MSCP
70100

Introduction to Medieval Studies

Professor David Greetham
Tuesday,  4:15-6:15p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits [17262]

This version of Introduction to Medieval Studies will deal with some of the broad disciplinary issues in the field (e.g., what is medieval history? the nature of the medieval book from scroll to codex; the role of classical literature and philosophy in medieval consciousness; the influence of Islamic culture), while also concentrating on several major interdisciplinary “moments” or historical, religious, military, scientific, technological or critical “nodes” that can illuminate the tensions, conflicts, and cultural challenges faced during the period(s).

While the selection of such “moments” will in part depend on student interests,# possibilities might include the Albigensian heresy/crusade; the Black Death (“great mortality”); the invention of printing (and the precedent monastic and commercial scriptoria); the convivencia in Andalusia and the reconquista under the “Catholic Monarchs” and the expulsion of Jews and Moslems; Aristotle at the University of Paris; the growth of vernacular literatures (e.g. Chaucer, Dante, the Minnesinger, Machaut; Charlemagne’s reform of administration (including the introduction of a standard Caroline minuscule); the Investiture Crisis; the shift from Romanesque to “Gothic” architecture, and similarly from monophonic chant to polyphonic religious and secular music and from quem quaeritis-basedecclesiasticaldrama to outdoor Miracle Plays, Mystery Plays, Interludes, and so on.

These “moments” or gradual shifts will each be placed in an interdisciplinary context usually involving literature, politics, art history, and religion, doubtless with the contributions of various doctoral faculty members in the relevant disciplines in medieval studies. Obviously, we will not do all (or even most) of the, but this should give some idea of the range of the range of topics.

We will probably use the recent Lansing & English Companion to the Medieval World (Blackwell 2009) as an initial source,* together with such classic works as Le Goff’s Medieval Civilization (Blackwell, 1988).

The opening and closing sessions will attempt a current definition of “medieval studies,” and will probably use the admittedly rather dated Van Engen’s The Past and Future of Medieval Studies (Notre Dame, 1994) and/or Powell’s Medieval Studies (Syracuse, 1992), supplemented by more recent critiques of the field.

# I would be interested in receiving student suggestions for these interdisciplinary “moments,” ideally well in advance of the semester.

* As with most Blackwell Companions, this is a very expensive book ($200) and students will not be asked to purchase it. I have ordered it for the library and will also make my own copy available.

We will have a course folder on Dropbox (where sub-folders for specific assignments/topics can be mounted) and may also use a course blog on the CUNY Academic Commons for comments, suggestions, discoveries, expostulation, as the course progresses, as well as using our course roster as a listserv.

With the permission of the authors, I might suggest that some of the final projects (usually online) by those who took an earlier version of this course be made available as examples to those enrolled in the current course.

Requirements: preparation for, and participation in all class discussions, with probably two oral presentations and a final paper.

ART
84000

Topics in Islamic Art & Architecture: Islamic Architecture

Professor Elizabeth Macaulay Lewis

Wednesday, 6:30-8:30pm, Room TBA, 3 credits [18071] This section open to Art History students only. Cross listed with MES 73000

The world of Islam, which has spanned continents and centuries, has produced art and architecture that is as remarkable as it is diverse.

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the architecture of the Islamic World from its earliest monuments, such as the Dome of the Rock, to contemporary Islamic architecture today.

The weekly course is divided into one lecture and one seminar (which occur together in one two hour session).

The aims of the course are specific: to introduce the architecture of the Islamic world, to discuss the major theoretical and methodological issues involved in the study of Islamic Architecture and to develop critical visual skills. 

The lectures will provide an overview of a specific period, dynasty or location, and the seminars will focus on a particular monument or object to allow in-depth study.

ART
83000

 Thingness & Materiality in Medieval Objects

Professor Cyntha Hahn

Tuesday, 9:30-11:30am, Room TBA, 3 credits [17330]

Art history has returned to the object and "materiality"  with enthusiasm. Nevertheless, our approach to the object is not/cannot be unmediated.  

This course will explore medieval materiality through the use of "Thing Theory," a multi-disciplinary consideration that will include the "social life of things," philosophy's "speculative realism," and historical investigations of matter and material. 

We will read Appadurai, Bynum, Harman, and others. Students will choose an object or group of objects to re-vision using these methodological approaches, examples might include reliquaries and other art objects of "use" from the Middle Ages. 

Requirements: Students will present a reading, deliver an oral presentation and write a paper. 

No auditors allowed.

Preliminary Readings:  Bryant, Levi, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, eds. The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism.  Victoria, Australia: re.press, 2011.
Bynum, Caroline. Christian Materiality : an Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe . New York: Zone Books, 2011.

ENGL
70500

The Canterbury Tales

 Professor Glenn Burger

Tuesday, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits [17345]

In this course we will read Chaucer's most experimental work, The Canterbury Tales, taking up a variety of interrelated historical, social, and political questions.

How, for example, does Chaucer represent the relations and conflicts among the various classes of late-medieval society, and what effects does Chaucer's own class position—as bourgeois civil servant with strong ties to the aristocracy—have on the production of the Canterbury Tales?

What views of gender and sexuality do the Tales present and explore? To what extent are they shaped by Christianity, and how do they represent the relation between Christianity and other systems of belief (classical "paganism," Islam, Judaism)?

How does Chaucer treat the interimplication of such categories of identity as race, religion, class, gender, and sexuality? Why—of all the writers of the English Middle Ages—is it Chaucer whom we are most likely to read? What factors have especially contributed to canonizing Chaucer as the so-called "father of English poetry?"

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.

Text: either The Riverside Chaucer 3rd ed. Ed. Larry Benson et al. Oxford University Press, 2008 (ISBN-10:
0199552096 ISBN-13: 978-0199552092) $41.35; or the Penguin Canterbury Tales (original-spelling
Middle English). Ed. Jill Mann.  Penguin, 2005. (ISBN-10: 014042234X ISBN-13: 978-0140422344) $20.00.

ENGL
80700

Rex quondam et futurus: the Legend of King Arthur in Medieval and Modern Literature

Professor E. Gordon Whatley

Thursday, 6:30-8:30p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits [17365]

Dante Gabriel Rossetti said the Bible and Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur were “the two greatest books in the world” and in 1911, J. Pierpont Morgan paid $42,800 for the only complete extant copy of Caxton’s 1st ed. (1485) of the Morte Darthur.  

After the Norman Conquest, the Arthurian legend, despite glorifying “England’s” inveterate foe, became the “Matter of Britain,” and has since remained one of the dominant secular myths of the Anglophone world.  It has inspired a succession of acknowledged literary masterworks, both medieval and modern, not only in Latin, English and Welsh, but also in the other European vernaculars. Especially in the 19th and 20th centuries,  it has been a recurring theme of both high-brow art and popular culture.

The present course will ponder the implications of this success, besides enabling the complex pleasures of immersion in myth and history (i.e., the story itself, its uncertain origins, and the historical contexts of Arthurian “discourse”).

We will consider such topics as: Arthurian imperialism (medieval, Victorian, and post-colonial); the religious problem of the Grail; romance as narrative genre; chivalry, courtoisie and “noble love” as normative models of culture; the subversive “feminine subtext”; and Arthurian textuality (manuscripts, print, art, opera, film, comics).  

In a single semester we can only hope to sample, rather than survey, the vast field of Arthurian texts. We will read together a common core of classic medieval and modern works, while pursuing amd reporting individual research projects involving interdisciplinary and/or non-canonical sources.  Core readings will
include: the Arthuriads of “Nennius” and Geoffrey of Monmouth, plus selections from Wace & Layamon; the Old Welsh Kilhwch & Olwen; selected verse romances by Marie de France, Chretien de Troyes, and (maybe) Wolfram’s Parzival; selections from Malory’s Morte Darthur, with his English and French sources (e.g., the so-called Alliterative Morte Arthure and the French “Vulgate” Lancelot), and (designedly out of chronological order) Sir Gawain & the Green Knight.

Modern authors will include Tennyson, Morris, Robinson (who?), White, and Stewart. Medieval readings, except Malory, will be in modern translation; but working with the originals is also encouraged.

ENGL
80700

An examination of the links between medieval miracles, mysteries, and morality plays and early modern comedies, tragedies, and romances, focusing on the festive, redemptive, ritual, and marvelous elements that survived the suppression of religious drama and the anti-theatrical animus of England’s Reformation.

We will focus on exploring similarities and differences between earlier “sacramental” drama and later performances whose wonders are sustained by a “potent art” that is purely theatrical
and poetic. Works considered will include The Crucifixion, The Second Shepherds’ Play, The Harrowing of Hell, The Croxton Play of the Sacrament, and Everyman and The Spanish Tragedy, Doctor Faustus, The Tempest, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Malcontent as well as some transitional early Tudor dramas such as Gammer Gurton’s Needle and The Four PP.

One research paper and one oral presentation.

HIST
70800

Aims of the Course:

(1) Students will be asked to analyze the readings, to identify the audience for the readings, and to expose any authorial biases.

(2) Students will master the course content—focusing on key concepts, terms, and facts.

(3) In class discussions, students should be able to formulate a thesis and to use historical facts to support their interpretations.

Requirement: Term Paper, Minimum length: 20 to 25 double-spaced pages. Will be accepted only in hard copy.

Office hours: Tuesdays, 3:15 to 4:15; Email: Morris.Rossabi@qc.cuny.edu

Reading list and schedule available in the Certificate Programs Office (Room 5110)

Past schedules:

Fall 2011; Spring 2011; Fall 2010; Spring 2010; Fall 2009; Spring 2009; Fall 2008; 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