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Medieval and Early Modern Studies Current Courses

Fall 2024

Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
MEMS 200-01 The Epic: Gods, Devils, Monsters, and Men
Instructor: Jacob Sider Jost
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENGL 101-02. An introduction to the epic as a genre and to the mythic stories that have shaped Western culture. We will read works by Homer, Virgil, the Beowulf poet, Milton, and Christa Wolf.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411
MEMS 200-02 History of the Book
Instructor: Carol Ann Johnston
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENGL 222-01.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
EASTC 108
MEMS 200-03 Shakespeare's Women
Instructor: Carol Ann Johnston
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENGL 101-03 and WGSS 101-02. Male characters such as Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Prospero, Shylock were the focus of historical Shakespeare criticism until the late twentieth century. Even criticism complicating the reception of Shakespeare's women characters, however, have not erased their neglect. Directors looking to cut long plays and to depict straightforward female characters have limited women's lines, represented them as stereotypes, and cut evidence of their agency. In the context of Shakespeare's (uncut) play texts and in the context of Early Modern English culture, however, Shakespeare's women-Cordelia, Desdemona, Ophelia, Miranda, Portia- are equally as multifaceted as his male characters. In this course we will study a cross-section of Shakespeare's plays from each genre, considering the representation of women within the play text, as well as within historical and cultural contexts embodying changes in expectations for women's roles. Shakespeare's play texts simultaneously reproduce and subvert the evolving stereotypes of women during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Discussions of representation of women in patriarchal society will inevitably include scrutiny of our own moment in history. In addition to reading the play texts, work for the course will include students' acting out scenes from plays, viewing some films, two brief critical papers, a midterm, and a final exam.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411
Courses Offered in AFST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
AFST 170-01 African Civilizations to 1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 170-01. This course provides an overview to the political, social, and ecological history of Africa. We will examine the peopling of the continent, the origins of agriculture, the growth of towns and the development of metal technology. Written sources before the 1400s are almost nonexistent for most of Africa, and so we will use archaeological and linguistic sources. The geographic focus of the course will be the Middle Nile, Aksum in Ethiopia, the Sudanic states in West Africa, Kongo in Central Africa, the Swahili states of the East African coast, and Zimbabwe and KwaZulu in Southern Africa. We will also examine the Atlantic Slave Trade and the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope.This course is cross-listed as HIST 170.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313
AFST 220-02 The Atlantic Slave Trade and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 272-01 and LALC 272-01. Part of the Atlantic Slave Trade Ghana Mosaic. While the class is open to all students, students in the Mosaic will be given priority. During several centuries of European colonization in the New World, a thriving slave trade forced the emigration of millions of Africans across the Atlantic-an immigration far larger than the simultaneous immigration of Europeans to the same regions. We will address not only the workings of the slave trade on both sides (and in the middle) of the Atlantic, but also the cultural communities of West and West-Central Africa and encounters and exchanges in the new slave societies of North and South America. Through examination of work processes, social orders, cultural strategies and influences, and ideas about race and geography, across time and in several regions, we will explore the crucial roles of Africans in the making of the Atlantic world
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 313
Courses Offered in ARTH
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
ARTH 101-01 An Introduction to the History of Art
Instructor: Melinda Schlitt
Course Description:
This course is a critical survey of western art beginning with the Ancient Near East (approximately 4000 B.C.) through the Gothic period in Europe (early 1300s). Emphasis will be placed on the analysis of style, subject-matter, and function within an historical context, and especially on the student's ability to develop skills in visual analysis. Developing appropriate vocabularies with which to discuss and analyze works of art and imagery will also be stressed, along with learning to evaluate scholarly interpretations of them. This course is a critical survey of western art beginning with the Ancient Near East (approximately 4000 B.C.) through the Gothic period in Europe (early 1300s). Emphasis will be placed on the analysis of style, subject-matter, and function within an historical context, and especially on the student's ability to develop skills in visual analysis. Developing appropriate vocabularies with which to discuss and analyze works of art and imagery will also be stressed, along with learning to evaluate scholarly interpretations of them.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
WEISS 235
ARTH 102-01 An Introduction to the History of Art
Instructor: Ty Vanover
Course Description:
This course surveys art of the European renaissance through the contemporary period. Art will be examined within the historical context in which it was produced, with attention to contemporary social, political, religious, and intellectual movements. Students will examine the meaning and function of art within the different historical periods. In addition, students will learn to analyze and identify different artistic styles.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
WEISS 235
Courses Offered in CLST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
CLST 100-01 Greek and Roman Mythology
Instructor: Christopher Francese
Course Description:
An introduction to the study and interpretation of Greek and Roman myths, as they appear both in ancient sources and in later music, sculpture, painting, and literature. The course focuses on interpretive approaches that can help us to define the insights of these myths into to human psychology and the predicaments of men and women, and to apply those insights critically to our own time.
12:30 PM-01:20 PM, MWF
EASTC 411
CLST 251-01 Greek History
Instructor: Scott Farrington, Emma Ianni
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 213-01. An introduction to the history of ancient Greece focusing on the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, ancient Greek intellectual and cultural achievements, and the rise of Macedon. Topics include race, gender and sexuality. Students develop habits for reading ancient and modern sources critically. Assignments introduce students to the primary tools, methods, and conventions of researching and writing in the field of ancient history.
08:30 AM-09:20 AM, MWF
ALTHSE 07
Courses Offered in EASN
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
EASN 206-02 Life and Death in the Age of Samurai and Geisha
Instructor: Evan Young
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 217-01. In this course, we critically investigate the surprising origins behind some of the most pervasive icons of premodern Japan. By analyzing a variety of historical sources, including diaries, legal petitions, picture scrolls, and woodblock prints, students will gain insight into what it was like to live in the 13th-18th centuries. Topics include the rise of the samurai as a military and political force, the development of geisha as skilled entertainers, peasant revolts, warrior monks, and the texture of everyday life. By analyzing these sources and engaging with new, innovative scholarship, students will learn how to craft original and compelling arguments that change the way we understand premodern Japanese society and culture.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 103
Courses Offered in ENGL
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
ENGL 101-02 The Epic: Gods, Devils, Monsters, and Men
Instructor: Jacob Sider Jost
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEMS 200-01. An introduction to the epic as a genre and to the mythic stories that have shaped Western culture. We will read works by Homer, Virgil, the Beowulf poet, Milton, and Christa Wolf.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411
ENGL 101-03 Shakespeare's Women
Instructor: Carol Ann Johnston
Course Description:
Cross-listed with WGSS 101-02 and MEMS 200-03. Male characters such as Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Prospero, Shylock were the focus of historical Shakespeare criticism until the late twentieth century. Even criticism complicating the reception of Shakespeare's women characters, however, have not erased their neglect. Directors looking to cut long plays and to depict straightforward female characters have limited women's lines, represented them as stereotypes, and cut evidence of their agency. In the context of Shakespeare's (uncut) play texts and in the context of Early Modern English culture, however, Shakespeare's women-Cordelia, Desdemona, Ophelia, Miranda, Portia- are equally as multifaceted as his male characters. In this course we will study a cross-section of Shakespeare's plays from each genre, considering the representation of women within the play text, as well as within historical and cultural contexts embodying changes in expectations for women's roles. Shakespeare's play texts simultaneously reproduce and subvert the evolving stereotypes of women during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Discussions of representation of women in patriarchal society will inevitably include scrutiny of our own moment in history. In addition to reading the play texts, work for the course will include students' acting out scenes from plays, viewing some films, two brief critical papers, a midterm, and a final exam.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411
ENGL 222-01 History of the Book
Instructor: Carol Ann Johnston
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEMS 220-02. Book history is an interdisciplinary field that began as a study of bibliography but has come to include studying patterns of book production and book consumption over extended periods of time. Book historians study the history of libraries, of publishing, the production of paper, varieties of type, and the history of reading. We will examine the many forms that books have taken in the history of writing in the European tradition. We will also investigate the technology of book production and dissemination, and books as cultural factors--how they were manufactured and sold, used, read, and transmitted. Our study will include looking at the technology of printing, invented by Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, using an adapted wine press with moveable type. We will learn how to read the book as physical object, to understand clues about when and where and by whom texts were produced, and how to read the text more closely once these clues are deciphered. Projects may include "adopting" a rare text from our archive and exploring all its material features and writing a researched paper on one element of book history.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
EASTC 108
ENGL 331-01 Where Do Novels Come From
Instructor: Jacob Sider Jost
Course Description:
The word "novel" means something new. In this course we will focus on what is new about the novel as a literary genre by reading founding works of the British novel tradition. Authors will likely include Behn, Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Edgeworth, and Austen. We will also read critical and theoretical texts, including formalist, historicist, feminist, and digital humanities approaches.
12:30 PM-01:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 203
ENGL 341-02 Shakespeare: Politics/Culture
Instructor: Carol Ann Johnston
Course Description:
Shakespeare: Politics and Culture is a course most often guided by class discussion. Lectures on historical, literary, and critical matters will occur when useful. We will read and discuss seven plays representing Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies, and romances: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Tempest. Where appropriate, we will also view and discuss scenes from films of the plays by directors Branagh, Taymor, Radford, Kurzel, Kurosawa, Goold, Olivier, and Reinhardt. The secondary-theoretical-reading for the course will draw upon New Historicist and Cultural Materialist criticism, first practiced in the U.S. by Stephen Greenblatt in his Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1980) and in the U.K. in Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism (1985), edited by Alan Sinfield and Jonathan Dollimore. Where helpful, we will further consider colonial, race, and feminist theory. We will also read primary documents from the period that converse with the play texts. Assignments will include an in-class performance of a scene from one of the plays, a word-study essay, a paper based upon the performance, and a final historicist essay.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
EASTC 301
Courses Offered in ENST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
ENST 302-01 The Start of the Anthropocene? Environment and Sustainability in Enlightenment France
Instructor: Hanna Roman
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FREN 364-01, SUST 200-01 and PHIL 261-01. Taught in English with a French language option. The beginning of the era of radical climate change, termed the 'Anthropocene', is often attributed to changes in culture, philosophy, economy, and technology in eighteenth-century Europe. What did questions of sustainability, climate, environment, and climate change look like in the eighteenth century? How did they impact modern-day assumptions of the natural environment and the human role within it? We will examine these sustainability-themed topics through the lens of the literature, science, and philosophy of Enlightenment France, during which new ways of perceiving and treating natural environments emerged. The Enlightenment movement was both a time of reason and progress as well as prejudice and destruction of both natural and human environments. We will reflect upon which aspects of eighteenth-century natural thought are still relevant and useful to our contemporary understandings of sustainability and which have become harmful to the future of our species and planet.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
BOSLER 313
Courses Offered in FREN
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
FREN 364-01 The Start of the Anthropocene? Environment and Sustainability in Enlightenment France
Instructor: Hanna Roman
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENST 302-01, PHIL 261-01 and SUST 200-01. Taught in English with a French language option. The beginning of the era of radical climate change, termed the 'Anthropocene', is often attributed to changes in culture, philosophy, economy, and technology in eighteenth-century Europe. What did questions of sustainability, climate, environment, and climate change look like in the eighteenth century? How did they impact modern-day assumptions of the natural environment and the human role within it? We will examine these sustainability-themed topics through the lens of the literature, science, and philosophy of Enlightenment France, during which new ways of perceiving and treating natural environments emerged. The Enlightenment movement was both a time of reason and progress as well as prejudice and destruction of both natural and human environments. We will reflect upon which aspects of eighteenth-century natural thought are still relevant and useful to our contemporary understandings of sustainability and which have become harmful to the future of our species and planet.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
BOSLER 313
Courses Offered in HIST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
HIST 101-01 The Age of Faith: Medieval Europe Between Church and State
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with RELG 209-01. This survey course will study the development of European civilization during the period c.400 to 1500 with special attention to the rise of the papacy and religious conflict. It will consider the impact of such events as the decline of the Roman Empire, the Germanic invasions, the development of Christianity and the Church, the emergence of feudalism, the expansion of Islam and the Crusades, and the creation of romantic literature.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 301
HIST 106-01 Early Modern Europe to 1799
Instructor: Regina Sweeney
Course Description:
Society, culture, and politics from the Renaissance through the French Revolution.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 311
HIST 121-01 Middle East to 1750
Instructor: David Commins
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEST 121-01. The rise of Islam, the development of Islamic civilization in medieval times and its decline relative to Europe in the early modern era, 1500-1750. This course is cross-listed as MEST 121.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 203
HIST 130-01 Early Latin American History to 1800
Instructor: Marcelo Borges
Course Description:
Cross-listed with LALC 230-01. Survey of pre-Colombian and colonial Latin American history. Students explore the major ancient civilizations of the Americas, the background and characteristics of European conquest and colonization, the formation of diverse colonial societies, and the breakdown of the colonial system that led to independence. The course includes both the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas from a comparative perspective. This course is cross-listed as LALC 230.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 313
HIST 170-01 African Civilizations to 1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 170-01. This course provides an overview to the political, social, and ecological history of Africa. We will examine the peopling of the continent, the origins of agriculture, the growth of towns and the development of metal technology. Written sources before the 1400s are almost nonexistent for most of Africa, and so we will use archaeological and linguistic sources. The geographic focus of the course will be the Middle Nile, Aksum in Ethiopia, the Sudanic states in West Africa, Kongo in Central Africa, the Swahili states of the East African coast, and Zimbabwe and KwaZulu in Southern Africa. We will also examine the Atlantic Slave Trade and the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope.This course is cross-listed as AFST 170.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313
HIST 213-01 Greek History
Instructor: Emma Ianni, Scott Farrington
Course Description:
Cross-listed with CLST 251-01.
08:30 AM-09:20 AM, MWF
ALTHSE 07
HIST 217-01 Life and Death in the Age of Samurai and Geisha
Instructor: Evan Young
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EASN 206-02. In this course, we critically investigate the surprising origins behind some of the most pervasive icons of premodern Japan. By analyzing a variety of historical sources, including diaries, legal petitions, picture scrolls, and woodblock prints, students will gain insight into what it was like to live in the 13th-18th centuries. Topics include the rise of the samurai as a military and political force, the development of geisha as skilled entertainers, peasant revolts, warrior monks, and the texture of everyday life. By analyzing these sources and engaging with new, innovative scholarship, students will learn how to craft original and compelling arguments that change the way we understand premodern Japanese society and culture.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 103
HIST 219-01 From Abraham to Al-Qaeda: Jews, Christians, and Muslims from their Origins to the Present
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEST 200-05 and RELG 111-01. This course will survey relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, from their origins up to the present day, with heavy attention to the premodern period, and to those areas under the political control of Muslims. We will, however, also consider the relations between these three in the modern period, and how the beliefs of these three groups have coincided and collided to generate specific tensions between them.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 317
HIST 253-01 Autocracy, Uprisings, and Daily Life in Medieval Ukraine, Russia, and its Empire
Instructor: Karl Qualls
Course Description:
Cross-listed with RUSS 253-01. This course will survey the first 1000 years of the eastern Slav lands that are now Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus and the expanding empire of the former into Central Asia and the Caucasus. Students will gain a better understanding of the regions political, economic, social, and cultural development and how it can inform our understanding of Russia today. We will examine the early formation of multi-ethnic clans into a large multinational empire while highlighting state formation, the role of women, church power, the arts, and nationality conflict. The course concludes with the impending collapse of the Russian empire under Tsar Nicholas II.This course is cross-listed as RUSS 253.
11:30 AM-12:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 203
HIST 272-01 The Atlantic Slave Trade and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-02 and LALC 272-01. Part of the Atlantic Slave Trade Ghana Mosaic. While the class is open to all students, students in the Mosaic will be given priority. During several centuries of European colonization in the New World, a thriving slave trade forced the emigration of millions of Africans across the Atlantic-an immigration far larger than the simultaneous immigration of Europeans to the same regions. We will address not only the workings of the slave trade on both sides (and in the middle) of the Atlantic, but also the cultural communities of West and West-Central Africa and encounters and exchanges in the new slave societies of North and South America. Through examination of work processes, social orders, cultural strategies and influences, and ideas about race and geography, across time and in several regions, we will explore the crucial roles of Africans in the making of the Atlantic world. This course is cross-listed as LALC 272. Offered every two years.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 313
Courses Offered in ITAL
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
ITAL 341-01 The Discourse of Love
Instructor: James McMenamin
Course Description:
What is Love? Through a diverse selection of works from authors such as St. Francis, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Lorenzo de' Medici, Pietro Aretino, Gaspara Stampa, and Veronica Franco, students will examine the nature of love from a variety of perspectives. From the spirituality of religion to the physicality of desire and attraction, this course will confront topics such as the medieval and Renaissance ideas of love (courtly love, the Dolce Stil Novo, and love sickness), theological notions of love (charity), different expressions of love (heterosexuality, same-sex attraction and polyamory), and transgressive types of love (lust, adultery, and prostitution). This course is taught in Italian. Prerequisites: 231 and 232, or permission of the instructor. Offered every year. What is Love? Through a diverse selection of works from authors such as St. Francis, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Lorenzo de' Medici, Pietro Aretino, Gaspara Stampa, and Veronica Franco, students will examine the nature of love from a variety of perspectives. From the spirituality of religion to the physicality of desire and attraction, this course will confront topics such as the medieval and Renaissance ideas of love (courtly love, the Dolce Stil Novo, and love sickness), theological notions of love (charity), different expressions of love (heterosexuality, same-sex attraction and polyamory), and transgressive types of love (lust, adultery, and prostitution). This course is taught in Italian. Prerequisites: 231 and 232, or permission of the instructor. Offered every year.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
BOSLER 213
Courses Offered in LALC
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
LALC 230-01 Early Latin American History to 1800
Instructor: Marcelo Borges
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 130-01. Survey of pre-Colombian and colonial Latin American history. Students explore the major ancient civilizations of the Americas, the background and characteristics of European conquest and colonization, the formation of diverse colonial societies, and the breakdown of the colonial system that led to independence. The course includes both the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas from a comparative perspective. This course is cross-listed as HIST 130.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 313
LALC 272-01 The Atlantic Slave Trade and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 272-01 and AFST 220-02. Part of the Atlantic Slave Trade Ghana Mosaic. While the class is open to all students, students in the Mosaic will be given priority. During several centuries of European colonization in the New World, a thriving slave trade forced the emigration of millions of Africans across the Atlantic-an immigration far larger than the simultaneous immigration of Europeans to the same regions. We will address not only the workings of the slave trade on both sides (and in the middle) of the Atlantic, but also the cultural communities of West and West-Central Africa and encounters and exchanges in the new slave societies of North and South America. Through examination of work processes, social orders, cultural strategies and influences, and ideas about race and geography, across time and in several regions, we will explore the crucial roles of Africans in the making of the Atlantic world. This course is cross-listed as HIST 272. Offered every two years.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 313
Courses Offered in MEST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
MEST 121-01 Middle East to 1750
Instructor: David Commins
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 121-01. The rise of Islam, the development of Islamic civilization in medieval times and its decline relative to Europe in the early modern era, 1500-1750.This course is cross-listed as HIST 121.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 203
MEST 200-05 From Abraham to Al-Qaeda: Jews, Christians, and Muslims from their Origins to the Present
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with RELG 111-01 and HIST 219-01. This course will survey relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, from their origins up to the present day, with heavy attention to the premodern period, and to those areas under the political control of Muslims. We will, however, also consider the relations between these three in the modern period, and how the beliefs of these three groups have coincided and collided to generate specific tensions between them.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 317
Courses Offered in MUAC
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
MUAC 101-01 Early Musical Migrations
Instructor: Ellen Gray
Course Description:
What did the past sound like? What kinds of music did people dance to, worship with, celebrate with, protest with? What musical instruments were used and how were they made? Who participated in music-making, composing, and listening and what did gender, race, or religion have to do with it? How did musical forms shapeshift as people migrated, traveled, conquered, colonized, or were forcibly displaced? How did new musical forms emerge in moments of encounter? These are just some of the questions that this interdisciplinary course will explore. Students will investigate select musical worlds from 900-1750 from the areas now known as Europe and the Americas. Students will acquire skills in critical listening. The ability to read music is not required for this course and non-musicians are welcome and encouraged. What did the past sound like? What kinds of music did people dance to, worship with, celebrate with, protest with? What musical instruments were used and how were they made? Who participated in music-making, composing, and listening and what did gender, race, or religion have to do with it? How did musical forms shapeshift as people migrated, traveled, conquered, colonized, or were forcibly displaced? How did new musical forms emerge in moments of encounter? These are just some of the questions that this interdisciplinary course will explore. Students will investigate select musical worlds from 900-1750 from the areas now known as Europe and the Americas. Students will acquire skills in critical listening. The ability to read music is not required for this course and non-musicians are welcome and encouraged.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
WEISS 235
MUAC 125-01 Keys to Music 2: Sacred Roots
Instructor: Greg Strohman, Hannah Koby
Course Description:
Cross-listed with RELG 318-02. What are the deepest roots of contemporary music, popular and arcane? In this course, we begin by studying the earliest written music in the Western world. We trace its technical developments from the modal music of the secluded monastery to the contrapuntal complexity of Renaissance musical cathedrals. Doing so, we begin assembling a tool kit for musical performance, composition, and analysis, including modes and the incipience of the major-minor key system. The course includes two fifty-minute classes of aural skills lab each week. This course is cross-listed as RELG 318. Prerequisite: 115, placement exam, or permission of the instructor. Offered every fall semester.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MTWRF
WEISS 212
Courses Offered in PHIL
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
PHIL 180-01 Political Philosophy
Instructor: Toby Reiner
Course Description:
Cross-listed with POSC 180-01. An introduction to the history of political thought, focused on such problems as the nature of justice, the meaning of freedom, the requirements of equality, the prevalence of moral dilemmas in political life, the question of whether we ought to obey the law, and the importance of power in politics. We will also discuss how these issues continue to resonate today.This course is cross-listed as POSC 180.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 317
PHIL 261-01 The Start of the Anthropocene? Environment and Sustainability in Enlightenment France
Instructor: Hanna Roman
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FREN 364-01, SUST 200-01 and ENST 302-01. Taught in English with a French language option. The beginning of the era of radical climate change, termed the 'Anthropocene', is often attributed to changes in culture, philosophy, economy, and technology in eighteenth-century Europe. What did questions of sustainability, climate, environment, and climate change look like in the eighteenth century? How did they impact modern-day assumptions of the natural environment and the human role within it? We will examine these sustainability-themed topics through the lens of the literature, science, and philosophy of Enlightenment France, during which new ways of perceiving and treating natural environments emerged. The Enlightenment movement was both a time of reason and progress as well as prejudice and destruction of both natural and human environments. We will reflect upon which aspects of eighteenth-century natural thought are still relevant and useful to our contemporary understandings of sustainability and which have become harmful to the future of our species and planet.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
BOSLER 313
Courses Offered in POSC
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
POSC 180-01 Political Philosophy
Instructor: Toby Reiner
Course Description:
Cross-listed with PHIL 180-01. An introduction to the history of political thought, focused on such problems as the nature of justice, the meaning of freedom, the requirements of equality, the prevalence of moral dilemmas in political life, the question of whether we ought to obey the law, and the importance of power in politics. We will also discuss how these issues continue to resonate today.This course is cross-listed as PHIL 180.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 317
Courses Offered in RELG
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
RELG 111-01 From Abraham to Al-Qaeda: Jews, Christians, and Muslims from their Origins to the Present
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 219-01 and MEST 200-05. This course will survey relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, from their origins up to the present day, with heavy attention to the premodern period, and to those areas under the political control of Muslims. We will, however, also consider the relations between these three in the modern period, and how the beliefs of these three groups have coincided and collided to generate specific tensions between them.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 317
RELG 209-01 The Age of Faith: Medieval Europe Between Church and State
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 101-01. This survey course will study the development of European civilization during the period c.400 to 1500 with special attention to the rise of the papacy and religious conflict. It will consider the impact of such events as the decline of the Roman Empire, the Germanic invasions, the development of Christianity and the Church, the emergence of feudalism, the expansion of Islam and the Crusades, and the creation of romantic literature.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 301
RELG 318-02 Keys to Music 2: Sacred Roots
Instructor: Hannah Koby, Greg Strohman
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MUAC 125-01. What are the deepest roots of contemporary music, popular and arcane? In this course, we begin by studying the earliest written music in the Western world. We trace its technical developments from the modal music of the secluded monastery to the contrapuntal complexity of Renaissance musical cathedrals. Doing so, we begin assembling a tool kit for musical performance, composition, and analysis, including modes and the incipience of the major-minor key system.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MTWRF
WEISS 212
Courses Offered in RUSS
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
RUSS 253-01 Autocracy, Uprisings, and Daily Life in Medieval Ukraine, Russia, and its Empire
Instructor: Karl Qualls
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 253-01. This course will survey the first 1000 years of the eastern Slav lands that are now Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus and the expanding empire of the former into Central Asia and the Caucasus. Students will gain a better understanding of the regions political, economic, social, and cultural development and how it can inform our understanding of Russia today. We will examine the early formation of multi-ethnic clans into a large multinational empire while highlighting state formation, the role of women, church power, the arts, and nationality conflict. The course concludes with the impending collapse of the Russian empire under Tsar Nicholas II.This course is cross-listed as HIST 253.
11:30 AM-12:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 203
Courses Offered in SPAN
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
SPAN 380-01 Topics in the Middle Ages
Instructor: Abraham Quintanar
Course Description:
This course explores approaches the study of the Middle Ages, 11th to13th-centuries, by topics, rather than by focusing on history per se. Some of the topics explored are disability, domestic violence, medicine, social aspects of reproductive situations of women, diversity and (in)equity. It does not concentrate solely on one specific geographical area or one particular Medieval culture, though it mainly concentrates on some cultural aspects of some Western European countries as well as the Middle East. This course aims to show how some of these cultures may be interrelated.
11:30 AM-12:20 PM, MWF
BOSLER 314
Courses Offered in SUST
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
SUST 200-01 The Start of the Anthropocene? Environment and Sustainability in Enlightenment France
Instructor: Hanna Roman
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENST 302-01, FREN 364-01 and PHIL 261-01. Taught in English with a French language option. The beginning of the era of radical climate change, termed the 'Anthropocene', is often attributed to changes in culture, philosophy, economy, and technology in eighteenth-century Europe. What did questions of sustainability, climate, environment, and climate change look like in the eighteenth century? How did they impact modern-day assumptions of the natural environment and the human role within it? We will examine these sustainability-themed topics through the lens of the literature, science, and philosophy of Enlightenment France, during which new ways of perceiving and treating natural environments emerged. The Enlightenment movement was both a time of reason and progress as well as prejudice and destruction of both natural and human environments. We will reflect upon which aspects of eighteenth-century natural thought are still relevant and useful to our contemporary understandings of sustainability and which have become harmful to the future of our species and planet.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
BOSLER 313
Courses Offered in WGSS
Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
WGSS 101-02 Shakespeare's Women
Instructor: Carol Ann Johnston
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ENGL 101-03 and MEMS 200-03. Male characters such as Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Prospero, Shylock were the focus of historical Shakespeare criticism until the late twentieth century. Even criticism complicating the reception of Shakespeare's women characters, however, have not erased their neglect. Directors looking to cut long plays and to depict straightforward female characters have limited women's lines, represented them as stereotypes, and cut evidence of their agency. In the context of Shakespeare's (uncut) play texts and in the context of Early Modern English culture, however, Shakespeare's women-Cordelia, Desdemona, Ophelia, Miranda, Portia- are equally as multifaceted as his male characters. In this course we will study a cross-section of Shakespeare's plays from each genre, considering the representation of women within the play text, as well as within historical and cultural contexts embodying changes in expectations for women's roles. Shakespeare's play texts simultaneously reproduce and subvert the evolving stereotypes of women during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Discussions of representation of women in patriarchal society will inevitably include scrutiny of our own moment in history. In addition to reading the play texts, work for the course will include students' acting out scenes from plays, viewing some films, two brief critical papers, a midterm, and a final exam.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411