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FALL 2008
In the Fall 2008 semester, the Medieval Studies Certificate Program offers
the following courses.
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MSCP
70900
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Readings
in Medieval Latin
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Tuesday, 4:15-6:15 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits [93137]
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Professor Michael Sargent
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The
purpose of this course is to help students who already have a basis in
Latin (usually a course in classical Latin) to improve their ability
specifically with respect to medieval texts.
We will read from a variety of works from different periods and countries,
in different genres, including historical accounts, religious writing,
letters and the drama.
This is NOT an introductory Latin course: it will assume that you have
already fulfilled the Latin language requirement and thus already have some
ability to work in the language. If your command (or memory) of Latin
grammar is unsteady, that's OK: if you already have a grammar book that you
know your way around, bring it along.
The text for most of this this course will be
Keith Sidwell's Reading Medieval Latin
(Cambridge University Press, 1995), but if there is some particular text,
or type of text, on which you expect that you will need to work in your
research, I would like to make that part of the syllabus as well.
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MSCP
80500
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Illuminated
Manuscripts of the Middle Ages
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Wednesday, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Room TBA, 3 credits [93138]
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Professors William Clark
Cross listed with ART 83000
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An
introduction to the study of medieval illustrated manuscripts, beginning with
the tools for analyzing and studying them (simplified codicology)
and some current theories on the origins of the book (codex).
We will examine the major periods of manuscript production from the fourth
to the fifteenth centuries, through selected examples.
Students will be expected to research and write a paper on a single
manuscript of their choice.
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MSCP
80500
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Monarchy
& Empire in Byzantium, 4th-12th Centuries
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Wednesday, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Room TBA, 3 credits [93139]
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Professor Eric Ivison
Cross listed with HIST 70800
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In
the eyes of his subjects, the East Roman or Byzantine emperor stood at the pinnacle
of earthly society, and occupied a central place in the ideology and
mission of the imperial state. The emperor was always more than just head
of state, commander-in-chief, and supreme judge.
In the tradition of the ancient kings of Israel, the emperor was styled as
God’s vice-regent on Earth who was the supreme Christian king, the defender
of the Christian Church and the Orthodox faith, and the heir to the Roman
traditions of universal empire dating back to Augustus and Constantine.
This course explores the imperial office and concepts of empire in
Byzantium through a wide range of primary sources and secondary studies. By
examining the central figure of the emperor, the imperial court and the
ideology of the state, this course will also offer insights on the nature
of Byzantine civilization, Byzantine concepts of identity and world order,
and Byzantine perceptions of the Empire’s role in the world.
As the definitive expression of power and legitimacy, Byzantine
traditions of monarchy and empire were also highly influential in Europe
and the Middle East, where royal courts imitated Byzantine style and
adopted imperial ideology. Byzantine traditions of monarchy are therefore
also central to the development of kingship in the medieval world.
Weekly topics will include: the evolution of the imperial office in
Late Antiquity and through the medieval period; the roles and
responsibilities of the emperor; the empress and the imperial family; the
imperial court, ceremony and protocol; imperial regalia; the emperor and
his capital; and the archaeology of the Byzantine monarchy; ideology of
empire; diplomatic relations with other rulers.
Students will also have the opportunity to explore the influence of Byzantine
monarchy on medieval kingship in Western and Eastern Europe, and even on
Islamic states.
Each week the class will discuss the readings and view short visual
presentations on the art and archaeology of Byzantine monarchy.
Students will prepare a major paper and small presentation papers based on
a selection of topics
A list of readings is available in
the Certificate Program Office (Room 5109) for students who want to read
ahead over the summer.
Information: ivison@mail.csi.cuny.edu
Tel: 718-982-2872
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C L
80101
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Dante’s
Paradiso
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Monday, 3:30 – 6:15 p.m., NYU, Room TBA, 4 credits
[93508]
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Professor Freccero
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Information:
italian.dept@nyu.edu
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C L
80102
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Arts of Eloquence in Medieval &
Renaissance Italian
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Wednesday, 3:30-6:15 p.m., NYU Room TBA, 4 credits [93509]
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Professor Cox
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Recent
scholarship in medieval and early modern culture has increasingly stressed the
centrality of the study of rhetoric in these periods and the range of its
influence, not simply on literature but on everything from art, music, and
architecture to political thought. This course serves as an introduction to
medieval and early modern rhetoric in Italy, conceived of broadly as a
global art of persuasive discourse, spanning both verbal and nonverbal
uses.
Information: italian.dept@nyu.edu
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C L
88200
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Medieval
Lyric Poetry
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Thursday, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Room TBA, 3 credits [93504]
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Professor
Giuseppe Di Scipio
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The
course consists of an in-depth study of Italian Poetry of the Duecento
and Trecento concentrating on its
major authors and on the cultural and intellectual currents
of the time.
We will begin with a study of the lyric tradition of Provence
and the notion of courtly love; then continue with study of the culture and
poetry of the Sicilian School at the court of Frederick II.
We shall spend at least one session on the Poesia
religiosa of Iacopone
and St. Francis before moving into the area of Guittone
and the Siculo-Tuscan poets.
The last part of the course will be dedicated to the major poets of the Trecento, both I Poeti
realisti and Il Dolce Stil Novo.
The course will be conducted in Italian, unless it will be necessary to do
otherwise.
There will be class reports and two papers, a shorter one at midterm time
and a longer one of 25 pages at conclusion.
The basic texts can be taken from:
Gianfranco
Contini. Poeti
del Duecento, Volume I, Tomo I.
Poesia
didattica dell`Italia
centrale, Poesia
Realistica Toscana, Vol
II, Tomo I.
Dolce Stil
Novo Milano- Napoli:
Mondadori, Classici Ricciardi, 1995.
Giuliani, Alfredo. Antologia della poesia italiana. Dalle Origini al Trecento. Milano Feltrinelli, 2 vols, 1975.
Poesia
italiana del Trecento,
a cura di Piero Cudini. Milano :
Garzanti, 1978.
Antologia
della Poesia italiana, Duecento Trecento.
Diretta da Cesare Segre e Carlo Ossola. Torino, Einaudi, 1997. There is a special edition of this for Biblioteca della Repubblica, vol. I . Roma: Editoriale La Repubblica,
2004.
Some
critical texts besides the above:
Dai Siciliani
ai siculo-toscani:
lingua metro e stile per la definizione del canone. Atti del Convegno, Lecce, 21-23 aprile 1998. A cura di Rosario Colluccia e Riccardo Gualdo. Galatina: Congedo, 1999.
Fratta,
Aniello. Le fonti provenzali dei poeti della Scuola Siciliana. Firenze: Le Lettere, 1996.
Marti, Mario. Cultura e stile nei
poeti giocosi al tempo di Dante. Pisa, 1953.
Sapegno,
N. Il trecento, Milano.
1952.
Zumthor,
Paul. Toward a Medieval Poetics. Trans. Philip Bennet.
St. Paul, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
A full bibliographical list will be given later with the syllabus.
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ENGL
70300
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Introduction to Old English Language
& Literature
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Thursday, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Room TBA, 2/4 credits [93040]
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Professor Gordon Whatley
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“Old
English” (OE) constitutes the first documented phase of the English language
(ca. 700-1150), and OE literature, preserved in manuscripts of the 9th-12th
centuries, is the most plentiful and diverse of the surviving vernacular
literatures of early medieval Europe.
While some knowledge of OE is fundamental to understanding (or teaching)
the History of the English Language, as well as for serious work in most
Middle English and Scots literature, OE is of abiding interest in itself.
The language at first glance looks “foreign” but experience has shown that
motivated students routinely succeed in acquiring a reading knowledge in a
14-week course such as this one.
After a few weeks of elementary grammar and short translation exercises,
the focus shifts to reading more extensive passages of secular and
religious prose in OE and translation, including lives of saints such as
the “cross-dresser,” Saint Eugenia, and/or the martyred English king
Edmund.
Also to be studied are some classic pieces from the surviving manuscripts
of poetry (Dream of the Rood,
Judith, Wanderer or Seafarer, Genesis B, The Wife's Lament, riddles,
etc.).
In addition to working on the weekly texts, students will occasionally
report briefly on criticism or theorizings of the
readings (with some attention to the development of Anglo-Saxon studies,
“philology,” “English,” and the Academy).
Also required is a modest paper (12 pp) on any text or topic in Anglo-Saxon
literary culture.
On the Web there are excellent sites to help with learning the language and
researching the literature and culture of the Anglo-Saxons.
Contact me with any queries, and please register early if you want to take
the course: E.Whatley@QC.cuny.edu.
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ENGL
70500
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The Canterbury Tales
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Wednesday, 11:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m., Room TBA 2/4 credits
[93027]
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Professor Steven Kruger
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This
course will consider a variety of questions raised by Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which we
will read in the original Middle English.
A work that is – in Donald R. Howard’s resonant formulation – “unfinished
but complete” and that survives in a variety of quite different textual
incarnations (with the order of the tales varying widely from manuscript to
manuscript), The Canterbury Tales
raises significant questions about medieval authorship, principles of
poetic structuring and closure, manuscript transmission, and scribal
practice.
The tales themselves are various in genre and poetic form; they also are
often based upon, even (loosely) translated from, earlier sources.
We will consider how their variety, and the variety of the sources, shapes
our reading of individual tales and of the larger work in which they are
contained. The Canterbury Tales
is often taken as a work concerned to comment upon, or even intervene in,
late medieval English social arrangements, and we will consider whether and
how the work provides social or political commentary on the “estates” of
English society; on gender hierarchies; on the status of the Church and its
clerical representatives; on war; on marriage and the family (etc.).
Alongside the text of The
Canterbury Tales itself we will read a variety of other kinds
of material: (1) sources and analogues for the tales; (2) later literary
responses to Chaucer’s poem; (3) historical/documentary material that might
shed light on Chaucer’s work; (4) current critical treatments of The Canterbury Tales; (5)
theoretical/critical discussions that might be pertinent to reading Chaucer
and medieval texts more generally.
Students should buy the Riverside
Chaucer or another full, annotated, original-language edition
of Chaucer’s works or of The
Canterbury Tales. Additional readings will be placed on
E-reserve.
Students will be required to do one in-class presentation and a final
seminar paper.
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PHIL
76100
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Medieval Philosophy
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Tuesday, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Room TBA, 4 credits [93325]
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Professor Douglas Lackey
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The
deliberately provocative periodization of
philosophy suggested in the course title is derived from H.O. Wolfson, who first suggested it in his book on Philo.
If the theme of medieval philosophy is the calibration of faith and reason,
then medieval philosophy begins with Philo's insertion of Plato's forms
into the divine logos, ends with Spinoza's equation of Deus with Natura.
This course will take seriously the "faith versus reason"
problem, providing readings not merely in the "great names" of
medieval philosophy, such as Philo, Augustine,Eriugena, Saadia Gaon, Ibn Sina,
Anselm, Ibn Rushd,Maimonides,
Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, Gersonides,
Crescas, and Ockham,
but also readings in underlying religious currents and eddies, including
the standard Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scriptures, and selections from
Gnostic, Neoplatonist, Manichaen
, and Kabbalistic texts.
The knowledge gained here provides a pay off in improved understanding of
early modern philosophy: Can one understand Descartes' cogito without knowing
Augustine's, "si fallor,
sum!," comprehend how there can be a
"mountain without a valley," without reading Ockham
on divine omnipotence, realize how there can be Leibnizian
individual concepts without studying Scotus's
notion of haecceity? Perhaps -but probably not.
Text: Hyman and Walsh, Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Hackett)
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P SC
70100
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Ancient & Medieval Political Thought
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Tuesday, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Room TBA, 3 credits [93244]
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Professor John Wallach
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SPAN
71000
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Medieval Prose Narrative: From the Exemplum to the Novela
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Thursday, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Room TBA, 3 credits [93123]
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Professor Ottavio DiCamillo
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This
course will focus on the emergence and early development of narrative
fiction in medieval Spain, from the beginning of the twelfth to the end of
the fifteenth century.
Emphasis will be placed on the narrative elements of selected exempla of
different origins (oriental tales legends, miracles, classical myths,
ancient and biblical stories, travelers accounts etc.) and from different
sources (chronicles, hagiographical biographies, florilegia,
compendia, sermons manuals etc.) as well as on their functions (religious,
moral, didactic, paradigmatic, rhetorical) as they evolve into more complex
and more autonomous forms of literary fiction.
In studying the texts, special attention will be paid to modifications in
the language, in themes and narrative models, in the techniques of
exposition etc. as authors responded to a changing world and addressed
themselves to new audiences.
Texts to be read in class include:
Don Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor,
ed. J. Manuel Blecua, Madrid: Castalia
Alfonso Martinez de Toledo, El Arcipeste de Talavera, ed. Michael Gerli,
Madrid: Catedra
Diego de San Pedro: Carcel de amor, ed, Keith Whinnom,
Madrid: Castalia
Selection from the Disciplina clericalis, Calila
y Dimna, El libro
de los engaños will
be distributed in class.
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Past schedules:
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Spring 2008; Fall 2007; Spring 2007;
Fall 2006; Spring 2006;
Fall 2005; Spring 2005;Fall 2004;Spring 2004;Fall 2003; Spring 2003; Fall 2002; Spring 2002; Fall 2001; Spring 2001
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