Spring 2014

ENL 4311 – MEM 4931: Chaucer

Richard Allen Shoaf

ENL 4311 Spring 2014 “Chaucer” will cover all of TROILUS AND CRISEYDE, some of the shorter poems, and about half of the CANTERBURY TALES. Two examinations and one essay will be required, in addition to quizzes that monitor the reading, some of which will be in Middle English. There is no final examination.

EUH 3383: Pagans, Christians, Barbarians: The World of Late Antiquity

Andrea Sterk

Between classical and medieval, pagan and Christian, Roman and barbarian, the late antique world was a civilization in transition.  This course will focus on the Mediterranean region from the end of the second to the beginning of the seventh century.  We will examine political, cultural, religious and socio-economic transitions that characterized this period looking at elements of continuity as well as change.  We will consider the significance of such factors as the conversion of Constantine, the rise of Constantinople, Christian responses to culture, the monastic movement, the persistence of paganism, the fall of Rom e, barbarian invasions, Christianization, and developments in philosophy, theology and education.

Richard Allen Shoaf

LIT 4930 Spring 2014 “Dante for English Majors” will cover the VITA NUOVA, DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA, the “rime petrose” (“stony rimes” to the “stony Lady”), and all three canticles of the COMMEDIA. Three papers are required, one on each canticle of the COMMEDIA. Students will be expected to involve at least one major British poet influenced by Dante in at least one of the three essays: Chaucer, Milton, Shelley, Eliot, Heaney, e.g. There is no final examination.

William Calin  (LLC)

The tradition of sacred literature is crucial to our understanding the history of Western culture yet it is often neglected in contemporary literary studies. This course will scrutinize Christian-oriented books and the writer; the meeting of and tension between the sacred and the secular; how a Christian vision shapes feudal epic, Arthurian romance, and classical tragedy and comedy. Readings in English. Conducted in English.

Yumiko Hulvey

The main objective of the course is to introduce prose masterpieces of the classical Japanese literary canon from the Heian (794-1185), Kamakura (1185-1333), Muromachi (1336-1573), Azuchi-Momoyama (1573-1600), and Edo (1600-1867) periods. Study of literary genres, fictional and non-fictional categories, and gendered differences form the core of reading materials. Supplemental readings in literary criticism and literary history provide the framework for analyzing the classical Japanese canon and function as models for academic writing of student-authored essays.
This is a NOT a Gordon Rule class, but fulfills the Humanities (H) and International (N) general education distribution requirements.

Yumiko Hulvey

The Tale of Genji is a masterpiece of Japanese literature, written by a woman known as Murasaki Shikibu. In many ways, the Genji represents the essence of an aristocratic culture that is unfamiliar to Japanese and non-Japanese who consider the past in Japan equivalent to the Tokugawa or Edo period (1600-1867). Heian-period (794-1185) Kyoto was inhabited by a small aristocratic class exemplified by an elegant, sensitive male as the idealized hero of this masterpiece and era. Primary objectives are first to read the precursor to The Tale of Genji, the poetic memoir (nikki), The Gossamer Diary written by Michitsuna’s mother, who influenced the author of The Tale of Genji; next we read the masterpiece, the Genji, that influenced subsequent generations of fiction monogatari), drama, and the like; and finally we read the 20th century novel, Masks by Enchi Fumiko, based entirely on The Tale of Genji for its inspiration. Secondary objectives are to focus on genre development: nikki, monogatari (tales), uta (poetry) and sub-categories of consideration such as fictional vs. factual, public vs. private, formal vs. informal, and so on. We will foster meaningful cross-cultural communication skills by focusing on class and gender distinctions prevalent in classical Japanese culture. Knowledge about the origin of Japanese tradition and culture in the classical period is the necessary foundation for a proper interpretation of modern and postmodern Japan. This class fulfills the Humanities (H) and International (N) requirements, but it does not meet Gordon Rule.

Judy Shoaf

Starting with Geoffrey Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain around 1138, stories of King Arthur became immensely popular all through Western Europe. Almost as quickly, skeptical historians were shaking their heads, declaring that there never had been an Arthur or at least that not everything written about Arthur was true. Arthur is still today the “once and future king” around whom form political ideals and satires, historical propositions and archaeological efforts, and entertaining tales in all media.

In this course we will focus primarily on the medieval Arthur, with opportunities to consider later versions. We begin with some of the British/Welsh sources Geoffrey used to create his King Arthur, but most of our time will be devoted to reading medieval stories about Arthur written in England and France, including excerpts from Geoffrey’s History, a romance of Chretien de Troyes, the English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, portions of the French Lancelot-Graal and of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, and a bit of Tennyson. Student projects will help fill in the artistic and imaginative efforts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will be expected to keep up with the reading and do some writing in addition to the final project.

Will Hasty

This course enables understanding of a new kind of European culture taking shape in palaces and cities, the outlines of which were already visible in medieval castles and cloisters.  The new operant principle in cultural processes is the primacy of individuality and the individual, and the more or less implicit assumption that individual things or cultural domains – such as politics, theology, poetry, economics, etc. – have to be understood first and foremost as functioning according to intrinsic principles. Students discover that it is in residential palaces and cities that the principle of individuality is cultivated as nowhere else and to such a degree, that the early modern world – after numerous indispensable technological enhancements – eventually becomes the modern one in which we live today.