course archive

Fall 2007 Course Listing

MED 227/HUM 227 The World of the Middle Ages
Sara Poor
Lecture: MW 8:30 am – 9:50
An introduction to medieval culture in Western Europe from the end of the classical world to ca. 1400. The course focuses on themes such as the medieval concepts of self, humanity, and God; nation-building, conquest and crusade; relations among Christians, Jews, and Moslems; literacy, heresy, and the rise of vernacular literature; gender, chivalry, and the medieval court. Material approached through various cultural forms and media; some lectures by invited guest lecturers. Two lectures per week with discussion following.                                                                

ART 206/HLS 206 Byzantine Art and Architecture
Slobodan Curcic
Lecture: MW 9 am – 9:50
Art and Architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, from ca. 600 to 1500.  The course will focus on the art of the Byzantine empire and its capital, Constantinople, but will also consider its broader sphere of cultural influence (Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Sicily, Venice, Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania).  The course will examine the major factors which shaped the artistic legacy of Eastern Christendom during the Middle Ages.

ART 430/HLS 430 Medieval Art
Slobodan Curcic/Nino Zchomelidse
Seminar: Th 7:30 pm – 10:20
“Romanesque.”  This course will focus on issues linked to the term Romanesque, introduced in the 19th c, including the term’s meaning and its misleading implications, its chronological limits, and the map of "Romanesque Europe."  We concentrate on the impact of Ancient Roman on Medieval art, in areas where Roman heritage was preserved, and in those never held by Romans.  We examine the role of "Romanesque" style in multicultural regions (Balkans, Spain, Italy), and the relationships with the Byzantine and the Islamic worlds.  Students will familiarize with methodological developments in medieval and Byzantine art historical research. 

CLA 332/MED 332 Women and the Classical Tradition
Janet M. Martin
Seminar: TTH 2:30-3:20
A study of medieval and modern women and men as gendered agents of the transmission, reception, and transformation of Greco-Roman literature and ideology.  Our primary emphasis will be on the Latin Middle Ages and on 19th- and 20th- century America.  Some representative issues:  Is there a tradition of women’s writing?  Classical themes, ancient authors, and changing perceptions of Antiquity as sources of inspiration for women writers; gender, race and class in the curriculum and the profession of Classics; classical education and social action.

ENG 301 The Old English Period
Kathleen M. Davis
Seminar: TTH 1:30-2:50
This course introduces the chief features of Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons in the British Isles from about 450-1100 CE, and places OE within the broader development of the English language.  By the end of the first week, we will start reading riddles, sermons, biography, charms, letters, law, and elegiac verse.  Although the goal of the course is to enable students to read OE with a dictionary, we will also examine the historical contexts of OE literature and, as time permits,, engage with the material setting of these texts in the books that have preserved them.

ENG 305 The Medieval Period
Kathleen M. Davis
Lecture/Precept TTH 10:50 am – 10:50
Law and Literature to 1500:  Law, like literature, relies upon the power of language (such as an oath), a written tradition (or precedent), rhetorical persuasion, and a system of representation.  It also relies upon narrative (as in testimony) upon interpretive rules, and even upon "legal fictions."  Literature, like law, has the power to guide human behavior, but it also interacts with law, probing its boundaries and critiquing its institutions.  This course examines the interrelation of law and literature as attested in medieval English texts, from romances, poetry, saints lives, and drama, to statues, charters, case records, and wills.

HIS 211  Europe from Antiquity to 1700
William C. Jordan
Lecure/Precept MS 11:00 am – 11:50
This course will survey the ancient background to European civilization and trace major themes in European history down to 1700.

FRE 510 Cosmology and Melancholy from the Roman de la rose to the Renaissance.
Sarah Kay
Seminar W 1:30 - 4:30

Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and well into the Early Modern period, theories of the cosmos intersected with those of physiology and medicine in a series of fourfold schemes. Four elements (earth, air, fire and water) were held to be the essential building blocks of all matter, and they were defined in relation to four basic properties (hot, dry, cold, and wet) that helped to differentiate the various parts of the cosmos, such as the various planets. Within animate bodies, these same properties characterize another set of four, that of the humors or body fluids, namely blood, choler, phlegm, and melancholy or black bile. Melancholy was always of especial interest since it was associated with both genius and madness. Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet’s title La Couleur de la mélancolie evokes the melancholic tenor of much late medieval French poetry.

In this course, we will examine some of these myriad points of contact between science and medicine, philosophy, mental disturbance (including love-sickness), and poetic inspiration, in medieval culture. Starting with the 13th-century Roman de la rose, we will read some of the major poets of the C14th and C15th including Machaut, Froissart, Christine de Pizan, Chartier, and Charles d’Orléans. If students are interested in pursuing this connection forward, we could extend our reading into the C16th. We will also read extracts from some lesser-studied encyclopedic, scientific and didactic works that map medieval thinking about cosmology and melancholy. A wider intellectual context will be provided by extracts from philosophical or theoretical texts, including Aristotle, Freud and Kristeva.

The class will be taught in English, although presentations may be given in French. Most of the readings will be available in English or Modern French translation. Some will only be available in medieval French; the class will comprise some instruction in reading this.

Students will be expected to participate in discussion, give presentations, and write a final paper. There will be opportunities to translate medieval French (not graded). The final grade will reflect participation in the course as a whole, as well as the final paper.

See Princeton University course pages for full course details.