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: Winter
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 16709. Islamic Art and Architecture, 1100 to 1500. 100 Units.

This course surveys the art and architecture of the Islamic world from 1100 to 1500. In that period, political fragmentation into multiple principalities challenged a deeply rooted ideology of unity of the Islamic world. The course of the various principalities competed not only in politics but also in the patronage of architectural projects and of arts (e.g., textiles, ceramics, woodwork, arts of the book). While focusing on the central Islamic lands, we consider regional traditions from Spain to India and the importance for the arts of contacts with China and the West.

Instructor(s): P. Berlekamp     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.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 16709,NEAA 10630

ARTH 17205. Islamic Gardens in Landscape and Image. 100 Units.

Garden imagery is ubiquitous in the art and architecture of the Islamic world from the eighth century to the eighteenth, and from Spain to India. The poetic trope whereby a visually pleasing object or site is compared to the garden of paradise is equally ubiquitous. But does this imply any historical consistency in the significance of garden imagery, of actual gardens, or of the poetic trope? In this class we explore this question by examining both garden imagery and actual gardens from many different times and places in the Islamic world. How do their visual forms and cultural significance shift according to specific historical circumstances?

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.
Equivalent Course(s): NEAA 17205

CLCV 26713. Mythical History, Paradigmatic Figures: Caesar, Augustus, Charlemagne, Napoleon. 100 Units.

What is the process by which some historical figures take on mythical proportions? This course examines four case studies of conquerors who attained sovereign power in times of war (conquest, civil war, revolution), who had a foundational role in empire-building, and who consciously strove to link themselves to the divine and transcendent. Their immense but ambiguous legacies persist to this day. Although each is distinct as a historical individual, taken together they merge to form a paradigm of the exceptional leader of epic proportions. Each models himself on exemplary predecessors: each invokes and reinvents myths of origin and projects himself as a model for the future. Basic themes entail mythic history, empire, the exceptional figure, modernity's fascination with antiquity, and the paradox of the imitability of the inimitable.

Instructor(s): M. Lowrie, R. Morrissey     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 36713,FNDL 22912,FREN 26701,FREN 36701,BPRO 26700

CMLT 24402. Early Novels: The Ethiopian Story, Parzifal, Old Arcadia. 100 Units.

The course will introduce the students to the oldest sub-genres of the novel, the idealist story, the chivalric tale and the pastoral. It will emphasize the originality of these forms and discuss their interaction with the Spanish, French, and English novel.

Instructor(s): T. Pavel, G. Most     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 34402,SCTH 35914,RLLT 24402,RLLT 34402

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. (C, E)

Instructor(s): C. von Nolcken     Terms Offered: Autumn
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. (C, E)

Instructor(s): C. von Nolcken     Terms Offered: Winter
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 15301. From the Annals of Wales to Monty Python and the Holy Grail: King Arthur in Legend and History. 100 Units.

We will consider the historical origins of the Arthurian Legend and some of the ways in which it has subsequently been reshaped and used in great Britain. We will concern ourselves first with how the legend was treated in the Middle Ages, most importantly by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century and Thomas Malory in the fifteenth. Then we will turn to the extraordinary revival of interest in the legend that started with the Victorians and which has continued almost unabated to the present. In our discussions we will consider such matters as the various political uses that have been made of the legend as well as some of the reasons for its enduring popularity. We will end with a viewing of the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (B, E)

Instructor(s): C. von Nolcken     Terms Offered: Autumn

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. (C, E)

Instructor(s): M. Miller     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 25700

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 22000. Poésie et Récit au Moyen Âge. 100 Units.

Ce cours examinera les capacités et les possibilités narratives de la poésie du Moyen Âge, ainsi que les rapports entre l'écriture lyrique et le récit. Nous nous concentrerons sur le dit narratif et les textes hybrides.

Instructor(s): D. Delogu     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20500 and one previous literature course taught in French.
Note(s): Taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 32000

HCHR 30200. History Christian Thought-2. 100 Units.

For course description contact Divinity.

Equivalent Course(s): THEO 30200

HIST 21303. Byzantine Historians. 100 Units.

Reading and analysis of Byzantine historians and Byzantine historical thought. Includes Procopius Michael Attaleiates, Michael Psellos, Anna Comnena, Niketas Choniates. Lectures and discussion. Two take home essays.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 31303

HIST 21703. Byzantine Empire, 1025 to 1453. 100 Units.

Internal and external problems and developments. Internal tensions on the eve of the arrival of the Seljuks. Eleventh-century economic growth. The Crusades. Achievements and deficiencies of Komnenian Byzantium. The Fourth Crusade and Byzantine successor states. Palaeologan political and cultural revival. Religious topics such as relations with the papacy, Bogomilism, and Hesychasm. Readings will include M. Angold, The Byzantine Empire 1025–1204; D. M. Nicol, Last Centuries of Byzantium; the histories of Michael Psellos and Anna Comnena. Course grade will include a final examination and a 10-page paper.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ANCM 36700,HIST 31703,NEHC 20507

HIST 22002. Byzantine Military History. 100 Units.

Interpretation of major issues of institutional, operational, and strategic history between the fourth and fourteenth centuries. Readings include selections from Byzantine military manuals and historians, as well as recent historical assessments. Among topics are debates on the theme system and numbers. Final examination and short paper.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ANCM 34606,NEHC 20510,NEHC 30510,HIST 32002

HIST 22203. The Holy Roman Empire, 962-1356. 100 Units.

During the first four centuries of its existence, the Holy Roman Empire emerged as one of the most politically and culturally heterogeneous states in all of Europe. A vast expanse of central Europe that is today divided among more than a dozen different nations was ruled—at least in theory—by the emperors during the High Middle Ages. The purpose of this course is to trace some of the major developments in imperial history between 962 (Emperor Otto I's coronation) and 1356 (the Golden Bull). Topics will include the changing nature of imperial authority from the Ottonians to the Habsburgs; the Church's and the nobility's establishment of quasi-independent lordships inside imperial territory; papal-imperial relations; and the eastward expansion of the empire.

Instructor(s): J. Lyon     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32203

HIST 24401. History of the Fatimid Caliphate. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): P. Walker     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30645,HIST 34401,NEHC 20645

HIST 29902. Tolkien: Medieval and Modern. 100 Units.

J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is one of the most popular works of imaginative literature of the twentieth centruy. This course seeks to understand its appeal by situating Tolkien's creation within the context of Tolkien's own work as both artist and scholar alongside its medieval sources and modern parallels. Themes to be addressed include the problem of genre and the uses of tradition; the nature of history and its relationship to place; the activity of creation and its relationship to language, beauty, evil, and power; the role of monsters in imagination and criticism; the twinned challenges of death and immortality, fate and free will; and the interaction between the world of "faerie" and religious belief.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Must have read The Lord of the Rings prior to first day.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22400,FNDL 24901

ITAL 23502. Boccaccio's Decameron. 100 Units.

Written in the midst of the social disruption caused by the Black Death (1348), the Decameron may have held readers attention for centuries because of its bawdiness, but it is also a profound exploration into the basis of faith and the meaning of death, the status of language, the construction of social hierarchy and social order, and the nature of crisis and historical change. Framed by a storytelling contest between seven young ladies and three young men who have left the city to avoid the plague, the one hundred stories of Boccaccio’s Decameron form a structural masterpiece that anticipates the Renaissance epics, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and the modern short story.

Instructor(s): J. Steinberg     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Classes conducted in English
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 21714,ITAL 33502,REMS 33502

LATN 25000. Augustine's Confessions. 100 Units.

Substantial selections from books 1 through 9 of the Confessions are read in Latin (and all thirteen books in English), with particular attention to Augustine's style and thought. Further readings in English provide background about the historical and religious situation of the late fourth century AD.

Instructor(s): P. White     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): LATN 206 or equivalent
Equivalent Course(s): LATN 35000,FNDL 24310

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.

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

A survey of the thought of some of the most important figures of this period, including Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. (A)

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

RLST 21801. Religion and Society in the Middle Ages. 100 Units.

This course examines some of the roles played by religion within medieval society. We consider topics such as the conversion of Europe to Christianity, monasticism, the cult of saints, the rise of the papacy, and the rise of heresy and religious dissent. We study medieval religious ideals as well as the institutions created to perpetuate those ideals. weighing the experience of the individual and the group. We read autobiographies, saints' lives, chronicles, miracle collections, papal documents, among other kinds of sources.

Instructor(s): L. Pick     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27905

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