Courses, Fall 2014
MEMS courses
MEM3300: Castles and Cloisters: An Introduction to Medieval Communities
Credits: 3. Web-based course. Professor Will Hasty
Cross-listed with GET 3930. A study of monastic and courtly-chivalric communities as these evolved in the Middle Ages. Explorations of architecture, art, literature and music illustrate how different monastic and chivalric communities saw the world and their place in it. (H and N)
The MEMS course sequence: MEM 3300: ‘Castles and Cloisters’ and MEM 3301 ‘Palaces and Cities,’ is the subject of a YouTube video in which Professors Mary Watt and Will Hasty discuss castles, cloisters, palaces, and cities. The video is an Open Ideas Production by Nicholas Cravey and Naomi Rivas, who were students in the course.
MEM3931 section 04D7: Samurai War Tales
Credits: 3. MWF per. 4. Professor Yumiko Hulvey
Cross-listed with JPT 3300. Explores the historical and cultural stimuli that led to war, recorded later as war narratives. Supported by images of architecture, narrative picture scrolls, and extant military accoutrements. (H and N)
MEM4931 sec. 2E20. Dante’s Inferno
MWF per. 4. Professor Mary Watt
Cross-listed with ITW 4600. Semester-long, in-depth examination of Dante Alighieri’s text, Inferno, with the support of a variety of visual materials and digital resources devoted to Dante and his world. Special attention paid to the political, historical and religious context in which Dante wrote. Taught in Italian.
Of interest in other departments:
ARH4200 Early Medieval and Byzantine Art
Credits: 3; Prereq: ARH 2050, and art major or art history minor. Prof. Ashley Jones.
The art and architecture of Europe and the Mediterranean region from approximately the 4th to the 14th centuries A.D. (H and N)
ARH4310 Early Renaissance Art in Italy
Credits: 3; Prereq: ARH 2050 and ARH 2051, and art major or art history minor. Professor Elizabeth Ross.
Italian art from 1200 to 1500. Emphasis upon painting and sculpture. (H and N)
Note: the English department offers 3-credit surveys of English literature to 1750 (ENL2012) and World Literature to 1700 (LIT2110).
ENL4333: Shakespeare’s Histories
Credits: 3 . Professor Peter Rudnytsky
This course will focus on Shakespeare’s “second tetralogy,” that is, the sequence of Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V. We will, in addition, read two other plays, probably King John and Henry VIII, believed by most scholars to be coauthored with John Fletcher. The emphasis will be on close reading, informed by a psychoanalytic and feminist perspective. Course requirements are a midterm, final, and one five-page paper. Regular attendance and active participation in class discussions are also expected.
LIT4930: Shakespeare
Credits: 3 . Professor R. Allen Shoaf
This course will be devoted to the ten tragedies Shakespeare wrote in his career, with especial attention to three factors: his transformation of the genre (most especially in King Lear); the rhetorics he renewed (e.g., pun) or refined (e.g., synoeciosis; paradox) to articulate his tragic vision; and his response to the sacramentality of nature that enabled him to comprehend and mourn humans’ catastrophic denials and perversions of nature, sexual nature in particular, in consequence of which self-inflicted optionlessness must lead inevitably to the end of the human.
EUH2000: Western Civilization: From Early Times to the Middle Ages
Credits: 3. Andrew J.Welton.
An introduction to western civilization that studies the early cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Minoan-Mycenaean society, Greece, the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire to the Barbarian invasions. (H and N)
EUH3432: Early Medieval Italy
Credits: 3; Prereq: 3 credits of history. Professor Florin Curta.
A survey of economic, social and political developments in the Italian peninsula between 800 and 1100. See http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/fcurta/Italy.html
EUH4930 sec. 033H: Catastrophes in the Middle Ages
Credits: 3. Professor Florin Curta
See http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/fcurta/Catastrophe.html for more information.
EUH4930 sec. 0425: Christianity and the Body
Credits: 3. Professor Bonnie Effros
IDH 3931 sec. 2A22: The Decameron: We Found Love in a Hopeless Place
Credits: 1. Professor Mary Watt. W per. 5.
Song of Songs Seminar—MUH 4930/MUH 6935
Credits: 1. Prof. Jennifer Thomas. T 9-11
A small set of erotic love poems tucked into the Old Testament has for centuries aroused interest among literary and Biblical scholars. Why was the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon or Canticles) ever included in the Bible? How can its Biblical context be rationalized? The evocative poetry has attracted interpretations that read the texts as the dialogue of lovers, of Christ and his church, or of God and Israel, among others. The texts have been incorporated into the Roman Catholic liturgy, particularly in Marian contexts. Musical settings of the poetry span the gamut from plainchant to contemporary choral settings. The literature surrounding the Song of Songs encapsulates the values and needs of humans to find meaning and beauty in the love of God and in human love. What can the musical settings of these texts tell us about how musicians of the time interpreted the poetry?
The seminar will include weekly readings and discussion, frequent short essays, listening and musical analysis, and a significant paper on a topic of interest to the student.
SPW3100: Intro to Spanish Literature
Credits: 3; Prereq: SPN 3300 or SPN 3350, or the equivalent. Professor Shifra Armon.
Selected readings in epic, lyric, ballad and popular poetry, early forms of recreational and didactic prose and dramatic works from Spain’s Medieval and Golden Ages are presented with attention to form and historical context. (H and N)
SPW4604: Don Quixote
Credits: 3; Prereq: any one 3000-level SPW course or the equivalent. Professor Shifra Armon.
A close reading of Cervantes’ masterpiece that emphasizes the origins of the modern novel as a genre and its implication in the history of ideas.