Spring 2024

Women in World Literature: Literature by Women in Medieval Europe

CMLT-C340/MEST-M390 with Professor Rosemarie McGerr

Did you know a woman wrote the earliest plays we have from medieval Europe? This course explores many forms in which women in medieval Europe made their voices heard: lyric poems, plays, letters, vision accounts, romance narratives, allegorical narratives, and autobiography, in Greek, Latin, and Arabic, as well as Occitan, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The authors include saints and heretics, members of royal courts and of the merchant class, mothers and nuns. We will explore are how medieval women engaged with literary, feudal, and theological authority; and consider how their texts present concepts like gender, nobility, motherhood, and holiness, as well as questioning such categories. This course meets with CMLT-C523 (Medieval Literature), cross-listed with MEST M502.

Chaucer

ENG-L305/MEST-M390 with Professor Shannon Gayk

Chaucer's writing has inspired, amused, instructed, and scandalized readers for centuries. Although the Canterbury Tales is, by any measure, a work of creative genius, most of its stories are not original to Chaucer. We will examine how Chaucer creatively appropriated earlier literature to create some of the most remarkably innovative poetry of the Middle Ages. We will situate his poetry in larger contexts, attending to the dynamic interaction between literary appropriation and innovation. We will also look at how Chaucer's stories have been retold in modern film, fiction, and poetry. Assignments include quizzes, several short projects, and a final course essay.

Manichean Middle Persian and Parthian

CEUS-T356/656 with Professor Jamsheed Choksy

The course provides an introduction to the alphabets, grammar, vocabulary, reading, translation, and analysis of texts in Manichean Middle Persian and Parthian. Students will be taught the grammatical and lexical differences that distinguish Manichean Middle Persian and Parthian, and will be taught to read, translate, and analyze basic Manichean Middle Persian and Parthian texts. Readings for the semester will be chosen by the instructor from manuscripts and manuscript fragments to introduce students to religious and social materials from the third century through twelfth century CE. Regions covered include Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Central Asia.

Medieval Civilization

HIST-H206 with Professor Deborah Deliyannis

The Middle Ages spanned more than a thousand years, from approximately 400 to 1500 AD, and included many different political, religious, cultural, and ethnic communities. This class introduces the history of the Middle Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean through its culture and ways of life. Because the period to be covered is so vast, we focus on seven moments in time and space that are representative of some of the communities of the Middle Ages. We examine villages and towns, manor houses and cities, and for each, we will consider who lived in the community, what activities they took part in, what the community looked like physically, and what aspects of medieval life, politics, religion, and culture are represented there.

Imperial Old Tibetan: The Language of the Tibetan Empire

CEUS-T373/673 with Professor Christopher I. Beckwith

Imperial Old Tibetan is the language of the Tibetan Empire, a contemporary of the Frankish Kingdom/Empire. (Both realms fought with and against the Arab Empire--on the eastern side and western side respectively--and both broke up with a civil war over the succession, beginning in almost the same year, 842 and 840 respectively). Tibetan is a Tibeto-Burman language and Imperial Old Tibetan is typologically interesting for its unusual phonology. There is a substantial, very interesting literature in the language, which developed into both Late Old Tibetan and Classical Tibetan. The course teaches the alphabetic writing system, phonology, and grammar, using several well-known Old Tibetan texts: mainly a story from ca. 850 and the Old Tibetan Annals (649/650 to 764), plus one short imperial inscription and excerpts from others, and at least part of the Shorter Heart Sutra (9th century). No previous knowledge of Tibetan is required. This section meets with CEUS-T673.

The Medieval Studies Institute

Spring 2024

Women in World Literature: Literature by Women in Medieval Europe

Chaucer

Manichean Middle Persian and Parthian

Medieval Civilization

Imperial Old Tibetan: The Language of the Tibetan Empire

The College of Arts & Sciences

Spring 2024

Women in World Literature: Literature by Women in Medieval Europe

Chaucer

Manichean Middle Persian and Parthian

Medieval Civilization

Imperial Old Tibetan: The Language of the Tibetan Empire

Medieval Studies Institute social media channels

The College of Arts & Sciences