| Summer 2007 Courses and Faculty
Summer Courses
MI 30286. War in the Middle Ages
Phillip Wynn
3 credits 10:30-12:25
MWF 6/19/07-8/3/07
This course explores war and its impact on religion, society, and politics in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The years from about 500 to 1500 witnessed a distinctive period in the history of Western warfare, with repercussions still felt today. The period began with an increased emphasis on the importance of cavalry, which ultimately had profound social and economic consequences for Western Europe. As the dominant religion in the Latin West, Christianity permeated the mentality of medieval warriors, providing them with an ideology of war that justified their actions and defined their war aims. Over this period, the technology of war became progressively more lethal, and culminated in the Late Middle Ages with the development of gunpowder weapons that ended the era of chivalric warfare. At the end of the Middle Ages, the demands of war furthered and consolidated the development of effective monarchical states, recognizable as the beginnings of modern France, England, and Spain.
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MI 40004/60004. Medieval Latin
Frank A. C. Mantello
3 credits; 10:30-12:25 MWF
6/19/07-8/3/07
This course is an introduction to the Latin language and literature
of the late antique and medieval periods (ca. A.D.
200-1500). Designed to move students toward independent work with
Medieval Latin texts, the course will emphasize the close reading
and careful translation of a variety of representative Medieval
Latin texts and documents, with attention to vocabulary and word
formation, orthography and pronunciation, morphology and syntax,
and prose styles and metrics. The course will also provide a review of the principal construction of Classical Latin and an
introduction to some of the areas of Medieval Latin scholarship,
including lexica, bibliographies, great collections and repertories
of sources, and reference works for the study of Latin works composed
in the Middle Ages. ($45 materials fee.)
The Medieval Academy of America's Committee on Centers and Regional
Associations (CARA) offers two full-tuition scholarships for students
taking a three-credit summer program Latin course through the
Medieval Institute at Notre Dame. Application details and eligibility
information is available at: http://www.nd.edu/~medinst/programs/summer.html.
Prerequisite: Both elementary and intermediate
Classical Latin or the equivalent, taken recently for college
credit.
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MI 47801/67801. Research in Biocultural
Anthropology
Susan G. Sheridan
6 credits 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. MTWRF
6/4/07-7/13/07
This hands-on research course will engage students in an experiential
learning environment that immerses them in anthropological method
and theory. Using the large Byzantine St. Stephen's skeletal collection
from Jerusalem as the cornerstone, historical and archaeological
information will be synthesized in a biocultural reconstruction
of ancient monastic life. Students will conduct original research,
share in an active field trip program, and participate in a lecture
program delivered by top scholars in the fields of biological
anthropology, classics, and Near Eastern studies. Students will
develop a suite of methodological skills in the natural and social
sciences, explore artifacts and life ways of the study population,
delve into the pertinent literature using several world-class
libraries, develop skills for collaborative research, and discover
the importance of a holistic approach to a fuller understanding
of life in the past. Visit the project web site at: http://www.nd.edu/~stephens.
Enrollment limit 10. Permission of instructorand
application required; contact Susan Guise Sheridan (Susan.G.Sheridan.5@nd.edu),
574-631-7670.
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MI 60005. Paleography
Frank A. C. Mantello
3 credits; MWF 2:30-4:25
6/19/07-8/3/07
This course is an introduction to the study of medieval writing
materials and practices and of Latin scripts from antiquity to
the early Renaissance. Designed to provide students with the skills
necessary to make use of Latin manuscripts in their research,
the course will focus on practical exercises in identifying, transcribing,
dating, and localizing the various scripts. It will be of interest
(1) to a wide variety of students whose courses are centered in
or touch upon the Middle Ages and who wish to work with unpublished
Latin materials of the medieval period; (2) to professional Latinists
and other humanists who study the classical tradition and the
transmission of texts before the age of printing; and (3) to librarians
and others with an interest in manuscripts, diplomata, incunabula,
and rare books. ($45 materials fee.)
The Medieval Academy of America's Committee on Centers and Regional
Associations (CARA) offers two full-tuition scholarships for students
taking a three-credit summer program Latin course through the
Medieval Institute at Notre Dame. Application details and eligibility
information is available at: http://www.nd.edu/~medinst/programs/summer.html
Prerequisite: Both elementary and intermediate
Classical Latin or the equivalent, taken recently for college
credit, or MI 40004/60004 (=MI 470/570) or the equivalent.
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Summer Session
Faculty
Frank A. C. Mantello
Professor Mantello has a doctorate from the University of
Toronto's Centre for Medieval Studies. Since 1979 he has taught
Medieval Latin, Latin Paleography, Codicology and Textual Criticism
at the Catholic University of America, where he is a professor
in the Department of Greek and Latin and chair of the department.
Susan Guise Sheridan
Professor Sheridan is the coordinator of the Byzantine St. Stephen's
Project, a biocultural study of life in a large urban monastery
in Jerusalem. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado
and is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Notre Dame.
Phillip Wynn
Mr. Wynn is completing his doctoral dissertation in the Medieval Institute on early Christian (200-850) discourse on war. He holds master's degrees from the University of Virginia and Notre Dame and has published on topics in early medieval history.
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Other Courses of
Interest to Medievalists
THEO 60242. Eros and Agape: Christian Tradition
Keith Egan
3 credits 2:00-4:20 MTWRF
7/09/07-7/27/07
Benedict XVI's encyclical, Deus caritas est, marks not only a new vision for the pope's pontificate, but he seeks to retrieve what he sees as the integral and necessary relationship between éros and agápe. That relationship was called into question by the well known work of Anders Nygren on éros and agápe. More recently several prominent theologians, namely Fergus Kerr, O.P., and Denys Turner have voiced objections to the continued use of the erotic language and symbols associated with the erotic bridal mysticism of the Song of Songs and its tradition.This course samples the notions of love and éros in the ancient Greek and Roman world, the biblical notion of love and éros (Septuagint and New Testament) and the subsequent Christian tradition on agápe/caritas and the place of éros in the tradition of Christian mysticism and the role of agápe in the understanding of contemplation through love. A distinction between agápe as unselfish love (divinely implanted) and éros as a human movement toward others and God was challenged by Origen and Denys the Pseudo-Areopagite who have been enormously influential in the articulation of love and desire/yearning in the Christian mystical tradition.A principal exploration in this course will be the relationship of éros and agápe in the Song of Songs tradition by writers like Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross.This course also explores the dramatic move by Thomas Aquinas, based on his reading in Aristotle of caritas as some kind of friendship. We ask what we can make of Fergus Kerr's conviction that Aquinas should be followed in this regard as a better alternative than the erotic spirituality that has emerged from the Song of Songs tradition. We also ask what we are to do with Denys Turner's judgment that the erotic Christian tradition is exhausted and even "dead." Our final inquiry will be to determine 1) whether the erotic Song of Songs tradition can be an effective resource for the development of a spirituality and mysticism of Christian love in the third millennium and. 2) whether this tradition of éros and love can make a contribution to a Christian theology of sexuality that will speak effectively to us and our contemporaries. As we shall see the issues raised by the relationship of éros and agápe involve and require a positive theology of creation and an inquiry into the divine and human union we know as the Incarnation.
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THEO 60247. Spiritual Classics: Bonaventure
Lawrence Cunningham
3 credits 9:40-12:00 & 2:00-4:20 MTWRF
7/09/07-7/27/07
This course will explore three treatises of the medieval doctor of the church. Saint Bonaventure: Itinerarium; Tree of Life; and the Major Life of Saint Francis of Assisi. Particular attention will be paid to Bonaventure's use of scripture; his christology as read through the experience of Saint Francis; his desire to integrate everything from creation to the eschaton in the light of the mystery of the Incarnate Word. All of the texts for this course are contained in Bonaventure, ed. Ewert Cousins. Course requirements: weekly reflection paper of three to five pages; reading all assignments; class participation.
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THEO 60248. Mysticism in Late Medieval Germany from Eckhart to Nicholas of Cusa
Bernard McGinn
3 credits 10:40-1:00 MTWRF
7/09/07-7/27/07
Germany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed a true harvest of mysticism, both in Latin and especially in the vernacular. Meister Eckhart (d. 1328) was one of the greatest, if also most controversial, of Christian mystics, due to the condemnation of some of his positions by Pope John XXII in 1329. This course will take a detailed look at Eckhart's mysticism and its influence on subsequent generations of mystics, especially Henry Suso, John Tauler, and Nicholas of Cusa.
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THEO 63202. Intensive Course: Augustine
John Cavadini
4 credits 2:00-4:15 MTWRF
6/18/07-6/29/07
Augustine is arguably the single most influential theologian in the West. There is in almost every Western theologian some strain that is Augustinian, and many of the disputes in Western Christendom can be regarded as arguments pitting one strain of Augustinian tradition against another. The study of Augustine, therefore, is essential for an understanding of most subsequent Christian theology. This course attempts to introduce students to the study of Augustine in an attempt to gauge the specific and distinctive character of his theology over a broad range of issues. Special attention will be given to the development of Augustine's thought. The class hopes to be useful to students who approach Augustine from a variety of perspectives and interests, and as such will have a strongly textual, rather than thematic, principle of organization, emphasizing the reading of whole works rather than excerpts topically arranged. Although this is an advanced introduction, the course is suitable for those with little exposure to Augustine.
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