Candace Gregory-Abbott T 5:30 8:30 Office: TAH 3059
Email: cgregory@csus.edu Tel# 278-3824
Homepage: www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gregoryc Office Hrs: T 3-4:30
R 10:30-11:30 and by appt.
Liberal Arts 200B is an interdisciplinary seminar on cultural movements, figures, and art forms of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Focus is on the West with some global comparison. Emphasis is on theoretical perspectives, methods, and research techniques germane to the liberal arts.
Learning Objectives:
1. Be conversant as to the dates and basic cultural aspects of all of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance.
2. Illustrate general knowledge of the cultural movements, important figures, and significant art forms of each era, along with sophisticated knowledge of such pertaining to the era(s) of each studentıs special interests.
3. Be familiar enough with the corpus of primary texts and works of art to know whence comes the general academic understanding of the cultural history of these eras.
4. Be conversant in the relevant major scholars and their theoretical perspectives.
5. Be practiced in the techniques of graduate-level research in the liberal arts, particularly with regard to subjects in the medieval period and Renaissance.
Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom
Beowulf (trans. Seamus Heaney)
Song of Roland
Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances
Castiglione, Book of the Courtier
Shakespeare, King Lear
Earsmus, Praise of Folly
Marlowe, Doctor Faustus.
The course will consist of mainly of seminar discussions of readings and of the visual arts, together with some presentation of research by students.
In addition to the completion of all reading assignments by the dates assigned, formal requirements and their correlative grade percentages consist of the following:
1. Regular attendance and fruitful contribution to class discussions; inadequacy in these areas will potentially affect course grades. 30%.
Part of participation includes being prepared each class night to start the discussion. For each nightıs reading, select one passage / quote (no more than a page, but longer than a single sentence) to present to the class. I will call on students randomly over the semester to begin discussion by presenting their quote. You may be called on more than once over the course of the semester. Thus, it is important that you be prepared every night to present your quote.
2. Several short response papers to assigned readings, designed to enhance the quality of both readings and discussions. 40%. You will select four books and write a five-page paper on each of them.
3. A longer paper focusing on a topic of each studentıs choice. 17-20 pages each. 30%.
Week 1 29 January Course Introduction
Week 2 5 February Byzantium
From late antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Readings: Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, excerpts
Begin reading Formation of Christendom, Parts I and II
Week 2 12 February Anglo Saxons
Germanic / Christian / Roman fusion.
Readings: Beowulf
Week 3 19 February Islam
The rise of Islam. Islamic culture in comparative perspective: Abbasid Spain, Mogul India.
Readings: Qurıan, excerpts
Discussion of Formation of Christiandom
Week 4 26 February Carolingians
Art and literature in the age of Charlemagne. Romanesque architecture.
Readings: Song of Roland
Week 5 4 March Chivalry
Feudalism. Chivalry. The literary tradition of King Arthur and the Knights of
the Round Table.
Readings: Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances.
Paper Topics Due.
Week 7 11 March The Crusades
East meets west. The Crusades. Crusader architecture and music.
Week 8 18 March High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages. Gothic architecture. Scholasticism.
Readings: Peter Abelard, Sic et Non, excerpts.
Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, excerpts
Week 9 25 March Fourteenth Century
Black Death and the Hundred Years War. The early Renaissance. The art of Giotto.
Readings: Francois Villon, The Poems of Francois Villon on reserve
³Testament,²
³Ballad: I die of thirst beside the fountain²
³The Debate Between Villon and His Heart²
Christine
de Pisan,
Ditie de Jehanne dıArc, on reserve
Or at http://www.smu.edu/ijas/cdepisan/text.html
1 April Spring Break
Week 10 8 April Early Renaissance
Literary achievements of the early Renaissance: Francesco Petrarch, Geoffrey Chaucer.
Readings: Boccaccio, Griselda, on reserve
Or at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/decameron.txt
NB: Griselda is the last full tale of the text, 10th day, 10th Story
Francesco Petrarch, on reserve
Letter to Boccaccio and Griselda
Or at http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/griselda.html
Geoffrey Chaucer
Clerkıs Tale: Griselda, on reserve,
Legend of Good Women, on reserve
Or at http://omacl.org/GoodWomen/
Parliament of Fowls, on reserve
Or at http://omacl.org/Parliament/
Week 11 15 April Renaissance humanism.
Reading: Erasmus, Praise of Folly
Week 12 22 April High Renaissance
The Italian High Renaissance. Italian masters: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian.
Readings: Cunningham / Reich, Chapter 13
Castiglione, Book of the Courtier
Week 13 29 April Renaissance in the North
The Northern Renaissance. Art of Albrecht Durer. Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus
Bosch, and the writings of Martin Bucer and Thomas More.
Readings: Thomas More, Utopia, excerpts
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
6 May No Class
Week 14 13 April Shakespeare and Elizabethan England.
Readings: William Shakespeare, King Lear