST 219 - See RUSS 234 (also COML 235/SLAV 517).

HIST 407 - See ARTH 473 (also RELS 415/DTCH 473).


HIST 410.601
Saint-Denis, Paris and the King of France: France in the Twelfth Century
T. Waldman
M 5:30pm-8:30
 
This course will serve as an introduction to medieval France by concentrating on the long twelfth century.  After a review of French history in the early middle ages, we will examine in detail several extraordinary developments during the twelfth century: First will be a study of the abbey of Saint-Denis and its rebuilding in the 1140s. The first Gothic church, Saint-Denis was the burial place of the French kings, and it prestige was closely connected to that of the monarchy.  We will also look at the growth of the city of Paris, the capital of France.  It is in this period that many of its most celebrated buildings and institutions are created, and we will look closely at two of them the cathedral of Notre Dame and the University of Paris.  Finally, we will examine the growth of the domains and power of the French king.  Readings will be divided between original and secondary sources.  Among the former are Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis works on the building of the abbey church and his life of King Louis VI; Abelard’s History of My Misfortunes, Guibert of Nogent’s autobiography, and selected letter of Bernard of Clairvaux.  The course will be structured as a seminar, and students will be required to give two oral reports and write a research paper.


HIST 523 - See RELS 523 (also HEB 550/JWST 523).


HIST 525-401
God and Nature: The Encounter between Judaism and Early Modern Science
D. Ruderman
R 1:30-4:30

Readings of texts chosen to shed light on the relationships between Judaism, magic, and science, in the late Middle Ages and primarily in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  The course begins with discussion of the Antique and Medieval periods.  An attempt to compare the Jewish pattern of response to science, medicine, and the natural world with Protestant and Catholic responses in the age of “The Scientific Revolution.” Knowledge of Hebrew recommended but not required.


History of Art:

ARTH 100-303 (Freshman Seminar)
Reading Pictures and Seeing Words: the Role of Imagery in Medieval Art and Thought
L. Ransom
T 3-6

The medieval world was a highly visual culture in which art played a fundamental role in reflecting and determining cultural values. Because of the political and social dominance of the Church in both the Latin west and Byzantine east, religious art was also a tool in defining and enforcing various ideologies. The nature and role of art in medieval society was, however, fraught with complications.  The Bible forbade the worship of graven images, and much ink was spilled over whether imagery should be allowed in a religious context, and if it was going to be used, to what extent and why.  This class will explore the role of the image in medieval society from early Christian times to the eve of the Protestant Reformation.  We will specifically look at the various uses of medieval art in relation to writings about the role of imagery in liturgical practice and private devotion. We will also examine related issues of patronage, audience, and literacy in order to gain a better understanding of how medieval viewers confronted, interpreted, and used the images that dominated their cultural life.


ARTH 473 (also HIST 407/RELS 415/DTCH 473)
Dutch Art, Religion and History
L. Silver & E. Peters
TR 10.30-12

This course is an introduction to the emergence of the Dutch Republic from the perspective of three academic disciplines: history, history of art, and religious studies. The course begins in the late Burgundian-Habsburg world of northwest Europe around 1500, the connection with Spain, and the world of the modern devotion. It continues with the impact of the commercial revolution and the religious reformations and the growing alienation of the Low Countries from Charles V and Philip II of Spain. These changes will be considered in terms of art and architecture as well as devotional and political movements. The course will examine closely both the Dutch revolt and the establishment of the Dutch Republic and the world of Van Dyck and Rembrandt.


ARTH 217
Visual Culture of the Islamic World
R. Holod
TR 12-1:30

The course is a one-semester introduction to visual culture of the Islamic world, beginning with contemporary material.

The course will examine how visual culture has functioned and continues to operate within Islamic civilization.  Visual culture encompasses but is not limited to specific histories of art and architecture; aspects of crafts and popular art will be discussed also.  Material in the course will be drawn from the seventh to the twentieth centuries, and will be presented thematically as well as chronologically.  Attention will be given to relationships between visual culture, history and literature, using specific case studies, sites or objects that may be related to various branches of Islamic literature, including historical, didactic, philosophical writings, poetry, and religious texts.

The course is designed to serve non-specialists.  All reading will be available in English.


ARTH 716
Seminar in Islamic Art - Vision and Optic Effects in Islamic Art
R. Holod
T 3-5

The seminar will consider the identification and the function of vision and visuality in classical Islamic civilization. It will deal with scientific studies, such as those of Ibn al-Haytham, and with examples of literary and artistic expression.  The aim of the course is to consider the diverse ways in which thinkers, writers, and makers sought to understand and to engage with the ocular.  Further, this course aims to investigate aesthetic theories as these were developed within medieval Islamic civilization, with special attention to the study of vision, and its physical and psychological dimensions.

Reading knowledge of Arabic, or Persian or Spanish desirable.


Jewish Studies:

JWST 156.401 (also HIST 156/RELS 120)
History of Jewish Civilization I
N. Dohrmann
MW 3:30-5

A broad introduction to the history of Jewish civilization from its Biblical beginnings until the Middle Ages, with the main focus on the formative period of classical rabbinic Judaism and on the symbiotic relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Fulfills General Requirement II: History & Tradition.


JWST 523 - See RELS 523 (also HIST 523/HEB 550).


Linguistics:

No Listings Available.


Music:

MUSC 710
Studies in Medieval Music: Writing About Medieval Music
E. Dillon
R 2-5


Near Eastern Languages & Literatures:

NELC 437
Introduction to the Islamic Intellectual Tradition
J. Lowry
TR 3-4:30

This course offers a comprehensive survey of the traditions of rational thought in classical Islamic culture, using English translations of classic works.  We will read works that can be described as philosophical, including not only the Arabic and Islamic products of the Hellenistic mode of thought but other religious sciences whose methodology is broadly philosophical. Reading history as a set of local contingencies, the course examines the influence of these different disciplines upon each other, and the process of the Islamic “aspecting” of the Greek intellectual legacy.  The readings thus include not only the works of Hellenized philosophers (falasifa) of Islam, but also those of theologians (mutakallimun), legists (fiqh-writers), grammarians (nahw/lugha-writers), historians (mu’arrikhun) and litterateurs (adab-writers).  No prerequisites; Arabic not required.


Philosophy:

PHIL 529.301
Medieval Philosophy: Aquinas
T 6-9
J. Ross

Aquinas or related topics to be determined to fit participants. Undergraduates need permission.


Religious Studies:

RELS 120 - See JWST 156.401 (also HIST 156).

RELS 178 - See EALC 137/537.


RELS 415 - See ARTH 473 (also HIST 407/DTCH 473).

RELS 523 (also HIST 523/HEB 550/JWST 523)
Making Medieval Jewish Culture
T. Fishman
M 2-5

The seminar has two concurrent aims. The first is to explore the seminal literary products of Jewish culture as it evolved in Christian and Muslim lands from the 9th century to 1492. Genres to be considered include philosophy, biblical exegesis, poetry (liturgical and otherwise), grammar, Talmudic commentary, rabbinic codes, kabbalah, historiography, and religious polemics. The second aim is to expose students to the secondary literature on these topics and to familiarize them with the cutting methodological and conceptual issues in contemporary scholarship on medieval Jewish culture. Reading knowledge of Hebrew required.


Romance Languages & Literatures:

FRE 330
Medieval Literature
K. Brownlee
TR 10:30-12

This course examines the extraordinary period (11th-13th centuries) during which the French literary tradition was first established by looking at a number of key generative themes: Identity, Heroism, Love, Gender. We focus on the issues of identity and authority with regard to both the protagonist(s) and the author of a key set of canonical medieval works. The issue of how gender roles are constructed and reconstructed provides a global perspective. In the Chanson de Roland we analyze the epic paradigm of heroism, with its glorification of military sacrifice. With the Vie de Saint Alexis, we move to the saintly paradigm, powerfully redefined in the post-martyrdom age. In Chrétien de Troyes’s romance Lancelot, we study a different kind of hero who is defined by his capacity to love, which thus valorizes both the elegance of courtly language and the role of the courtly beloved, Queen Guenievre. In Marie de France’s Lais, we study the first female-authored collection of courtly love stories, in which contradictions and tragic endings predominate at the level of plot. In Aucassin et Nicolette we see the first real emergence of a female hero, whose power is intellectual rather than military. In Christine de Pizan’s Dittié de Jehanne d’Arc (1429), we come full circle in terms of the Roland, as this female-authored text celebrates the military prowess and sacrifice of the female-gendered hero Joan of Arc in the Hundred-Years War between France and England.

All readings and discussions in French.


FRE 630 (also COML 531)
Intro to Medieval French Literature: The Romance of the Rose and the French Vernacular Canon
K. Brownlee
M 2-4

The course will be centered on a reading of the 13th-century Roman de la Rose--the single most widely read and influential literary work of the French Middle Ages. We will study the ways in which the Rose redefines the status of the French vernacular as a “canonical” literary language, while establishing itself as the new foundational work in the French canon. Special attention will be given to how the Rose deploys conflicting discourses of desire and knowledge.

We will begin by situating the Rose within the preceding French literary tradition, both lyric and narrative, focusing on the privileged examples of the grand chant courtois of the trouveres and on Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot. We will conclude with Christine de Pizan’s polemical rewritings of the Rose in the early 15th century.

Slavic Languages & Literatures:


RUSS234 (also COML 235/HIST 219/SLAV 517)
Medieval Rus’: Literature and Culture
J. Verkholantsev
R 1:30-3

Russian 234 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.

All readings in English.
Fulfills Distribution II: History & Tradition.