Classical Studies:


CLS 735.401
Josephus-Eusebius
R. Kraft
T 3-6

Undergraduates need permission.

Cross-listed as JWST 735, RELS 735.


Comparative Literature:


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


COML 310 - See ITAL 310 (also GSOC 310).


COML 630 - See FRE 630.



East Asian Literatures & Cultures:


No listings available.



English:


ENGL 025.601
The Age of Chaucer
J. Mathews
M 6:30-9:30

This course enthusiastically celebrates the writing of one of British literature’s senior citizens: Geoffrey Chaucer. Some of the “oldies but goodies” that we will be studying this semester include The Parliament of Fowls, The House of Fame, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Canterbury Tales. While our central focus will be the poems themselves, the rich complexities of the various modes of writing that comprise these narratives demand brief but frequent forays into other textual terrains including saints’ lives, chronicles, sermons, and relevant prose and verse analogues. Possible topics of discussion include Chaucer’s social and political consciousness, the relationship between authorship and authority (manuscript production, translation, and transmission), and the place of poetic labor in the medieval workforce.
 

ENGL 221.401
Medieval Historical Writing: From Bede to the Printing Press
E. Steiner
MW 2-3:30

In this course we explore the ways that medieval writers documented and theorized the past. Questions include the following: what constitutes a significant event, e.g., the brutal murder of Thomas Becket in 1170, the burning of the Savoy Palace by peasant rebels in 1381, the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290,  the fall of Jerusalem during the Crusades (1187), or the miraculous exhumation of a saint's bones? What does the past - biblical, classical, national - tell us about the state of the present or the time of the future? In what way do different genres - chronicles, saints' lives, encyclopedias, charters, sermons, romances, travel guides, genealogies - offer competing or affirming views of the past? How is historiography used to serve royal propaganda or calls for religious reform? And what happens when medieval historical writing is taken up by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English printers, dramatists, antiquarians, and reformers?

Texts may include Ranulph Higden's popular universal history, the Polychronicon (c. 1350, later translated and updated by England's first printer, William Caxton), Wulfstan's Sermon of the Wolf to the English (c. 1000, about the Anglo-Saxon and Viking conquests); Bede's classic and continually recycled Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c. 731); accounts of Arthurian Britain such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (1138) and Thomas Malory's Death of Arthur (printed 1485); influential monastic chronicles such as Matthew of Paris's Chronica Majora (c. 1250) and Thomas Walsingham's Chronicle of Saint Albans (1422); alliterative poems such as St. Erkenwald (c. 1390) and the Siege of Jerusalem (c. 1370s); travel narratives such as Gerald of Wales's The History and Topography of Ireland (1185) and John of Mandeville's Travels (c. 1360); and the Edward IV Roll (a splendid genealogical manuscript at the Free Library of Philadelphia).

Assignments may include weekly responses to the reading, an oral presentation, and a final research paper.


ENGL 290.401
Medieval and Renaissance Women Writers
J. Higginbotham
TR 9-10:30

Chaste, silent, and obedient? Not likely! Although contemporary perceptions of the past often assume that women were passive and universally oppressed prior to the birth of the women's liberation movement, many historical women found ways to negotiate positions of power in a patriarchal society. In this class we'll examine some of the eloquent and defiant literature produced by medieval and Renaissance women about gender and literary authority. At a time when writing was considered the privilege of men, how did women lay claim to the right to write? How did they reshape literary conventions, and what strategies did they use for self-authorization? Well consider the relationships of women to writing from the early thirteenth century text Ancrene Wisse, written for enclosed religious women, to Margaret Cavendish's play The Convent of Pleasure, written for enclosed but secular aristocratic women. Our focus will be mostly on texts written, dictated, inspired or commissioned by women, plus texts written against or forced upon women: texts, in short, that helped shape the possibilities of premodern women's lives. In the process, we'll question traditional divisions between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and consider the differences between women's relationships to literature before and after the Reformation. We will also be considering what makes a woman a writer and what counts as a woman's text. Should we study the poems and speeches of Queen Elizabeth I, for example, alongside the embroideries of Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, and what happens when we read the Trotula texts (female-authored gynaecological manuals) alongside the Ancrene Wisse, a manual for female recluses with no known author? Other others may include Julian of Norwich, Annew Askew, Isabella Whitney (fl. 1567-1573), Mary Herbert (1562-1621), Elizabeth Cary (1585-1639), and Rachel Speght (c. 1597). Their writings will help us explore the way that literature opened up imaginative spaces for women.



Germanic Languages & Literatures:


GRMN 246
Heroes, Minstrels, Knights - Epics and Lyrics of the Middle Ages
F. Brevart
R 10:30-12

In this course we will read medieval works of international literary importance, such as the Arthurian novels of Hartman von Aue Erec and Iwein, the German Song of the Nibelungs and the Old French Song of Roland as examples of heroic literature, and the tragic love story of Tristan and Isolde by Gottfried von Strasburg. We will also read two Spielmannsepen which have as their central theme the international motif of the bridal quest, namely Sankt Oswald and König Rother, and compare these works with the Nibelungenlied and Tristan, which themselves also involve the bridal quest as one of their principal structural elements. There is, however, a major and critical distinction between the traditional happy ending of the bridal quest epics and that of The Nibelungs and of Tristan and Isolde, for those two German works culminate in the total destruction and disintegration of entire peoples and values, or with the utter misery of the ideal couple.

With our readings of the love poems of the French Troubadours and those of their German counterparts, the Minnesänger, our final genre of medieval literature, we will not only discuss the ubiquitous and timeless love theme in all its variations, but also the socio-political implications of such poetry.



History:

Freshman Seminar
HIST 101.301
The First Crusade
A. Novikoff
M 2-5

This seminar will examine the penitential military expedition to Jerusalem that was launched in November, 1095, conquered the city in July, 1099, and was subsequently called by historians, but not by participants, the First Crusade. We will study the individuals, ideas, and events of those years through the close examination of primary historical sources (texts and other materials produced at the time or shortly after) and through the consideration of selected secondary source materials (historical and other scholarship). We will also consider serious disputes among contemporary historians of the crusades. We will consider the three distinctive civilizations, parts or all of which were affected by the expedition: Latin Christian Europe, Greek Christian Byzantium (the Empire of East Rome), and the Middle Eastern (and Mediterranean western) Islamic world, as well as the culture of Jews in all three worlds. We will also consider the later interpretation of the expedition by historians, novelists, poets, politicians, and others – that is, the First Crusade in cultural memory.


Benjamin Franklin Seminar
HIST 211.301
Crusades and the Meaning of Crusading
J. Goldberg
R 1.30-4.30

“Crusade” is a word with a variety of powerful meanings in the contemporary world, suggesting to some the noxious roots of European imperialism, to others an unparalleled example of religious commitment. In this seminar, we study the phenomenon known as the crusades from the perspectives of both Christian Europe and the Islamic Mediterranean to see how these events were understood by different cultures both at the time and in later generations. We examine the development of the idea of crusading in Europe, follow the successful progress of the first crusade, and look at the building and dissolution of crusader states in Palestine. We look at how eastern and western Christians, Jews and Muslims lived and failed to live together, and the extent to which their contact led to both cultural synthesis and a new cultural antagonism.

Crusaders wrote accounts of their deeds, and the societies and groups they touched did the same. Our readings will center on medieval chronicles of the crusades and crusader states in English translation from Latin, Old French, Hebrew and Arabic. To these we will add a variety of documentary sources, including church records, letters from those caught by events, and treaties between Crusaders and Muslims. For the long cultural afterlife of the crusades, we turn in the last part of the course to historical novels, essays, and films. By the end of the course, each of you will have researched one aspect of the crusades—either an event as narrated by several sources, or many events told by a single chronicler—in an effort to understand how the Crusades were perceived by medieval people.


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


HIST 308
Renaissance Europe
A. Moyer
TR 10:30-12

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.



History of Art:


ARTH 241/641
Byzantine Art and Architecture
R. Ousterhout
TR 9-10:30
 
This course surveys the arts of Byzantium from the fall of Rome to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Study of major monuments, including icons, mosaics, architecture, and ivories will provide us with an overview of this rich artistic culture. We will pay special attention to the role of the Orthodox Church and liturgy in the production and reception of art works. Special readings will focus on selected major issues, such as the relationship of art to the Holy, the uses and abuses of Iconoclasm, and imperial patronage. The course will also grapple with the Empire’s relation to other cultures by looking at the impact of the Christian Crusades and Muslim invasions – as well as Byzantium’s crucial impact on European art (e.g, in Sicily, Spain).


ARTH 242/642
Introduction to Medieval Architecture
R. Maxwell
MWF 1-12

This course provides an introduction to the built environment of the Middle Ages. From the fall of Rome to the dawn of the Renaissance, a range of architectural styles shaped medieval daily life, religious experience and civic spectacle. We will become familiar with the architectural traditions of the great cathedrals, revered pilgrimage churches, and reclusive monasteries of western Europe, as well as castles, houses, and other civic structures. We will integrate the study of the architecture and with the study of medieval culture, exploring the role of pilgrimage, courts and civil authority, religious reform and radicalism, crusading and social violence, and rising urbanism. In this way, we will explore the ways in which the built environment profoundly affected contemporary audiences and shaped medieval life.


ARTH 541
Medieval Manuscript Illumination
R. Maxwell
W 2-5

This course introduces students to medieval manuscripts and their decoration.  It will provide a historical overview of illumination from the earliest decorated codices of Late Antiquity to Renaissance prayer books and liturgical manuscripts from Italy and the North.  Discussions will also focus a few selected topics, such as issues of narrative, illustration of Romances and history, and devotional decoration.  The first sessions will constitute a general practicum in hands-on study of codices, with brief training in paleography and codicology. Students will prepare short assignments on individual leafs and manuscripts in local collections as a warm-up for a longer term project.  Approximately half of the classes will meet in libraries around Philadelphia (Free Library, Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art).  Sessions are also planned with curators in New York (Pierpont Morgan) and Baltimore (Walters Art Museum).  

Space is limited to 10 graduates and undergraduates.  Undergraduates need permission.  Knowledge of at least one foreign language and some Latin is useful.



ARTH 718
Approaches to the Archeology of Islamic Periods
R. Holod
W 3-5

This seminar will trace the development of the field from one that was centered largely on the recovery of major monuments to one in which issues of daily life, demography, chronology and the study of settlement patterns have come to play a major role. The seminar will review work in the major zones of the Islamic world: Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, Syria-Palestine, Egypt, North Africa I (Libya-Tunisia), North Africa II (Algeria- Morocco), Spain. Of special interest will be the study of landscape and settlement patterns.


ARTH 730
Byzantine and Early Christian Architecture
R. Ousterhout
R 3-5



Jewish Studies:


JWST 735 - See RELS 735 (also CLS 735).


Music:


MUSC 024 
Space, Sound and Ritual: Performing the Middle Ages
E. Dillon
R 1:30-3

This course examines medieval music from the perspective of its ritual, social and spatial contexts.  Covering a wide range of musical repertories, from sacred chant, love songs of the troubadours, to the ceremonial motets of Dufay, the course asks how and where medieval men and women experienced their sounding world, and how they used musical experiences to define the sense of the self, the community and the sacred.  We will consider a wide spectrum of contexts for peformance, including the church and monastery, court and castle, cities such as Paris and Florence, and the theatre of the book.  Students will leave the course with a broad knowledge of medieval musical repertories, and with a deeper understanding of medieval culture. 

No prior musical background necessary. Free elective and upper-level elective for the music minor.



Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations:


NELC 130/RELS 140
Introduction to the Qur'an
J. Lowry
R 3-4:30

The goal of this course is to provide students with a general introduction to the holy scripture of the religion of Islam, the Qur’an.  In particular, students will become familiar with various aspects of Qur’anic content and style, the significance of the Qur’an in Islamic tradition and religious practice, and scholarly debates about the history of its text.  Through close reading of selected passages and short research assignments, students will gain first-hand knowledge of the Qur’an’s treatment of prophecy, law, the Biblical tradition, and many other topics.

No previous background in Islamic studies or Arabic language is required for this course.



Philosophy:


PHIL 529.301
Medieval Philosophy: Suarez
Thursday -- 3:00-6:00
James F. Ross

Critical examination of some key themes in medieval philosophy such as faith/science, causation, theory of relations and natural theology.  This seminar is open to advanced undergraduates and to graduate students from other departments, such as History, Religious Studies, and so on. Topics are adjusted to the interests and accomplishments of the participants. The seminar requires active participation, class presentations and a final research paper. 

Undergraduates Need Permission: jross@sas.upenn.edu.



Religious Studies:


RELS 140 - See NELC 130.



Romance Languages & Literatures:


FRE 330
Introduction to Medieval Literature (taught in French)
K. Brownlee
R 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
Introduction to Medieval Literature (taught in English)
K. Brownlee
W 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 trouvères and on Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot. We will conclude with Christine de Pizan’s polemical rewritings of the Rose in the early 15th century.

Cross-listed as COML 630.


Benjamin Franklin Seminar
ITAL 310
The Medieval Reader
V. Kirkham
R 12-1.30

Through a range of authors from Augustine to Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, and Umberto Eco, this course will explore the world of the book in the manuscript era. Topics will include 1) readers as staged in fiction, male and female, good and bad; 2) books as precious material objects hand-produced in monasteries and their subsequent role in the rise of the universities; 3) medieval ideals of the book--as a repository of encyclopedic knowledge, as a symbol of God's created universe; 4) radical changes in book culture brought about by printing and the internet.

Cross-listed as COML 310, GSOC 310.


Slavic Languages & Literatures:


RUSS 234
Medieval Russia: Origins of Russian Cultural Identity
R 4:30-6
J. Verkholantsev

This course offers an overview of the literary and cultural history of Medieval Rus’ from its origins to the eighteenth century, 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 course takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the evolution of the main cultural paradigms of Russian Orthodoxy viewed vis-à-vis 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 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.  The study of the medieval cultural and political history explains many aspects of modern Russian society, and, in particular, the roots of its imperial political mentality and its spirituality.  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.

Cross-listed as HIST 219, COML 235, SLAV 517.