COURSES

Courses in the fields of medieval, Renaissance and early modern studies will be posted here as they become known. If you know of a course that ought to be listed here, please contact Alan Stewart at ags2105@columbia.edu.

CH332 Themes and Issues in the Protestant Reformation (Euan Cameron) T 4:10-6:00

ENGL W4091 Introduction to Old English Language and Literature (Michael Matto) MW 4:10-5:25

ENGL G6135 Renaissance Drama: The Making of Early Modern Tragedy (Jean Howard) W 11-12:50

FREN G8230 Readings and Rewriting in the Middle Ages (Sylvie Lefevre) R
4:10-6:00

HIST G8932 History & Theory of the Western Market Economy, 1200-1800 (Martha Howell) T 2.10-4

MUSI G8101 Seminar in Historical Musicology: The Middle Ages (Susan Boynton) F 10:10-12:00

REL 9103 Seminar in Law & Christianity: Church Councils, 1049-1150 (Robert Somerville) F 1:30-3:15

SPAN G6148 Microliteratures: Writing on the Margins and the Location of Literacy (Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco) M 1:10 - 4:00

The urban fabric of Paris will provide the connective tissue linking medieval achievements in architecture, sculpture and painting with the history of the city from the Romans to the Renaissance. Syllabus: http://www.learn.columbia.edu/medparis/pdf/medparis_syllabus.pdf

Modern convention of architectural drawing before the coming of the digital era started during the Renaissance when drawing was recognized to be the tool through which an idea of architecture is transformed into a feasible construction. The scope of this seminar is to analyze the architectural drawing under different aspects including that of its function to express the design process from the early sketches to the working drawings and as a tool of analysis of existing buildings, ancient and modern. Attention will be paid also to the graphic techniques and the architectural drawing as an artistic form. Real Renaissance drawings will be directly analyzed as well as the Renaissance literature on the issue included in Architectural treatises.

UTS Masters level Rapid Survey Course: registration via Union Seminary Registrar: Ehunter@uts.columbia.edu] Syllabus available by email request.

CH332 Themes and Issues in the Protestant Reformation (Euan Cameron) T 4:10-6:00 [UTS]

An investigation of topics and controversies in the early history of the Protestant Reformation movements, both Lutheran and reformed, up to c. 1570. Discussion of late medieval theological developments will set the scene. The course will explore how Reformation thought focused around key theological statements, then diversified into competing ‘orthodoxies’. The responses of lay hearers and readers to the public message of the reformers will also be analyzed.

CLEN W4121 The Renaissance in Europe: Sonnet Sequences. (Anne Prescott) MW 2:40-3:55

Key texts of 15th- and 16th-century humanism in their rhetorical and philosophical contexts, including works by Petrarch, Erasmus, More, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Sidney, and Montaigne.

ENGL W4091 Introduction to Old English Language and Literature (Michael Matto) MW 4:10-5:25

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. (Lecture). An introduction to the language and literature of England from the 8th to the 11th centuries. This class provides a general historical and literary introduction to the period as you learn the language of Anglo-Saxon England. Because this is predominantly a language class, we will spend much of our class time studying grammar as we learn to translate literary and non-literary texts. While this course provides a general historical framework for the period as it introduces you to the culture of Anglo-Saxon England, it will also take a close look at how each text defines the human, the monstrous, and the notion of "home," as well as the role language itself plays in defining (or blurring) the boundaries between them. We will look at how each work contextualizes (or recontextualizes) relationships between the human and the divine, the natural and the super-natural, the individual and society. We will be using Hasenfratz and Jambeck's Reading Old English as our language textbook, and supplementing it with Mitchell and Robinson's An Introduction to Old English. Students will be expected to do assignments for each meeting. Requirements: The course will involve a mid-term, a final exam, and an oral presentation (to be turned in).

This course will explore medieval English versions of the antique past, as well as their broader setting in ancient and continental medieval stories of disaster and refoundation. While the bulk of texts we read will be in Middle English, at each stage students can explore instead (or in addition) relevant works in the other languages of medieval Britain: Latin, French, or the Celtic tongues.

ENGL G6135 Renaissance Drama: The Making of Early Modern Tragedy. (Jean Howard) W 11-12:50

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. (Seminar). This seminar will consider what the early modern stage understood tragedy to be and the various "inventions" that fueled its power and popularity as a theatrical genre. We will examine plays ranging from Norton and Sackville's Gorboduc to John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, including several by Shakespeare.

A two-term research seminar designed to introduce students to sources, research methods, and recent scholarship on the social and institutional history of medieval Europe.

PHIL G4900 Topics in Early Modern Philosophy: Funky Causation (Christia Mercer) F 11:10-12:55

Funky Causation: In the history of philosophy and science, efficient causation was only one of several causal notions, until it won prominence in the 18th century. This course analyzes the other (funky) causal options central to medieval and early modern philosophy. We'll analyze emanative, immanent, formal, sympathetic, and occasional notions of causation through works by authors like Plotinus, Ficino, Aquinas, Suarez, Leibniz, Malebranche, Spinoza, Conway, and Newton.

SPAN G6148 Microliteratures: Writing on the Margins and the Location of Literacy (Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco) M 1:10 - 4:00

Readers use books margins to pencil their ideas about the texts they are reading. Writers comment on their own production, self-glossing their poetry or prose. Glosses and marginal commentaries, from the ordination of the text to the scientific grounds laid down by footnotes, evince the authority of institutions like academia itself. Industries, from university stationes--old models of university book production--to the Web 2.0 on the Internet, struggle to gain control of the uses, location, and dissemination of marginal spaces and texts. How did readers, writers, institutions, and industries become "solicitous of an ample margin" (Poe)? Why did they use these margins? What do all these individuals and collectives seek in the margin? These are some of the framing questions for this seminar. To address the issues encompassed we will focus on the study of glossed manuscripts and printed books created during the Middle Ages, the Early Modern period, and the Colonial period. The examination of these manuscripts and printed books will allow us to advance theses and conclusions about the use of margins as a means to develop new kinds of literacy that transform cultures and create new public spheres. Although we will be dealing with old sources from the standpoint of material culture, we will also address contemporary issues related to the construction of new forms of literacy.