Medieval Courses: Fall 2013
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
ARAH 5585 Art and Religion of the Silk Road
Dorothy Wong (dcw7a)
T 3:30-6:00
This seminar examines the religions and art forms that flourished and were transmitted along the Silk Road between the first and fourteenth centuries CE. Topics include art and religion pertaining to Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaenism, and Christianity; comparative topics in medieval Christianity and Buddhism; nomadic art forms; trade goods; and important sites that stretch from Samarkand to the Tarim Basin, Dunhuang, Chang’an, and Nara.
ARTH 2153: Romanesque and Gothic Art
Eric Ramirez-Weaver (emr6m)
TR 3:30-4:45
The medieval monk, Raoul Glaber, described Europe in the year 1000 as a place of Christian renewal in which the continent “…[was] clothing herself everywhere in a white garment of churches.” From the Romanesque churches along the Pilgrimage Routes to the new Gothic architecture at St. Denis outside Paris and on to late medieval artistic production in Prague, this course examines profound and visually arresting expressions of medieval piety, devotion, and power made by artists from roughly 1000-1500. In this class, both sacred and secular artworks supply important records of the philosophical, theological, political, and scientific beliefs espoused by their different patrons from disparate time periods and the artists they commissioned to translate their visions into churches, castles, liturgical objects, sculptures, stained glass, tapestries, household items, and illuminated manuscripts. Throughout our investigations, particular attention will be paid to the contributions of important medieval women, who rose above social inequalities, and demonstrated their power and prestige through cultivated programs of patronage.
ARTH 4591-001: Pilgrimage
Lisa Reilly (lar2f)
W 2:00-4:30
Pilgrimage is generally described as a journey of religious significance often to a shrine of great importance to the pilgrim’s religion. This seminar will consider the art and architecture associated with such journeys. Many of the readings will concentrate on pilgrimages of the Western European Middle Ages such as Santiago de Compostela and St. Peter’s. We will, however, also consider pilgrimages within the Islamic and Buddhist traditions as well as those to classical sites such as Delphi. Pilgrimages to shrines associated with personality cults such as Lenin, Mao Zedong or Elvis will also be discussed. Students will be encouraged to choose topics from any type of pilgrimage for their research projects. Readings will focus on primary sources such as the Pilgrims’ Guide to Santiago and the Travel Diary of Ibn Jubayr. The course will also emphasize the development of oral presentation, research and writing skills, as each member of the seminar will work on a major research project throughout the semester.
ARTH 4591-002: Astronomy, Astrology, Alchemy, Magic and Medieval Mysticism
Eric Ramirez-Weaver (emr6m)
W 3:30-6:00
Fanciful, scientific, and deeply moving devotional artworks from the early to late middle ages attest to the lived personal experiences of medieval men and women. As crafted confessions of their spiritual engagement with the cosmos and the divine through regulated and novel strategies of study and ascetic praxis, the objects in this course investigate normative spirituality and marginal mystical practices from the medieval period. Rather than focus exclusively upon straightforward hegemonic and orthodox Christian artistic celebrations of piety, heterodox and banned spiritual practices will also be examined in this seminar. This seminar will attempt to assess and to define more clearly the nature of medieval mystical encounters. We will study various medieval engagements with the supernatural and divine, as recorded by the artistic record and literary lives, or vitae, complemented by contemporary methodological treatments of ascetic experience, marginal praxes, and the place of the body within the cosmos. Topics covered include: Carolingian celestial modeling, eschatology, millenarianism, astrological prediction, horoscopes, talismans and crystals, apotropaic signs, spells and incantations, medieval gynecology, Herrad of Hohenburg, Hildegard of Bingen, late medieval courtly astrology, military machinations, saintly mutilation and martyrdom, Margery Kempe, alchemical theory, and Hieronymus Bosch.
ENMD 3260: Chaucer II: Troilus and Criseyde
Tony Spearing (acs4j)
MW 2:00-3:15
Though less well known than the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde is the greatest single poem by England’s greatest medieval poet. It is a richly complex story of illicit love and betrayal, set in pagan times in a besieged city which is doomed to fall to its enemies. In its storytelling power and its representation of social life and human feeling Troilus and Criseyde has many of the qualities of a novel, but it is also a work of poetic intensity—erotic, comic, philosophical, and ultimately tragic. We shall read it in the original, using the Norton Critical Edition, which translates hard words and phrases on the same page as the text. Chaucer adapted his story from an Italian poem by Boccaccio; a modern translation of this is printed on facing pages, so we shall be able to see how the English poet changed and enriched his source, and notably how he entered more deeply and sympathetically into the situation and consciousness of the flawed heroine Criseyde and made the story hers no less than Troilus’s. The Norton edition includes Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid, in which a Scottish poet, writing under Chaucer’s influence a century later, imagined how the story might have ended differently; we shall read this as a supplement to Troilus and Criseyde, and also the work from which Chaucer learned how pagans might have thought about the world, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. This course offers the opportunity to study a single major poem in detail and also to learn how to read it aloud. No previous knowledge of Chaucer is required, only a commitment to understand the words he wrote over six centuries ago in a language which is recognizably our own. Requirements will include two papers, an oral presentation, a midterm, and a final exam.
ENMD 4500: Advanced Studies in Medieval Literature
Peter Baker (psb6m)
MW 2:00-3:15
[Description not yet available]
ENMD 5010: Introduction to Old English
John Casteen
MWF 12:00-12:50
[Description not yet available]
ENRN 4530: Lyric
John Parker (jlp4ca)
MW 3:30-4:45 PM
[Description not yet available]
FREN 3041: The French-Speaking World I: Origins
Amy Ogden (avo2n)
MWF 11:00-11:50
Knights rescuing damsels in distress. Damsels rescuing knights in distress. Quests for adventure, God, love, truth. Bawdy ballads and soulful sonnets. The first five hundred years of French literature provide endless entertainment and often unnerving perspectives on the world and its history. The authors of this time are responsible for the ideas, stories and literary genres that determine our “modern” assumptions about subjects such as romantic love, common courtesy, gender, literary conventions, virtue and heroism, sport and entertainment, and truth. Readings are in modern French translation and include the foundation text of modern Frenchness, La Chanson de Roland; the provocative Vie de saint Alexis; Arthurian tales of chivalry by Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France; Christine de Pisan’s feminist Cité des dames; Michel de Montaigne’s essays on cannibals and friendship; and a selection of lyric poetry from each century. Pre-requisites: FREN 3031 and 3032 or equivalents.
FREN 5510: Art and War: The State of Literature during the Hundred Years War
Deborah McGrady (dlm4z)
R 3:30-6:00
From 1337 to 1453, Europe was shaped by a political and military feud that began as an Anglo-French conflict before triggering a civil war in the French kingdom and a series of territorial conflicts that spread across the continent and beyond. During this period, societies endured unparalleled degrees of widespread violence, corruption, and disillusionment, but it was also a time of creative energy, a time when intellectuals and poets used their words to challenge authority, to assert social responsibility, and to record the trauma endured. This class will explore the impact of war on shaping literature as much as the power of literature to shape war and society. We will read a diverse selection of writings, ranging from escapist courtly literature to political manifestoes, debate poetry to the writings of the first recognized “war correspondent,” poetry by and for prisoners, propaganda, and the legal, political, and artistic treatment of Joan of Arc. Work by Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pizan, Alain Chartier and Charles d’Orléans will be included. These primary source will be read in conjunction with theoretical writings on violence, trauma, nostalgia, displacement.
HIEU 2061: The Birth of Europe
Paul Kershaw (pjk3p)
MW 2:00-2:50 + section
This class examines the social, political and cultural history of Western Europe from the collapse of Roman authority over the course of the fifth century to the dawn of the Renaissance. Political and institutional developments, social organization and political ideas, art, architecture, literature, philosophy and religion will all receive attention. Over the course of the semester we will study the emergence of the earliest post- Roman kingdoms, the Frankish kingdom of Clovis, the rise and fall of the Carolingian empire, the rise of Islam, and the so-called ‘transformation’ of Europe in the years spanning AD 1000. The Crusades, the twelfth-century ‘renaissance’, the growth of western Europe kingdoms, papal authority, and the survival of the Byzantine Empire, will also all be explored. How did life, thought and belief change in these centuries? How did Europe’s relations with the wider world themselves develop across time? Students will read some of the most important and interesting sources for the Middle Ages, including the writings of Einhard and Notker from the ninth century, first-hand accounts of the early Crusades, the Song of Roland, and others. We will also read legal texts, letters, political polemics, and touch upon the contributions of art history, archaeology and architecture to our historical understanding of the medieval centuries.
HIEU 2111: History of England to 1688
Paul Halliday (ph4p)
MW 10:00-10:50 + section
This course surveys England’s history from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain to 1688. We shall look briefly at politics and society before the Norman Conquest, the impact of that Conquest, and the nature of social life in the later Middle Ages. Most of the course will focus on the Reformation and the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century and the transformations they wrought in English politics and society. We shall also consider the extension of England as it became Great Britain and began to extend an empire across the seas. We will thus be concerned throughout the course not with England alone, but with its place in Europe and the world. Each student will write three short essays (1200-1500 words) and a final exam.
HIME 2001: History of Middle East and North Africa, ca. 570-ca.1500
Joshua White (jmw4xd)
TR 2:00-3:15 + section
This survey course explores the history of the Middle East and North Africa (broadly construed—our focus will range from Iberia to Central Asia) from the origins of Islam to the rise to superpower status of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. Topics include the spread of Islam; the establishment and subsequent fragmentation of the caliphate(s); the historical development of Islamic social, legal, and political institutions; inter-confessional relations; the impact of invaders (Turks, Crusaders, Mongols); and much more. There will be two 75-minute lectures per week and a mandatory discussion section. Evaluation will be based on short reading response papers, a midterm exam, a final exam, participation and attendance. There are no prerequisites.
ITAL 3110: Medieval and Renaissance Masterpieces
Enrico Cesaretti (efc4p)
TR 9:30-10:45
[Description not yet available]
JPTR 3010: Survey of Traditional Japanese Literature
Gustav Heldt
TR 3:15-4:30
This course provides an introduction to Japanese literature from earliest times through to the nineteenth century. We will read selections from representative texts and genres, including myth, poetry, prose fiction, memoir literature, drama, and works of criticism.
JPTR 3290: Feminine Fictions in Japanese Court Literature
Gustav Heldt
W 1:00-3:30
This seminar will take up the world’s earliest instance of literature written extensively by, for, and about women, including such famous works as the Pillow Book of Sei Shônagon and Sarashina Diary, among others. The focus will be on reading gender as a fictional enactment of desire and identity that is performed through acts of writing and reading. No prior knowledge of Japanese language or literature is required.
LATI 3090: Medieval Latin
Gregory Hays (bgh2n)
MW 10:00-10:50
In this course we will read the Romance of Apollonius of Tyre, an early medieval novel involving incest, murder, piracy, riddles, shipwrecks, ball-games, prostitution, virtuous fishermen, wicked step-parents, and more riddles. We will also look at the influence of the novel on some later works, including Shakespeare’s Pericles. This course may be taken for graduate credit (as LATI 5559) by students from departments other than Classics.
LATI 4559: Plautus
Gregory Hays (bgh2n)
MW 12:00-12:50
This course will have two components. One is a reading of Plautus’s comedy Amphitruo, a story of divine lust, adultery, deception, and mistaken identity ultimately resulting in the birth of Hercules. The other is an investigation of the Amphitruo as it is transmitted by a fifteenth-century manuscript of Plautus in the UVA Special Collections Library. Our investigation of this codex will take us into topics like the later reception of Roman comedy, the nature of manuscript transmission, and the readership of the Classics in Renaissance Italy.
MEST 2600: Major Dimensions of Classical-Medieval Arab Civilization
Ahmad Obledat
T 6:30-9:00 PM
[Description not yet available]
MSP 3801: Colloquium in Medieval Studies
Gregory Hays (bgh2n)/Medieval Faculty
MW 3:30-4:45
This course is a general introduction to Medieval Studies; an important component will be guest lectures by various members of the UVA medieval faculty. The Colloquium is required for Medieval Studies majors but all students are welcome and no previous knowledge is assumed. Topics may include: monasticism, saints’ lives, manuscript culture, chivalry, romances, art and architecture, the survival of ancient Rome, and the Middle Ages beyond Western Europe.
PETR 3559: Rumi
Alireza Korangy (ak3pg)
TR 12:30-1:45
[Description not yet available]
RELC 2050: The Rise of Christianity
Karl Shuve (kes3ba)
MW 11:00-11:50 + section
How did a movement that began as a Jewish sect become the official religion of the Roman Empire and forever change the world? In this course, we will trace Christianity’s improbable rise to religious and cultural dominance in the Mediterranean world during the first millennium of the Common Era. We will examine archaeological remains, artistic creations and many different kinds of writings—including personal letters, stories of martyrs and saints, works of philosophy and theology, and even gospels that were rejected for their allegedly heretical content—as we reimagine and reconstruct the lives and struggles of early and medieval Christians. Our goal will be to understand the development of Christian thought, the evolution of the Church as an institution, and how Christianity was lived out and practiced by its adherents.
RELC 5006: Augustine’s City of God
Charles Mathewes (ctm9d)
TR 2:00-3:15
[Description not yet available]
RELC 5559: Foundations of Western Christianity
Karl Shuve (kes3ba)
T 3:30-6:00
Although Christianity is often treated as a “Western” religion, it is helpful to remember that it began as a religion rooted in the Eastern Mediterranean, which reached Asia long before many places in Europe. In this course, we will examine the making of a distinctly Western form of Christianity, which came to provide the intellectual and cultural foundation of European society. Through a careful reading of primary sources (as well as a consideration of some artistic, architectural and epigraphic evidence), we will study the theological, philosophical, ritual and cultural innovations of Christians in the period 350-600 AD. All sources will be assigned in English translation, but there will be an optional language component, which will give interested students the ability to read sources in Latin and/or Greek.
RELI 2070: Classical Islam
Ahmed Al-Rahim (aa3wn)
MW 1:00-1:50 + section
[Description not yet available]
SPAN 3400: Survey of Spanish Literature I (Middle Ages to 1700)
Michael Gerli (mg2u)
MWF 11:00-11:50
[Description not yet available]
GRADUATE COURSES
ARAH 5585 Art and Religion of the Silk Road
Dorothy Wong (dcw7a)
T 3:30-6:00
This seminar examines the religions and art forms that flourished and were transmitted along the Silk Road between the first and fourteenth centuries CE. Topics include art and religion pertaining to Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaenism, and Christianity; comparative topics in medieval Christianity and Buddhism; nomadic art forms; trade goods; and important sites that stretch from Samarkand to the Tarim Basin, Dunhuang, Chang’an, and Nara.
ENMD 5010: Introduction to Old English
John Casteen
MWF 12:00-12:50
[Description not yet available]
ENMD 8850: Mapping the Middle Ages
Tony Spearing (acs4j)
MW 5:00-6:15
The medieval period has sometimes been imagined as a monolithic other from which the shimmering modern ultimately and trendily emerged. Medieval culture is indeed often exotically other but it is far from monolithic, and the aim of this course is map it more accurately, through a study of writings in verse, prose, and drama, from England and continental Europe, and from the twelfth century to the fifteenth, so as to reveal its literary, intellectual and spiritual variety and dynamism. The approach will be transnational and interdisciplinary, and the overlapping topics to be explored will include: varieties of narrative form; varieties of love, sacred and profane; encounters with other cultures and other worlds, real and imagined; regional culture (art and writing in late-medieval East Anglia); and “the Middle Ages” as a theoretical construct. English verse texts (including Chaucer, the Gawain-poet, some romances, and some plays) will be read in the original, others in translation. Requirements: an oral presentation, two papers, a final exam.
ENMD 9500: Advanced Studies in Medieval Literature
Bruce Holsinger (bh9n)
TR 3:30-4:45
[Description not yet available]
FREN 8510: Art and War: The State of Literature during the Hundred Years War
Deborah McGrady (dlm4z)
R 3:30-6:00
From 1337 to 1453, Europe was shaped by a political and military feud that began as an Anglo-French conflict before triggering a civil war in the French kingdom and a series of territorial conflicts that spread across the continent and beyond. During this period, societies endured unparalleled degrees of widespread violence, corruption, and disillusionment, but it was also a time of creative energy, a time when intellectuals and poets used their words to challenge authority, to assert social responsibility, and to record the trauma endured. This class will explore the impact of war on shaping literature as much as the power of literature to shape war and society. We will read a diverse selection of writings, ranging from escapist courtly literature to political manifestoes, debate poetry to the writings of the first recognized “war correspondent,” poetry by and for prisoners, propaganda, and the legal, political, and artistic treatment of Joan of Arc. Work by Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pizan, Alain Chartier and Charles d’Orléans will be included. These primary source will be read in conjunction with theoretical writings on violence, trauma, nostalgia, displacement.
HIEU 7001: Colloquium in Medieval European History
Paul Kershaw (pjk3p)
M 6:00-8:30
This course is intended as an introduction to the historiography of European history in the period c. A.D. 600 to 1300. Each week we will read and discuss an English language monograph or, on occasion, a collection of articles. Themes of the class include issues of social and cultural change, the interactions of local and central authority, and the relationships between economic, social and political history. This course is intended to introduce students to a range of methodologies and the uses to which a range of original material (inscriptions, historical narratives, formulae, private letters) have been put through a close reading and sustained discussion of a sequence of significant secondary studies. We will read works that draw from anthropology, cognitive psychology and critical theory as well as those deploying what are often perceived to be more traditional approaches to the medieval past. On many occasions the specific work under consideration has prompted formal scholarly reaction, and in these instances we will read these, too. Whilst primarily concerned with recent work we will, on occasion, turn our attention to some ‘classic’ figures in medieval studies, such as Ernst Kantorowicz or members of the ‘Annales’ school. In the final meetings participants will be asked to select from a series of peer review academic journals and offer class presentations on the types of medieval articles these journals have published over the last 20 years, commenting upon general trends, methodologies, and presenting in-depth analyses of a handful of articles they have found to be particularly illuminating, innovative or engaging. The purpose of these latter classes is to seek to understand not only where medieval history stands in the early 2010s but also where it might go in years to come.
JPTR 5010: Survey of Traditional Japanese Literature
Gustav Heldt
TR 3:15-4:30
This course provides an introduction to Japanese literature from earliest times through to the nineteenth century. We will read selections from representative texts and genres, including myth, poetry, prose fiction, memoir literature, drama, and works of criticism.
JPTR 5290: Feminine Fictions in Japanese Court Literature
Gustav Heldt
W 1:00-3:30
This seminar will take up the world’s earliest instance of literature written extensively by, for, and about women, including such famous works as the Pillow Book of Sei Shônagon and Sarashina Diary, among others. The focus will be on reading gender as a fictional enactment of desire and identity that is performed through acts of writing and reading. No prior knowledge of Japanese language or literature is required.
LATI 5559: Medieval Latin
Gregory Hays (bgh2n)
MW 10:00-10:50
An introduction to reading medieval Latin, centered on the anonymous Romance of Apollonius of Tyre and related texts. This course is the graduate version of LATI 3090 and meets concurrently with it. Additional requirements for the graduate version will be arranged with the instructor. Graduate students interested in auditing should contact the instructor in advance. This course is not suitable for graduate students in Classics.
MEST 6600: Major Dimensions of Classical-Medieval Arab Civilization
Ahmad Obledat
T 6:30-9:00 PM
[Description not yet available]
PETR 7559: Rumi
Alireza Korangy (ak3pg)
TR 12:30-1:45
[Description not yet available]
RELC 5006: Augustine’s City of God
Charles Mathewes (ctm9d)
TR 2:00-3:15
[Description not yet available]
RELC 5559: Foundations of Western Christianity
Karl Shuve (kes3ba)
T 3:30-6:00
Although Christianity is often treated as a “Western” religion, it is helpful to remember that it began as a religion rooted in the Eastern Mediterranean, which reached Asia long before many places in Europe. In this course, we will examine the making of a distinctly Western form of Christianity, which came to provide the intellectual and cultural foundation of European society. Through a careful reading of primary sources (as well as a consideration of some artistic, architectural and epigraphic evidence), we will study the theological, philosophical, ritual and cultural innovations of Christians in the period 350-600 AD. All sources will be assigned in English translation, but there will be an optional language component, which will give interested students the ability to read sources in Latin and/or Greek.
RUSS 7290: Medieval and 18th-Century Russian
Ekaterina Dianina (emd4a)
TR 12:30-1:45
[Description not yet available]