Fall 2007: Undergraduate Courses

Islam: Religion and Culture - 18145 - MI 20661 - 01
Asma Afsaruddin
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm TR

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Celtic Heroic Literature - 14939 - MI 20671 - 01
Hugh Fogarty
TR 5:00-6:15

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Medieval and Renaissance Music History I - 17945 - MI 20772 - 01
Alexander Blachly
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm TR

A survey of music. The study of the major forms and styles in Western history. Required of music majors and minors, but open to students with sufficient musical background.

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Middle Ages I - 18401 - MI 30203 - 01
D'Arcy J. Boulton
9:30 am - 10:45 am TR

This course will examine the history of the Roman world from the time of the first incursions of barbarians into the Roman Empire in the third century to the time of the final invasions in the 10th. It will concentrate first on the crises of the third century, and on the consequent transformation of the relatively unified, urbanized, tolerant, polytheistic Roman Empire of Late Antiquity into the two distinct, deurbanized, intolerant, monotheistic, and politically divided civilizations of Latin or Catholic Christendom and Greek or Orthodox Christendom. Next, it will briefly examine the emergence in the seventh century of the new monotheistic religion of Islam and of the new civilization and empire centered on it, which quickly conquered not only the old Persian empire but most of the Asian and all of the African provinces of the continuing Roman empire, and in 711-18 conquered most of Spain as well. The remainder of the course will concentrate on the history of Latin Christendom and its pagan barbarian neighbors to the north and east between the beginning of the Germanic conquests of the western provinces ca. 400 and the final conversion of the peoples of central and northern Europe to Christianity and the simultaneous emergence of a new sociopolitical order in the older kingdoms around 1000. There will be two short papers, two tests, and a final examination.

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Medieval Ireland - 18370 - MI 30233 - 01
Instructor TBA
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm TR

Consideration of the period between 950 and 1400 is of crucial importance in understanding Irish history. This course not only covers the range of continuities and radical discontinuities that marked Ireland¿s development during this time, but charts the attempted conquest of the entire country by the English Crown. The lecture series also seeks to answer a number of questions. Why did the Papacy give the English Crown sovereignty over Ireland? Why did a country like Ireland, on the verge of attaining political and economic centralization, not organize better resistance to English attempts to subdue it? Why did the English colony fail to prove more successful in exerting its will over indigenous Irish potentates? Culturally the period also witnessed the growing assimilation of English invaders to the norms of Gaelic Irish politics and society. Lastly, events in Ireland had a serious influence on developments in England, Wales and Scotland, provoking, amongst other things, the fall of the Plantagenet dynasty and an attempted invasion by King Robert I of Scotland.

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Medieval Middle East - 18402 - MI 30235 - 01
Paul M. Cobb
11:00 am - 12:15 pm TR

This course offers a survey of Middle Eastern history from the rise of Islam in the seventh century CE until the rise of Mongol successor polities in the fifteenth century. The course is structured to cover political and cultural developments and their relationship with broader changes in society during the formative centuries of Islamic civilization. Specific topics include: the career of the Prophet Muhammad and the origins of the earliest Muslim polity; the creation and breakup of the Islamic unitary state (the Caliphate); the impact of Turkish migrations on the Middle East; social practices surrounding the transmission of learning in the Middle Ages; the diversity of approaches to Muslim piety and their social and political expression; popular culture; non-Muslims in Islamic society; the creation of the medieval Islamic "international" cultural order. Among the more important themes will be long-term cultural and social continuities with the Islamic and ancient Near East, and concepts of religious and political authority.

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Medieval and Early Modern Russia - 15414 - MI 30237 - 01
Alexander Martin
3:30 pm - 4:45 pm TR

This course will examine the history of Russia from its medieval origins until the age of Catherine the Great in the 18th century. We will begin with the genesis of Orthodox Slavic civilization in medieval Kievan Rus and that state's destruction in the Mongol invasion. Then we will study the rise of the tsardom of Muscovy and the fateful developments that nearly doomed it in the sixteenth-seveteenth century: the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the Time of Troubles, the imposition of serfdom, the schism of the Orthodox Church, and widespread popular revolts. Lastly, we will see how Peter the Great and his eighteenth century successors attempted to stabilize the social order, Westernize the upper classes, and make Russia a great European power.

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Twelfth Century European Renaissance and Reform - 18404 - MI 30255 - 01
John H. Van Engen
11:00 am - 12:15 pm TR

The thousand years of history we call "the middle ages" witnessed repeated efforts to reform and enlighten society through learning and religion. Such aspirations did not wait for the periods we call Renaissance and Reformation. This course will examine reform movements in the years 1050-1215, a time of great cultural expansion often called the "twelfth-century renaissance." Here we find the invention of the university and also of chivalry, mystics as well as satirical mockers. We will read original sources dealing with ethics, politics, love, and religion in that society. We will ask what it means, historically, to speak of a society as undergoing renewal or reform: Can a whole society be reformed? By whom? By what means?

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Ancient and Medieval Philosophy - 15078 - MI 30301 - 01
Stephen D. Dumont
5:00 pm - 6:15 pm TR

Ancient and Medieval Philosophy - 15079 - MI 30301 - 02
Alfred J. Freddoso
1:30 pm - 2:45 pm MW

This course will concentrate on major figures and persistent themes. A balance will be sought between scope and depth, the latter ensured by a close reading of selected texts.

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Christian Theological Traditions I - 15189 - MI 30411 - 01
Joseph P. Wawrykow
10:40 am - 11:30 am MWF

Christian Theological Traditions I - 18564 - MI 30411 - 02
Lawrence S. Cunningham
1:55 pm - 2:45 pm MWF

A survey of Christian theology from the end of the New Testament period to the eve of the Reformation. Through the close reading of primary texts, the course focuses on the Christology of such influential thinkers as Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. How do these thinkers understand the person and work of Jesus Christ? What are the Christological problems that they tried to resolve? How do the different Christologies of these thinkers reflect their differing conceptions of the purpose and method of "theology"? Some attention will also be given to non-theological representations of Christ. How does the art of the early and medieval periods manifest changes in the understanding of the significance of Jesus? This course is obligatory for all first and supplementary majors but is open to others who have completed the University requirements of theology and who wish to gain a greater fluency in the history of Christian thought.

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Survey of Spanish Literature I - 15275 - MI 30500 - 01
Encarnacion Juarez-Almendros
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm TR

A survey of Spanish literature through 1700. Readings of selected texts in prose, poetry, and theater from the medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods.

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Survey of French Literature and Culture I - 15274 - MI 30530 - 01
Maureen B. Boulton
11:45 am - 1:00 pm MW

Reading of selections and complete works of outstanding French authors from major genres and periods. Students are expected to have already taken ROFR 30310.

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Medieval-Renaissance Italian Literature and Culture - 15267 - MI 30577 - 01
Christian R. Moevs
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm TR

An introduction to the close reading and textual analysis of respresentative texts from the Duecento through the Renaissance, including Lentini, Guinizzelli, Cavalcanti, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Poliziano, Machiavelli, and Ariosto.

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Celtic Otherworld Early Irish - 18056 - MI 30673 - 01
Breandan O'Buachalla
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm TR

In early Irish tradition, the everyday world (of men, women, kings, warriors and cattle) and the Otherworld stand in unstable and uneasy relation to one another. The Otherworld has several aspects: it can be positive and beneficial - indeed it is viewed as the legitimating source of rule in this world - but also baleful and destructive. In this course, we will study a range of Otherworld encounters, seeking to understand the vast range of contacts between the human world and the other world (or worlds) of early Irish tradition.

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Medieval German Literature - 15401 - MI 30680 - 01
Albert K. Wimmer
3:00 pm - 4:15 pm MW

This course constitutes a survey of German literature from its beginnings during Germanic times until the sixteenth century. Ideas, issues and topics are discussed in such a way that their continuity can be seen throughout the centuries. Lectures and discussions are in German, but individual students' language abilities are taken into consideration. Readings include modern German selections from major medieval authors and works such as Hildebrandslied, Rolandslied, Nibelungenlied, Iwein, Parzival, Tristan, courtly lyric poetry, the German mystics, secular and religious medieval drama, Der Ackermann aus Bohmen, and the beast epic Reineke Fuchs. Class discussions and brief presentations in German by students on the selections are intended as an opportunity for stimulating exchange and formal use of German.

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Late Antique and Early Christian Art - 18110 - MI 30720 - 01
Charles E. Barber
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm TR

Art in late antiquity has traditionally been characterized as an art in decline, but this judgment is relative, relying on standards formulated for art of other periods. Challenging this assumption, we will examine the distinct and powerful transformations within the visual culture of the period between the third and the eighth centuries AD. This period witnesses the mutation of the institutions of the Roman Empire into those of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The fundamental change in religious identity that was the basis for this development had a direct impact upon the visual material that survives from this period, such that the eighth century witnesses extensive and elaborate debates about the status and value of religious art in Jewish, Moslem, Byzantine, and Carolingian society. This course will examine the underlying conditions that made images so central to cultural identity at this period.

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Gothic Art - 18116 - MI 30724 - 01
Danielle B. Joyner
10:40 am - 11:30 am MWF

It was during the Gothic period, stretching approximately from the 12th to the 15th centuries, that artists raised their social status to a higher level and produced a greater quantity of works than ever before seen in the Christian West. The architectural forms that we identify as characterizing the Gothic style, such as pointed arches, flying buttresses, pinnacles, and quatrefoils were applied not only to buildings, but to altarpieces, illuminated manuscripts, liturgical objects, and even to domestic items such as spoons, beds, and chests. This style has a powerful legacy, and has been frequently revived to various purposes in the modern era. In this course we analyze representative examples of Gothic art and architecture in light of their production at a time of great social, intellectual, religious, and political dynamism and upheaval.

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Ancient and Medieval Political Theory - 18153 - MI 30800 - 01
Mary M. Keys
9:30 am - 10:45 am TR

What is the meaning of justice and why should we care about it? Can politics ever perfectly establish justice? Which forms of government are best for human beings to live under, and why? What is the political relevance of religion and philosophy, family and ethnicity, war and peace, nature and freedom, law and right? What are the qualities of a good citizen and political leader? How should relations among diverse political communities be conducted? This course introduces students to theoretical reflection on these and related questions through the study of some of the great works of ancient and medieval political thought. Readings will include writings of authors such as Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Farabi, Maimonides, and Aquinas.

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Introduction to Christian Latin - 14902 - MI 40003 - 01
Martin W. Bloomer
11:45 am - 1:00 pm MW

This course has two goals: to improve the student's all-around facility in dealing with Latin texts and to introduce the student to the varieties of Christian Latin texts and basic resources that aid in their study. Exposure to texts will be provided through common readings that will advance in the course of the semester from the less to the more demanding and will include Latin versions of Scripture, exegesis, homiletic, texts dealing with religious life, formal theological texts, and Christian Latin poetry. Philological study of these texts will be supplemented by regular exercises in Latin composition.

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Introduction to Old English - 13758 - MI 40110 - 01
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe
9:30 am - 10:45 am TR

Training in reading the Old English language, and study of the literature written in Old English.

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Founders of the Middle Ages - 17610 - MI 40322 - 01
Stephen E. Gersh
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm TR

One of the difficulties of studying medieval philosophy arises from the need to read, along with the medieval philosophers themselves, the various ancient sources on which they depend. Everybody knows that Plato and Aristotle enjoy a special status among these sources. It is also widely known that the philosophy of these Greek writers was transmitted to the medieval world through certain less well-known writers of late antiquity who sometimes overwhelmed what they were transmitting with their own thoughts and commentaries. This course is aimed at introducing the student to the three most important of these late ancient intermediaries: Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and Boethius. In the first half of the semester we will learn something of these writers themselves by reading some of Augustine's early dialogues, extracts from the Dionysian corpus, and Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and theological tractates. After the mid-semester break, the focus will shift to the medieval readings of these works: for example, in Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Thierry of Chartres, Albert the Great, Meister Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa. Language requirement: Latin desirable but not necessary. Written requirement: one final essay (20 pp).

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Deconstruction & Exegesis - 17612 - MI 40362 - 01
Stephen E. Gersh
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm TR

The aim of this course will be to compare and contrast what one might loosely term ancient (medieval, early modern) and post-modern approaches to the reading of texts, following the twin approaches of theoretical exposition and practical application (neither of which can be sustained without the intervention of the other). It will be necessary to rely on concrete examples of the ancient and contemporary methods. The examples in the first half of the semester will be Augustine's On Christian Teaching and Literal Interpretation of Genesis and Derrida's Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, and Dissemination. This double reading will put us in a position to take as our examples Augustine's Confessions and Derrida's Circonfession in the second half of the semester. Certain questions--which can sometimes but not always be answered in the conventional sense--will persist during our readings. These will include: What is philosophy? What is literature? What is the relation between philosophy and exegesis? What is the relation between literature and exegesis? What is the relation between philosophy and literature? Language requirement: Latin and/or French desirable but not necessary. Written requirement: one final essay (20 pages) either a) on one of the texts or authors studied in the course, or b) applying the methodologies discussed to another philosophical or literary text of your choice.

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Mysticism and Morality - 18477 - MI 40481 - 01
David A. Clairmont
3:00 pm - 4:15 pm MW

Is mysticism (variously described as the presence of God, a direct experience of God, a consciousness of God, or pure love of God) the culmination of the moral life or its true beginning? To what extent should our moral decisions be guided by our personal experiences of the divine? Given the frequent appeals that thoughtful Christians make to the judgments of conscience, how if at all can we distinguish between the true voice of God in the human heart and self-consoling delusion? Are those who claim to have had, and write sweetly about, an "experience" of God real guides to be trusted by the Christian community or are they dangerous spiritual individualists who threaten the coherent moral witness of the Church? How, if at all, are we to reconcile the teachings of Christian mystical writers with the sacramental life of the Church and the cultivation of Christian virtue? Is a life of intense asceticism, or even an explicitly Christian faith, necessary for mystical knowledge? We will examine these and other questions in the four parts of the course: (1) Maps of the Soul (through a comparison of Augustine's Confessions and Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle), (2) Reasons of the Soul (through a comparison of Bonaventure's Journey of the Mind into God and Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls), (3) Loves of the Soul (through a comparison of Catherine of Siena's Dialogue and Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, and (4) Questions of the Soul (through a comparison of Simone Weil's Waiting for God and The Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross). Course requirements include two class presentations and a final paper comparing two of the authors examined during the semester.

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Saints in Art and Icons - 18596 - MI 40482 - 01
Neil Roy
3:00 pm - 4:15 pm MW

A diachronic exploration of the lives and legends of the saints as depicted in art and iconography. Students will explore lives of the saints in select vitae as well as the most influential hagiographical collection of the Middle Ages, The Golden Legend of Dominican bishop James of Voragine. Due attention is paid to the arrangement of the sanctoral cycle, the compilation of calendars and martyrologies, and the theological underpinnings of classic iconography. Primary focus on identifying saints by iconographical attributes and conventions in both western and eastern iconography.

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La femme a la Renaissance - 18191 - MI 40538 - 01
Jo Ann Della Neva
1:30 pm - 2:45 pm MW

This course will consider the image of women in the works of Renaissance male writers as well as the literary production of women in Renaissance France. Authors to be discussed include Jeanne Flore, Hélisenne de Crennes, Marguerite de Navarre, Louise Labé, and Pernette Du Guillet. Taught in French.

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Dante I - 15271 - MI 40552 - 01
Chiara Sbordoni
3:00 pm - 4:15 pm MW

An in-depth study, over two semesters, of the entire Comedy, in its historical, philosophical, and literary context, with selected reading from the minor works (e.g., Vita Nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia). Lectures and discussion in English; the text will be read in the original with facing-page translation. Students may take one semester or both, in either order.

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Augustine and the City of God - 18134 - MI 40636 - 01
Sabine G. MacCormack
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm TR

The aim of the course is to gain a detailed understanding of one of the world's important works of historical and political theology. Writing in response to the destruction of the City of Rome by Visigothic invaders in 410 AD, Augustine devoted the first half of this "long and difficult work" to a refutation of Roman religion and ancient philosophy (Books I-X). In the second half (Books XI-XXII) he explained what he meant by City of God and Terrestial City and traced the evolution through time of the two cities in relation to each other. We will study the City of God in light of the sources Augustine engaged with. For the first part, these include the philosophers Plato, Apuleius, Plotinus and Porphyry, the historians Sallust and Livy, and also the statesman Cicero and the poet Vergil. In the second part, Augustine builds on biblical theology, history and chronology. To conclude, we will devote some time to the influence of this very long book. It will be studied in English, but those with viable Latin will be encouraged to use it.

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Fifteenth-Century Italian Renaissance Art - 18118 - MI 40725 - 01
Charles M. Rosenberg
11:00 am - 12:15 pm TR

Open to all students. This course investigates the century most fully identified with the early Renaissance in Italy. Individual works by artists such as Brunelleschi, Donatello, Ghiberti, Botticelli, and Alberti are set into their social, political, and religious context. Special attention is paid to topics such as the origins of art theory, art and audience, portraiture and the definition of self, Medician patronage, and art for the Renaissance courts of northern Italy and Naples.

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Knighthood and Chivalry in Medieval Europe, 750-1625 - 18430 - MI 43285 - 01
D'Arcy J. Boulton
3:30 pm - 4:45 pm TR

This course introduces students to the history of knighthood (the status of noble heavy cavalryman) and chivalry (the distinctive ethos and code of the knightly class) from their emergence in Western Europe between 950 and 1180 through their apogee between 1180 and 1380 to their slow decline between 1380 and 1625 (and their revival in the 19th century). It will deal first with the knight as warrior, vassal, and monk (in the religious orders of knighthood), then with the knight as nobleman and landowner, and finally with the knight as courtier and civil servant in the emerging state. It will next proceed to an examination of knightly games, festivals, and iconography, and conclude with a look at the survival and revival of chivalry in the post-Gothic period.

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Aquinas's Philosophy & Theology - 17986 - MI 43341 - 01
John P. O'Callaghan
1:30 pm - 2:45 pm MW

A close examination of the philosophical arguments within the first thirteen questions of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, including arguments about the distinction between philosophy and Sacred Theology, the existence of a god, divine simplicity, divine perfection, divine goodness, divine infinity, divine immutability, divine eternity, divine unity, how God is known by us, and how God is spoken about by us.

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Seminar: Topics in Medieval Art - 18122 - MI 43750 - 01
Danielle B. Joyner
3:00 pm - 4:15 pm MW

The subject of this seminar will vary from year to year. The Fall 2007 edition is: "Visualizing Time in the Middle Ages" What is time? Does it exist? When did it begin? Will it end? What happens then? These and other questions form the heart of medieval discussions about time. Over the course of 1000 years, many definitions of time competed against each other, and a vast and complex tradition of medieval images and objects grappled with this open-ended topic. This class will undertake a multi-media exploration of how time was considered, measured, manipulated and represented in the Middle Ages. To provide the interdisciplinary approach necessary for this topic, primary sources in translation along with literary, theological and historical studies will supplement the medieval and art historical scholarship.

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MI 46020
Directed Readings (for Undergraduates)
Thomas Noble

Offers advanced undergraduate students a possibility to work closely with a professor in preparing a topic mutually agreed upon.

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Introduction to Medieval Studies - MI 50001 - 01
Thomas F. X. Noble
5:00 pm - 5:50 pm M

Open only to seniors majoring in Medieval Studies (honors track). A one-credit-hour course designed to introduce students to the basic bibliographies, handbooks, and research tools in medieval studies. Professors from various disciplines will participate.

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