History

Alexander the Great in Manuscript Arts from the Medieval to the Early Modern Periods

mlillywhite@middlebury.edu — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:52:30 +0000

Alexander the Great in Manuscript Arts from the Medieval to the Early Modern Periods HARC 0701 mlillywhite@mi… Mon, 07/15/2024 - 10:52 Tutorials Classics History History of Art & Architecture Autumn 2025 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

This tutorial course is going to dwell on a single figure—Alexander the Great, or Iskandar Maqdūnī (the Macedonian) as he is known in Persian—in select manuscripts produced across Central Asia and Central Europe in the medieval (1000-1500) and early-modern (1450-1750) periods. Alexander was significant in different ways to different dynasties administering different regions and in different eras. Different versions of his biography had different appeal, and at different times. By associating themselves with the hero, different rulers emphasized different facets of Alexander in their patronage of manuscripts.

In addition to being a part of popular culture and common knowledge for millennia, Alexander’s recounted exploits have particularly resonated with royals and nobles sitting in English through Indonesian courts. The course highlights a few select illustrated texts—produced between the 13th through 16th centuries—in Greek, French, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. It is essential to consider each text within its own tradition, but placing them together also allows for a broader geographic and chronological scope that can also produce interesting comparisons of cross-cultural and trans-imperial significance.

Sessions will explore the interplay of a narrative’s ancient (often imagined) past taking place in the Greek Empire (ca. 4th century BCE), with the accreted layers of time periods in which the illustrated text is produced, read, or seen. Dwelling on Alexander’s reception in various courts and dynasties professing Christian and Islamic confessions (Franco-Flemish, Italian, Byzantine, Mongol, Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Abu’l-Khairid [Uzbek]), the course challenges the binaries of east and west, Christianity and Islam, through the universal appeal of the famous world conqueror. It will be of interest to students of literature, art history, religious history, culture and translation studies, medieval and early modern cultures, European and West/Central/South Asian history.

Sample Topics

Alexander as interpreted in the oldest texts and contexts: Greek, Syriac, Latin language sources, Biblical and Qur’anic versions.
New Persian and Old French—European Medieval traditions (13th-14th centuries) and early Persian literary versions (in the Shahnama, ca. 1010)
Alexander in the Byzantine and Mongol realms (13th-14th centuries.
Alexander in the Islamicate (Ottoman, Iranian, and Central Asian) realm (15th century), Turkish and Persian versions.
Alexander in the Islamicate (Ottoman, Iranian, and Central Asian) realm (16th century), Turkish and Persian versions.
Why Alexander? The appeal of superheroes.
Trip to the Weston Library to view manuscripts ((European and Turco-Persianate copies of the Alexander Romance).
Trip to British Library in London to view Old French Alexander manuscripts owned by Henry VIII, and Persian manuscript versions.

Revolutionaries in Nineteenth-Century Europe

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 21:27:29 +0000

Revolutionaries in Nineteenth-Century Europe HIST 0860 admin Wed, 01/13/2021 - 16:27 Seminars History Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025

Each seminar runs only if there is sufficient student demand. This seminar explores the cultural and intellectual context of European revolutionaries during the nineteenth century. It centres on the careers and writings of figures such as Benjamin Constant, Henri de St-Simon, Robert Blum, Robert Owen, George Sand, Giuseppe Mazzini, Karl Marx, and Frederick Engels. Between the French Revolution of 1789 and the 1871 Paris Commune, Europe was shaken by a series of political, social, economic and cultural revolutions. The emergence of national identities, the impact of industrialism and the erosion of old hierarchical structures were among the contributors to this instability. No aspect of traditional society, from monarchy and religious orthodoxy to farming techniques a nd family patriarchy, remained unquestioned. After 1871 and the unifications of Germany and Italy, the internal peace of Europe seemed to have bee n re-established under conservative governments. Europe’s economic and political dominance over the rest of the world was solidified in this period through the expansion of global empires. Yet beneath the appearance of stability, the sources of new upheavals continued to grow.

Sample Syllabus

Revolutions and revolutionaries
Constant and the French Revolution
Henri de St Simon
Robert Owen and Utopian Socialism
Robert Blum and 1848
Guiseppe Mazzini and the Risorgimento
Women and Revolution
The Paris Commune
Marx and Engels

Political Philosophy II

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Political Philosophy II PHIL/HIST/PSCI 0815 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Seminars History Philosophy Political Science Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Each seminar runs only subject to sufficient student demand. This seminar explores western political thought at a crucial period in its development, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. It centres on readings from key texts in political thought, informed by consideration of the wider historical and intellectual context. Among the major themes of the era were the religious strife generated by the Reformations, the intellectual aspiration for rationality, and the increasingly intensive governments developed by western European states, including their colonial ventures. (Foreign language texts are read in English translation: there is no language requirement for this course.)

Sample Syllabus

The Renaissance background
More and Erasmus
Reformation Political thought: Luther & Calvin
Jean Bodin
Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
David Hume, Political Essays
Adam Smith
Voltaire, Political Writings
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality and The Social Contract

Vikings, Saxons and Heroic Culture

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Vikings, Saxons and Heroic Culture HIST 0825/ENAM 0825/LITS 0825 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Seminars English & American Literature History Literary Studies Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Each seminar runs only subject to sufficient student demand. This seminar course explores early medieval heroic culture and beliefs from northern and western Europe, as presented in both older and later (West and North Germanic) literature and legend. It examines the historical background and related archaeological evidence as well as the ideological influences which shaped the texts. The seminar involves reading primary sources in translation.

Sample Syllabus:

Introduction to Viking Literature and Culture
The Gods - The Mythological Poems of the Poetic Edda
The Heroes - The Heroic Poems of the Poetic Edda; Völsunga saga (and its historical background)
The Saga - Gísla saga
Introduction to Old English Literature and Anglo-Saxon Culture
Legendary Heroes: Waldere, Widsith, Finnsburgh; Beowulf (with sources and analogues)
Historical Heroes: The Battle of Maldon, Brunnanburgh and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Christian Heroes: The Dream of the Rood, Edmund, Judith
The Hildebrandslied with Scandinavian/Old Irish/Middle English analogues
The Nibelungenlied

The Crusades

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

The Crusades HIST 0850 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Seminars History Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Each seminar runs only subject to sufficient student demand. According to the classic definition of the subject, the Crusades came to an end more than 700 years ago. Yet they remain important for understanding the rhetoric of conquest, power and resistance concerning the future of the modern Middle East. As a result, it is possible to argue that, of all medieval topics, the Crusades is the one that has retained the most resonance into the present day. This seminar series will focus on the ‘Age of the Crusades’, 1095-1291: this takes us from the First Crusade, which set out from western Europe to capture Jerusalem in 1099, to the final destruction of Latin Christian polities in the Levant in 1291. However, it will also examine the remarkable afterlife of the crusading movement, considering the shifts in the patterns of remembrance that reflect the interests and preoccupations of later periods.

Christianity and Science

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Christianity and Science RELI 0600 / HIST 0600 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials History Religion Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

This course examines relations between Christianity and the sciences in the western world, from the seventeenth century to the present. Christianity and science have often been presented as mutually hostile or incommensurable entities. However, a more nuanced and scholarly approach – drawing on readings in science, history and theology – reveals complexities that go beyond adversarial over-simplifications. Key scientific figures such as Galileo, Newton and Darwin cannot be understood independently of their Christian context, while Christian thinkers have responded creatively (as well as, at times, defensively) to the challenges of modern science.

English Reformation

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

English Reformation RELI 0220 / HIST 0220 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials History Religion Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Although far from isolated from the revolutionary currents of religious thought and practice which shook contemporary Europe, the English Reformation followed a distinctive course in which the needs and desires of successive rulers were a crucial factor. Yet neither King Henry VIII, nor any of his three children who succeeded him, had things entirely their own way, and English religious life was also moulded from below. As well as studying contemporary theological and other texts, students in this course will explore political and social ramifications of religious change with the aid of flourishing modern scholarship.

Sample Syllabus

The Late Medieval Church in England
The King’s Great Matter: Henry VIII’s Reformation
Protestant Reformation under Edward VI
An English Counter-Reformation?
The Elizabethan Settlement
Popular Religion in Reformation England
Reforming Art
The Reformation of Literature

Introductory Reading

Marshall, P., Reformation England, 1480–1642. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2^nd edn, 2012
Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400-c.1580. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2^nd edn, 2005
Haigh, C., English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993
MacCulloch, D., The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2^nd edn, 2001
Duffy, E. et al. (eds), The Church of Mary Tudor. Aldershot : Ashgate, 2006
King, J.N. (ed.), Voices of the English Reformation: A Sourcebook. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004

Catholic Reformation

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Catholic Reformation RELI 0140 / HIST 0140 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials History Religion Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

This course examines Catholic efforts to reform the Church that pre-dated the Reformation and the Council of Trent, challenging the pervasive narrative of the ‘Counter Reformation’ that views these efforts as purely reactionary to Protestantism. New devotional practices, varied approaches to the visual arts and music, and new articulations of doctrine meant that this period was one of the most dynamic, yet contested in the history of the Church. Spanning from the late 1400s to the end of the sixteenth-century, you will be introduced to debates on religious reform spearheaded by individuals including Savonarola; humanists such as Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam; prominent ecclesiastics such as Gasparo Contarini; as well as the laity (women as well as men), who played a vital role in instigating reform.

Reforming the Church before Luther
Erasmus, More and Catholic Humanism
The Spirituali
Convening the Council of Trent
Instigating Reform in the late Sixteenth Century
New Religious Orders
A New Aesthetic? Art, Architecture and Music

Introductory Reading

Laven, M. (et al.), eds, The Ashgate Research Companion to the Counter-Reformation. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2013.
Mullet, M.A., The Catholic Reformation. Abingdon: Routledge, 1999
Hsia, R. Po-chia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2^nd edn, 2005
O’Malley, J.W., Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2^nd edn, 2002
Luebke, D.M. (ed.), The Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999
C. Lindberg (ed.), The European Reformations Sourcebook. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000

Medieval English Mystics

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Medieval English Mystics RELI 0110 / ENAM 0110 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature History Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Some of the most profound and extraordinary spiritual works of the middle ages were written in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A combination of often horrifically troubled times, the desire for new forms of religion and a new immediacy of relation with God, and socio-economic and literary change contributed to the complex and fascinating picture; but these mystics were very remarkable individuals in their own right, and advocated very different approaches to Christian living and experience. This course therefore exploresnot only of their writings, but also of the context in which they arose.

Sample Syllabus

Literary & Historical Contexts
Richard Rolle’s Fire of Love
Rolle’s English Writings and Wider Influence
The Cloud of Unknowing
Dionise Hid Divinite and Other Cloud-related Treatises
Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection
Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love
Margery Kempe and her Book

Introductory Reading

Watson, N., ‘The Middle English Mystics’, in Wallace, D. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 539-65
Edwards, A.S.G. (ed.), A Companion to Middle English Prose. Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2004
Sutherland, A., ‘The Middle English Mystics’, in Lemon, R. et al. (eds), The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009
Glasscoe, M. (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England. Various publishers, 6 vols, 1980-99
Hudson, A. The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988
Windeatt, B. (ed.), English Mystics of the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007

The Western Church in the Middle Ages

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

The Western Church in the Middle Ages RELI 0070 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials History Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

This course explores the history of the church in western Europe from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. In some senses the notion of ‘the church’ as a single entity is misleading: there were a series of different ecclesiastical institutions, often pursuing conflicting interests. However, there was a strong cultural sense of ‘the church’, and in practical terms it became more unified under papal leadership in this era. The period also saw tremendous creativity in pastoral care, monasticism, intellectual life, the crusades, the birth of the friars, and responses to heresy.

Sample Syllabus

Papacy and Hierarchy
Regnum and Sacerdotium
The Saints
Popular Religion
Heresy and Heterodoxy
Building Heaven on Earth
Christian Scholars and Scholarship
Christendom and the Non-Christian World

Introductory Reading

Southern, R.W., Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, new edn, 1990
Brooke, R. & C., Popular Religion in the Middle Ages. London: Thames & Hudson, 1984
Hamilton, B. Religion in the Medieval West. London: Arnold, 2nd edn, 2003
Tierney, B. (ed.), The Crisis of Church and State, 1050-1300. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964
J. Shinners (ed.), Medieval Popular Religion, 1000-1500: A Reader. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2nd edn, 2009