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Graduate Course Offerings for Fall 2008

MVGA 0910             Maintenance-Medieval      0 Credits               (Staff)                                                                                
MVGA 8500             Independent Research       2 Credits                (Staff)                                  
MVGA 8501             Independent Research       1 Credit                  (Staff)                                    

MVGA 5070   (4)   Manuscript Culture     (Hafner/Rowe)                                                                                                        T 4:45-7:15
In the age before print every book was a unique production, hand-crafted to suit the needs and expectations of its audience. The texts, images and material qualities of the medieval manuscript provide a window on to the social and cultural history of the Middle Ages. In this course we will examine manuscript culture from the third through the fifteenth centuries, with particular attention to issues of textual transmission and illuminated adornment. Issues examined will include: the transition from roll to codex format in the early Christian period; the editorial task of the medieval scribe; the place of illuminated manuscripts in monastic culture and Christian missionizing; the enthusiasm for secular romances in the twelfth century and later; the development of the Book of Hours and its role in lay devotion in the fifteenth century; the place of reading in female religious and social life. The course will include visits to local manuscript libraries including Special Collections at Fordham, the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Columbia University and the Morgan Library & Museum.
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ENGA 5222 (3)        Medieval Literature           (TBA)                                                                                                              M 5:30-7:30

ENGA  6231   (3)   Late Medieval Women: Reading, Texts, Audience        (Erler)                                                                    R 5:30-7:30
This course will study women as producers and consumers of literature, that is, as writers and readers. Instead of examining women as subjects of literary representation, we will use non-literary disciplines—social history, bibliography, iconography—to recover elements of women’s lives in order to understand their involvement with reading. In addition, material evidence in surviving books (gift inscriptions or ownership marks) can reveal a readership of heterodox and orthodox women, of anchoresses, vowesses, nuns and laywomen for these almost exclusively religious texts. Like much current medieval scholarship, the class will employ cultural perspectives in which literature, history, and visual materials illuminate each other.

HSGA  6076   (4)   Noble Culture & Society             (Paul)                                                                                                      W 5:30-8:00
The period between the end of effective Carolingian rule in Western Europe and the flowering of high medieval culture (c. 900-1200) saw the rise of a new and exclusive elite class. Not only did this “noble” class dominate the political landscape through lordship, but they also acted as the main patrons and consumers of courtly culture, supporters of orthodox and heretical religious movements, and adherents of the military codes of chivalry. This course will explore the recent scholarship on the nobility, including arguments surrounding the supposed feudal and familial transformations that created the noble class, theories on the birth of courtliness and chivalry, and discussions of the changing nature of noble society following the “crises” caused first by the rise of royal power in the thirteenth century and then by the emergence of a wealthy merchant class in the later middle ages.

HSGA  6130   (4)   Medieval Religious Movements              (Mueller)                                                                                    F 4:45-7:15
From the eleventh century, the growth of trade and urbanization led to the diversification of religious sensibilities in the West. The institutional church began to monitor Christian behavior more closely, and the faithful responded to changing lifestyles with novel forms of spirituality. Cistercians ‘sanctified’ colonization, military orders Western expansion, and mendicants the needs of the urban poor, while many women joined groups of female religious in search of ‘respectable’ identities outside of family and marriage. Not everyone fit within the orthodox framework, having to face heresy charges instead. Medieval Religious Movements will offer a forum for discussion of important historiography on the subject.
  
HSGA 7150   (4)   PSM: Medieval England          (Kowaleski)                                                                                                  M 2:30-5:00
This is the first half of a year-long course that focuses on the social, economic, and administrative history of England from the eleventh through fifteenth centuries. Special emphasis is placed upon 1) how to identify and exploit a wide variety of primary sources (such as wills, cartularies, court rolls, account rolls, chronicles, among others); 2) how to use major historical collections (such as Rolls Series, VCH, Record Commissioners, Royal Historical Manuscripts Commission, the Ordnance Survey, Selden Society, and others); and 3) gaining an awareness of the regions and landscape of medieval England, as well as the contributions of historical geography. Besides treating thematic issues such as the church and society, law and legal system, the growth of government and administration, maritime trade and industry in town and country, the weekly discussions will also consider economy among the peasantry, townspeople, and the landowning elite.

PHGA 5000   (3)   Natural Law Ethics           (Koterski)                                                                                                         M 2:00-4:00
A study of the principles of natural law ethics and its applications to selected current moral problems. The course includes a treatment of the historical origins of the theory of natural law, with special emphasis on the relevant texts of Thomas Aquinas from the Summa Theologiae. Among topics treated will be the relation of morality to positive law and to divine law, the nature and limits of authority, the common good, the nature of the human person, virtue and vice, and such principles as subsidiary, double effect, and finality.

PHGA 7074   (3)   Medieval Intent & Cognition          (Klima)                                                                                                 F 2:00-4:00
This course will provide a broad survey of the conceptual relationships between intentionality, cognition and mental representation as conceived by some of the greatest medieval philosophers, including Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham and Buridan, and some of their lesser known contemporaries. The clarification of these conceptual connections sheds some light not only on the intriguing historical relationships between medieval and modern thought on these issues, but also on some fundamental questions in the philosophy of mind as it is conceived today. Topics to be discussed will involve: the“demarcation” of mental and physical phenomena, intentionality and representation in non-cognitive subjects, the intentionality of cognitive representation, sensory vs. intellectual cognition, the idea of a mental language, the ontological status of “mental objects”, the materiality or immateriality of mental acts, the nature of the human intellect, and possible non-human forms of cognition.

RSGA 6359   (3)   North African Christianity              (Tilley)                                                                                                   W 1:00-3:00
This course will treat early Christianity in North Africa (excluding Egypt) before Augustine. Readings will come from hagiography, conciliar documents, Tertullian, Cyprian, the pseudo-Cyprianic corpus, and Donatist writings. Some attention will be paid to archaeology. Requirements include a book report, midterm and final exams, and a term paper.

RSGA 6449   (3)   12th Century Scholasticism              (Harkins)                                                                                               T 1:00-3:00
This graduate seminar will provide a detailed study of the innovative method of learning that developed in the new urban schools of western Europe during “the long twelfth century” (c. 1050-1215) in the larger context of the social, political, economic, and religious changes that together constitute the “renaissance of the twelfth century.”  We will concern ourselves primarily with the scholastic study of God and the development of theology as a “science” or academic discipline.  Emphasis will be on the reading and analysis of primary texts by such seminal thinkers as Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, the Victorines, Anselm of Laon, and Peter Lombard.  One major paper and presentation required.

RSGA 6633 (3) Mary in Christian Tradition               (Daley)                                                                                                 W 3:15-5:15
Although the Gospel is centrally focused on Jesus, crucified and risen, Christians since earliest times have shown a special interest in his mother Mary - not only for biographical reasons, but out of the clear sense that her holiness, and her free assent to his coming, play a central role in the story of salvation.  Mary has played a distinctive role in the articulation of major points of Christian doctrine, and has also been the focus for a great deal of homiletic and devotional literature, Christian art and poetry, and liturgical development.  In this course, we will study a representative selection of the main works that reveal the development of reflection on Mary's place in the Christian Mystery, from the New Testament through the present, and see her emergence as the personal representative of saved humanity, the "type of the Church." 

FRGA 5090   (0)   French for Reading          (Harris)                                                                                                                T 4:15-6:45
GEGA 5001  (0)   German for Reading          (Hafner)                                                                                                         TF 11:30-12:45

Summer Courses 2008:

MVGA 5215   (4)   Women’s Voices in Medieval France   (Dudash)                                                                                  I, TR 3:00-6:30
In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will explore a variety of texts by and about medieval French women of diverse social milieu: those penned by the Italian-born Christine de Pizan, a member of the French royal circle; those concerning the rural maid and French national savior, Joan of Arc; and those recording the religious, fantastical, and/or mythical experience of woman of 12-15th c. France. Readings will include a selection of historical, political, literary, polemic, and/or religious texts, film, and contemporary scholarship.
LAGA 5093  (3)   Ecclesiastical Latin   (Clark)                                                                                                             II, MW 6:00-9:00
Study of the grammatical structure, form, and vocabulary of Church Latin, focusing on the Bible, the Church Fathers, and medieval thinkers.
LAGA 5090  (0)   Latin for Reading (at LC)   (Owesny)                                                                                                I, MW 6:00-9:00
FRGA 5090  (0)   French for Reading  (Hays)                                                                                                                I, TR 1:00-4:00 
ITGA 5090  (0)   Italian for Reading  (Sciarrone)                                                                                                           I, TR 6:00-9:00 
SPGA 5090  (0)   Spanish for Reading  (Hoar)                                                                                                               I, MW 6:00-9:00
 
Courses planned For Spring 2009:
MVGA/PHGA 5024                    Medival Political Thought                         (Baumgarth/Cullen)                              F 1:30-4:00 
ENGA 5220                                Medieval Drama                                       (Fiondella)                                          W 5:30-7:30
ENGA 5264                                Chaucer                                                   (TBA)                                                  T 3:30-5:30
HSGA 6020                                Early Med Relig, Soc, & Culture               (Mueller)                                             F 4:30-7:00
HSGA 6024                                Medieval Chronicles                                  (Gyug)                                               W 5:30-8:00           
HSGA 8150                                Sem: Medieval England                             (Kowaleski)                                        M 2:30-5:00
PHGA 5010                                Intro to Thomas Aquinas                           (Davies)                                              M 7:00-9:00
PHGA 5012                                Intro to Augustine                                      (Cullen)                                              M 4:30-6:30
RSGA 6465                                Asceticism and Monasticism                      (Lienhard)                                           R 1:00-3:00
GEGA 5002: German for Reading (II)       (Hafner)   AND FRGA 5090: French for Reading (Harris)

Spring 2008Courses

Last modified: April 17, 2008
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