ARTH 14200. From Missionary Images to Image Explosion: Introduction to Medieval Art. 100 Units.

This course explores the challenging world of medieval art. Beginning with the fourth-century fusion of Imperial and Christian images and ending with the advent of print, we trace how images and art-making took on new roles—and re-invented old ones—over the course of the Middle Ages. We consider architecture, sculpture, wall-painting, manuscript painting, stained glass, metalwork, and textiles in their historical contexts, questioning why medieval objects look the way they do and how they were seen and used by medieval viewers. Readings include medieval sources (in translation) and exemplary modern scholarship.

Instructor(s): A. Kumler     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 14505. The Global Middle Ages: Visual and Intercultural Encounters. 100 Units.

Focusing on the art and architecture of the Mediterranean and Middle East, this course examines how the mobility of objects, people, and social practices remapped cultural boundaries.  We will investigate cultures of contact through topics such as cultural cross-dressing, gift exchange, visual translation, and the reuse of objects.  By combining case studies of artifacts with critical readings of comparative and theoretical work drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, we will also consider how work on modern cultures can inform interpretations of cultural production and experience before the modern “global age.”

Instructor(s): H. Badamo     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 14000 through 16999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17015. Blood, Sweat, and Tears: The Sacred Image in Byzantium. 100 Units.

During the Middle Ages, icons—sacred images—played a pivotal role in the devotional practice of Byzantium, the eastern Christian empire that had its capital in Constantinople from 324-1453.  “Windows to heaven,” sacred images provided access to the divine.  Despite their spiritual function, icons also drew attention to their materiality by erupting into life – bleeding, weeping, and attacking foes.  In this course, we will combine the study of Byzantine images with Byzantine primary sources (in translation) to explore a range of topics related to the icon, including medieval image theory, iconoclasm, visuality, enshrinement, the copy, and materiality.  Our investigation of Byzantine images will be enhanced through comparison with responses to the image in Islam, Judaism, and the Christian west.

Instructor(s): H. Badamo     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 17211. Arts of Medieval Japan. 100 Units.

Japan between 1400 and 1600 saw intermittent warfare and profound challenges to the authority of the emperor, the shogun, and the most powerful Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Yet this was also a period in which finely constructed objects and environments were afforded considerable thought, effort, and value. Competing centers of power used visual displays to elaborate their respective positions or to seek release from everyday hardships. This course explores the surviving arts of the period through three thematic lenses: the status of the artist, the political and aesthetic roles of reclusion, and the construction of sacred precincts.

Instructor(s): C. Foxwell     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of program coordinator and submission of a formal proposal
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 17211

ARTH 18700. The Arts of Arabic and Persian Manuscripts. 100 Units.

This undergraduate art in context course focuses on Islamic arts of the book from the eleventh through sixteenth centuries. We will pay particular attention to relationships between painting, calligraphy, and illumination; problems of copying and originality; challenges posed by manuscripts that have been altered by successive generations of users; multiple levels of text-image relationships; and identify special considerations related to the manuscript format. Throughout the seminar we will consider points of congruence and divergence between how such issues were theorized in (translated) primary texts contemporaneous to the manuscripts being studied, and how they are theorized today.

Instructor(s): P. Berlekamp     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, any ARTH 17000 through 18999 course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ENGL 14900. Old English. 100 Units.

This course is designed to prepare students for further study in Old English language and literature.  As such, our focus will be the acquisition of those linguistic skills needed to encounter such Old English poems as Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, and The Wanderer in their original language.  In addition to these texts, we may also translate the prose Life of Saint Edmund, King and Martyr and such shorter poetic texts as the Exeter Book riddles.  We will also survey Anglo-Saxon history and culture, taking into account the historical record, archeology, manuscript construction and illumination, and the growth of Anglo-Saxon studies as an academic discipline.  This course serves as a prerequisite both for further Old English study at the University of Chicago and for participation in the Newberry Library’s Winter Quarter Anglo-Saxon seminar.

Instructor(s): C. von Nolcken     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 34900,GRMN 34900

ENGL 15200. Beowulf. 100 Units.

This course will aim to help students read Beowulf while also acquainting them with some of the scholarly discussion that has accumulated around the poem. We will read the poem as edited in Klaeber’s Beowulf (4th ed., Univ. of Toronto Press, 2008). Once students have defined their particular interests, we will choose which recent approaches to the poem to discuss in detail; we will, however, certainly view the poem both in itself and in relation to Anglo-Saxon history and culture in general.

Instructor(s): C. von Nolcken     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PQ: ENGL 14900/35900 or the Equivalent
Note(s): Cross listed courses are designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 35200,FNDL 28100,GRMN 32900

ENGL 15500. Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. 100 Units.

This course is an examination of Chaucer's art as revealed in selections from The Canterbury Tales. Our primary emphasis is on a close reading of individual tales, but we also pay attention to Chaucer's sources and to other medieval works that provide relevant background.

Instructor(s): J. Schleusener     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 25700

ENGL 15600. Medieval English Literature. 100 Units.

This course examines the relations among psychology, ethics, and social theory in fourteenth-century English literature. We pay particular attention to three central preoccupations of the period: sex, the human body, and the ambition of ethical perfection. Readings are drawn from Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-poet, Gower, penitential literature, and saints' lives. There are also  some supplementary readings in the social history of late medieval England.

Instructor(s): M. Miller     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 15600

ENGL 15805. Medieval Vernacular Literature in the British Isles. 100 Units.

This course will cover the Celtic tradition, Old an Middle English, Anglo-Norman French, and a late text from Scotland. Texts will include: from Old English, Beowulf; from Irish, The Battle of Moytura (a battle between gods and giants), the Tain, and two of the immrana or voyages, those concerning Bran Son of Ferbal and Mael Duin (the latter being the likely source for the Voyage of St. Brendan, which had such an effect on old speculations about the Atlantic); from Anglo-Norman French, the Lays of Marie de France; from Welsh, the Four Branches from the Mabinogion; from Middle English, selections from The Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; and from Scotland, Dunbar, who fittingly closes the course, since he wrote in English at a time when the Tudors tried to suppress Celtic writing in Wales. A paper will be required and perhaps an oral examination.

Instructor(s): M. Murrin     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 26000

FNDL 20700. Aquinas on God, Being, and Human Nature. 100 Units.

This course considers sections from Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica. Among the topics considered are God's existence; the relationship between God and Being; and human nature.

Instructor(s): S. Meredith     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 23712,RLST 23605

FNDL 24713. Augustine's Confessions. 100 Units.

Augustine’s Confessions recount not only his own conversion(s), but seek to facilitate a conversion in his readers and, thereby, inaugurate a new form of meditative reading. Like Cicero’s Hortensius, the text which prompted his long return to God, they thus belong to a genre of discourse known as protreptic in antiquity and designed to turn the reader towards the pursuit of wisdom. Of course, the Confessions as a confession participate in a number of other genres, and, thus, our analysis will have to take into account its generic complexity in order to understand how seeks to be read.

Instructor(s): C. Wild     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 26512,RLST 24713

FREN 23003. Introduction: Voix féminines dans la littérature française. 100 Units.

This course examines works written by women from the Middle Ages to the present day. We will consider the freedoms and constraints that govern textual production in order to better understand how women fashion individual, authorial, and collective identities through writing.

Instructor(s): D. Delogu     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20500
Note(s): Introductory level, taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s):

FREN 24100. Nature and the Natural in the Middle Ages. 100 Units.

This course will consider medieval representations and understandings of nature and the natural in its many guises – theological, legal, allegorical, scientific, political, sexual – in order to see how the human comes to define itself in relation to the created world.

Instructor(s): D. Delogu     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20500 and one previous literature course taught in French.
Note(s): Taught in English with separate discussion session for students in French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 34100

HIST 16900. Ancient Mediterranean World III. 100 Units.

This quarter surveys the five centuries between the establishment of imperial autocracy in 27 BC and the fall of the Western empire in the fifth century AD.

Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 20900

HIST 21701. Byzantine Empire, 330-610. 100 Units.

A lecture course, with limited discussion, of the formation of early Byzantine government, society, and culture.  Although a survey of event and changes, including external relations, many of the latest scholarly controversies will also receive scrutiny.  There will be some discussion of relevant archaeology and topography.  No prerequisite.  Readings will include some primary sources in translation and examples of modern scholarly interpretations.  Final examination and a short paper.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 34306,CLCV 24306,HIST 31701

HIST 21702. Byzantine Empire, 610 to 1025. 100 Units.

This is a lecture course, with limited discussion, of the principle developments with respect to government, society, and culture in the Middle Byzantine Period. Although this course is a survey of events and changes, including external relations, many of the latest scholarly controversies also receive scrutiny. Readings include some primary sources in translation and examples of modern scholarly interpretations.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 34307,CLCV 24307,HIST 31702

HIST 25701. North Africa, Late Antiquity-Islam. 100 Units.

Examination of topics in continuity and change from the third through ninth centuries CE, including changes in Roman, Vandalic, Byzantine, and early Islamic Africa. Topics include the waning of paganism and the respective spread and waning of Christianity, the dynamics of the seventh-century Muslim conquest and Byzantine collapse. Transformation of late antique North Africa into a component of Islamic civilization. Topography and issues of the autochthonous populations will receive some analysis. Most of the required reading will be on reserve, for there is no standard textbook. Readings in translated primary sources as well as the latest modern scholarship. Final examination and 10 page course paper.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 30200,CLCV 20200,CRES 25701,HIST 35701,NEHC 20634,NEHC 30634

ITAL 22101. Dante's "Divine Comedy" 3: Paradiso. 100 Units.

An in-depth study of the third cantica of Dante's masterpiece, considered the most difficult but in many ways also the most innovative.  Read alongside his scientific treatise the Convivio and his political manifesto the Monarchia.

Instructor(s): J. Steinberg     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Completion of the previous courses in the sequence not required, but students should familiarize themselves with the "Inferno" and the "Purgatorio" before the first day of class. Taught in English
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 21804,ITAL 32101,REMS 32101

ITAL 23503. Boccaccio's Minor Works. 100 Units.

This course will examine Boccaccio’s lesser known vernacular works, written before and after the Decameron, in Naples and in Florence. It is primarily a reading course.

Instructor(s): J. Steinberg     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Language of readings and lectures will depend on background of the students.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 33503

NEAA 20005. Archaeology of the Ancient Near East V: Islamic Period. 100 Units.

This survey of the regions of the Middle East presents the urban systems of each region.  The focus is a comparative stratigraphy of the archaeological evidence and the contribution of this material towards an understanding of Islamic history and ancient archaeological periods in the Near East.

Instructor(s): D. Whitcomb     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This sequence does not meet the general education requirements in civilization studies.

NEHC 10101. Introduction to the Middle East. 100 Units.

Prior knowledge of the Middle East not required. This course aims to facilitate a general understanding of some key factors that have shaped life in this region, with primary emphasis on modern conditions and their background, and to provide exposure to some of the region's rich cultural diversity. This course can serve as a basis for the further study of the history, politics, and civilizations of the Middle East.

Instructor(s): F. Donner     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 15801

NEHC 20411-20412-20413. Medieval Jewish History I-II-III.

This sequence does NOT meet the general education requirement in civilization studies. This three-quarter sequence deals with the history of the Jews over a wide geographical and historical range. First-quarter work is concerned with the rise of early rabbinic Judaism and development of the Jewish communities in Palestine and the Eastern and Western diasporas during the first several centuries CE. Topics include the legal status of the Jews in the Roman world, the rise of rabbinic Judaism, the rabbinic literature of Palestine in that context, the spread of rabbinic Judaism, the rise and decline of competing centers of Jewish hegemony, the introduction of Hebrew language and culture beyond the confines of their original home, and the impact of the birth of Islam on the political and cultural status of the Jews. An attempt is made to evaluate the main characteristics of Jewish belief and social concepts in the formative periods of Judaism as it developed beyond its original geographical boundaries. Second-quarter work is concerned with the Jews under Islam, both in Eastern and Western Caliphates. Third-quarter work is concerned with the Jews of Western Europe from the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries.

NEHC 20501-20502-20503. Islamic History and Society I-II-III.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence surveys the main trends in the political history of the Islamic world, with some attention to economic, social, and intellectual history. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required.

NEHC 20601-20602-20603. Islamic Thought and Literature I-II-III.

 This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required.

NEHC 20750. Rumi's Masnavi and the Persian Sufi Tradition. 100 Units.

The Masnavi of Mowlana Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) is perhaps the most widely read and commented upon poem from Bosnia to Bengal, and Rumi has been hailed by more than one modern scholar as the “greatest mystical poet” of Islam, or even the world. This course centers around a close-reading in English of the six books of his "Spiritual Couplets." Through discussion and lectures we will consider the narrative techniques and sources of the tales, the morals drawn from them, the organizational structure of the whole, and the literary achievement of the Masnavi, viewing the text as a lens on to Rumi's theology, Persian Sufism and his place within the mystical tradition.

Instructor(s): F. Lewis     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 20750

PERS 30324. Masnavi of Rumi I. 100 Units.

The Masnavi of Mowlânâ Jalâl al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) constitutes the single most influential text in the Persian mystical tradition, read in the original from Bosnia to Bengal. This course will consider the literary background and achievement of the text; its poetic representation of Qur'an, hadith and mystical theosophy; its reception, commentary and translation history; and above all the structure and meaning of the poem. The first quarter will survey a select anthology of individual stories and themes in the Masnavi; while the second quarter will focus on a through-reading of at least one of the six books of this 25,000-line poem.

Instructor(s): F. Lewis     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): PERS 20103 or equivalent
Note(s): Open to Undergraduates with Consent of Instructor

PERS 30325. Masnavi of Rumi II. 100 Units.

The Masnavi of Mowlânâ Jalâl al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) constitutes the single most influential text in the Persian mystical tradition, read in the original from Bosnia to Bengal. This course will consider the literary background and achievement of the text; its poetic representation of Qur'an, hadith and mystical theosophy; its reception, commentary and translation history; and above all the structure and meaning of the poem. The first quarter will survey a select anthology of individual stories and themes in the Masnavi; while the second quarter will focus on a through-reading of at least one of the six books of this 25,000-line poem.

Instructor(s): F. Lewis     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PERS 30324
Note(s): Open to Undergraduates with Consent of Instructor

PHIL 26000. History of Philosophy II: Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to some of the major thinkers and movements in the philosophy of the medieval and early modern periods. This course will aim at providing a broad overview, with special attention to developments in metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Figures discussed will include Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke and Hume.

Instructor(s): M. Kremer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Completion of the general education requirement in humanities required; PHIL 25000 recommended
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 26000

PHIL 26100. The Philosophical Interpretation of Scripture in the Middle Ages: The Problems of Evil and the Book of Job. 100 Units.

An important genre of philosophical writing during the Middle Ages was the commentary, both commentaries on canonical philosophical works (e.g., Aristotle) and on Scripture. This course is an introduction to medieval philosophical exegesis of Scripture, concentrating on the Book of Job and the philosophical problems of evil and suffering. Authors will include Saadiah, Maimonides, and Aquinas, and readings will include both their commentaries on Job and their systematic philosophical discussions of the problems of evil. (IV)

Instructor(s): J. Stern     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIJD 36100,JWSC 26250,PHIL 36100,RLST 25902

RLST 21600. Early Monasticism. 100 Units.

This course examines early monasticism from its origins among the desert fathers of the Greek and Syriac East to its development in the Latin West, especially in Italy and Spain, concluding with the Carolingian reformation of monasticism in the ninth century.  We will examine such themes as monastic rules, monastic hagiography, women in monasticism, ideas of virginity, and the economics of monasticism. (A)

Instructor(s): L. Pick     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 11900

SLAV 22000. Old Church Slavonic. 100 Units.

This course introduces the language of the oldest Slavic texts. It begins with a brief historical overview of the relationship of Old Church Slavonic to Common Slavic and the other Slavic languages. This is followed by a short outline of Old Church Slavonic inflectional morphology. The remainder of the course is spent in the reading and grammatical analysis of original texts. Texts in Cyrillic or Cyrillic transcription of the original Glagolitic.

Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Knowledge of another Slavic language or good knowledge of another one or two old Indo-European languages. SLAV 20100 recommended.
Equivalent Course(s): LGLN 25100,LGLN 35100,SLAV 32000

SPAN 21703. Literatura hispánica: textos clásicos. 100 Units.

This course involves careful reading and discussion of significant works from the Spanish Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the Golden Age, including Juan Manuel's Conde Lucanor, Jorge Manrique's Coplas, the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes, and the theater of Calderón.

Instructor(s): R. Giles     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor

SPAN 24103. El mester de clerecía: 1200-1400. 100 Units.

This course examines the formation of the clerical mester in the monasteries and nascent universities of medieval Castile and its development over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Of primary concern will be the interplay of profane and sacred themes, oral and textual traditions, the poetic commingling of jularía and clerecía during this period. Texts include Libro de Alejandre, Libro de Apolonio, Milagros de Nuestra Señora, and Libro de buen amor.

Instructor(s): R. Giles     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 34103