next semester

Spring 2010 Course Listing

COM 395 / ECS 395 / MED 414 Writing Power: Representations of Sovereignty in the Late Middle Ages
Nikolaos Panou
TTh 11-12:20 pm
A study of the relationship between politics and language in the late Middle Ages. Close readings and comparative analyses of selected moral and political works produced in Abbasid Persia, Byzantium, and Western Europe from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Special attention will be given to the theoretical elaboration of monarchical power in relation to virtue, divinity, law, and social welfare. Questions of political theory, literary criticism, and cultural history will be treated with view to understanding the processes of symbolic construction and rhetorical consolidation of supreme authority and charismatic leadership.

GER 509 / MED 509   Middle High German Literature II - Medieval Knowing
Sara S. Poor
M 1:30 - 4:20 pm
Seminar examines the ins and outs of knowing as it is depicted in medieval literature. Philosophical, theological, and imaginative texts in which ways of knowing or what and how one knows are studied. Related topics to be addressed include love, literacy, learning, teaching, hagiography, and gender (what can women know and how do they acquire knowledge?). Readings and discussions will be in English.

See Princeton University course pages for full course details.