Course Offerings (CAS Bulletin)
The following is a sampling of courses specifically designed for the Program in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Interdisciplinary Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Studies
V65.0991,0992 Offered every semester. 4 points.
Each semester, the course is devoted to a topic chosen for its interdisciplinary character. Recent offerings have included The Bible in the Middle Ages; Renaissance Libraries; Millenarianism; 1497-1498: The Renaissance at Full Tilt; Visions of Medieval History; The Age of Chivalry; The World of the Celts; Apocalypse, Then: Visions of the End in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; Journey in Medieval Christian Theology; Interpreting the Medieval World; Idealization and Satire in the Sixteenth Century; The 12th-Century Renaissance; The Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages; Christian Culture in the Middle Ages; Literature and Culture of the Renaissance; Renaissance Monarchy; Medieval and Renaissance Travel Journals; and The Structure of Knowledge in the Renaissance.
Studies in Medieval Culture
V65.0985,0986 Offered regularly. 4 points.
This course, varying in content from term to term, focuses on special themes. Recent offerings include Love, Marriage, and the Family in Medieval Europe; Medieval Peasantry; Medieval Architecture at the Cloisters; The Medieval Manuscript and the Book of Hours; Medieval Theatre; The Wisdom Tradition; Medieval Literature in the Movies; Law and Moral Issues in Medieval Philosophy; Martyrs, Mystics, and Prophets; Happiness in the Christian Middle Ages; The Medieval Book: Materials, Forms, and Uses; and Two Medieval Minds.
Studies in Renaissance Culture
V65.0995,0996 Offered regularly. 4 points.
This course, varying in content from term to term, focuses on special themes. Recent offerings include Love in the Renaissance; French Women Writers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; Classics in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Pagan Mythology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Renaissance Philosophy; and Renaissance 2000 (Telecourse).
Topics in Medieval Studies
V65.0983,0984 Offered regularly. 4 points.
Varies in content from term to term, focusing on special themes. Recent offerings include Tolkien and Lewis: The Medievalist's Answer to Modernism; Religion and Identity in Medieval Europe; The Kiss; Gothic Romance; Music and Cosmology; Poets, Patrons, and Public in Medieval Lyric; Gender Issues in the Art of the Middle Ages; Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages; Doomsday: The Last Judgment in Medieval Culture; Medieval Minstrels; Angels; Sexual Transgression in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Saints: Lore and Legend; The Troubadours: Lyrics, Love, and War; Early Irish Art; The Middle Ages at the Movies; and The Medieval Book (held at the Pierpont Morgan Library).
Topics in Renaissance Studies
V65.0993,0994 Offered regularly. 4 points.
Varies in content from term to term, focusing on special themes. Recent offerings include The Court Masque and Renaissance Politics; Mary and Popular Religion; Material Culture of the Renaissance; Renaissance Fools and Foolery; Shakespeare and Chivalry; A Renaissance of Curiosity: Travel Books, Maps, and Marvels; and The Printed Book in the Renaissance (held at the New York Public Library).
Acting Medieval Literature
V65.0868 Identical to V45.0868, H28.0732. Vitz. Offered regularly. 4 points.
Presents medieval literature as a set of springboards to performance rather than as a series of books to be read. In this strongly perfor-mance-oriented course, students approach this "literature" as works that were acted out, sung, and narrated from memory as part of a storytelling tradition. Students are invited to draw on their dramatic and musical skills and interests, and stage medieval works. For their final project, students participate in staging and putting on a play, perform a substantial piece of narrative poetry, sing or play a body of medieval songs, or perform a similar related activity. Works studied/performed include songs of the troubadours and trouvères; The Song of Roland; Chrétien de Troyes's romance, Yvain; French fabliaux; and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Don Quixote
V65.0371 Dopico-Black. 4 points.
A reading of Cervantes's Don Quixote that explores its privileged position as the first modern novel while also attending to the rich and complex historical context from which it emerged.
Arthurian Legend
V65.0800 Identical to V29.0825, V41.0717, V45.0813, V90.0800. Offered regularly. 4 points.
Beginning with early stories of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, the course focuses on masterpieces of French, English, and German medieval literature. Through the European literary tradition, students examine larger problems of the development of medieval literature: the conception of history, the rise of the romance genre, the themes of courtly love, the code of chivalry, and philosophical and theological questions as the Arthurian material is developed through the stories of the Holy Grail.
The Civilization and Culture of the Middle Ages
V65.0011 Identical to V57.0011. Bedos-Rezak, Griffiths. Offered every year. 4 points.
Concentrates on the culture of medieval Europe, a world that produced castles and crusades, cathedrals and tapestries, mystery plays and epics, and plainsong and philosophy. Examines the richness and diversity of medieval creativity through lectures, class discussions, literature, slides, and museum visits.
The Culture and Literature of the Renaissance
V65.0311 Identical to V45.0311. Zezula. Offered infrequently. 4 points.
Concentrates on the culture of Renaissance Europe. Examines the richness and diversity of Renaissance creativity through lectures, class discussions, literature, and slides.
Dante and His World
V65.0801 Identical to V41.0143, V59.0160. Ardizzone, Freccero. Offered every two to three years. 4 points.
Interdisciplinary introduction to late medieval culture, using Dante, its foremost literary artist, as a focus. Attention is directed at literature, art, and music, in addition to political, religious, and social developments of the time. Emphasizes the continuity of Western tradition, especially the classical background of medieval culture and its transmission to the modern world.
The Medieval and Renaissance Love Lyric
V65.0420 Offered infrequently. 4 points.
The courtly love lyric, one of the most enduring genres of Western literature, portrayed love as an experience ranging from a degrading passion to an ennobling force, often crucial to poetic inspiration. The course traces the medieval love lyric from its beginnings in 11th-century Provençal through its developments in Latin, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Examines how the themes and conventions of this lyric are transformed in the Renaissance by such major love poets as Petrarch, Sidney, Shakespeare, and Donne.
Medieval Theatre
V65.0712 Offered infrequently. 4 points.
Survey of medieval theatre in Europe, the plays and their contexts in the church, courts, and carnival. A study of the plays themselves, ranging from mystery plays to farces, and a look at techniques of staging and accounts of festive celebrations. Includes videos and attendance at live performances. Texts are taught in translation.
Medieval Technology and Everyday Life
V65.0003 Gans. Offered regularly. 2 points.
Gives a tour of the mills, factories, schools, travel technology, cathedral builders, miners, merchants, masons, weavers, and nobles of the Middle Ages. Examines the impact of new technology on the lives of both the rich and the ordinary, men, women, and children, and on medieval beliefs and politics. Also looks at the start of the process that propelled Western Europe from a pastoral backwater to the dominant region of the globe. No background in medieval history or science/technology is needed for this course.
Passion and Desire in the Middle Ages
V65.0961 Identical to V29.0961, V45.0214, V90.0250. Vitz. Offered regularly. 2 points.
Study of the kinds of loves and desires portrayed in medieval literature: passionate love; refined "courtly" love; sexual or "carnal" love; love of kin; love of country; love of God. Discusses how literary genres can be largely defined by the nature of the desires represented, explores medieval theorists' views of human love, and investigates the conflicts among different kinds of love for medieval people.
Philosophy in the Middle Ages
V65.0060 Identical to V83.0025. Offered regularly. 4 points.
Study of major medieval philosophers, their issues, schools, and current philosophic interests. Includes, among others, Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.
The Saints: Lore and Legend
V65.0365 Identical to V45.0365. Vitz. Offered infrequently. 2 points.
Focuses on the saint as a major figure in Western culture. Examines definitions of holiness and models of sanctity in the Old and New Testaments and in the early Christian church, then explores the important role played by saints in medieval culture and beyond. Topics considered include the theology of devotion to the saints and to the Virgin Mary in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, determination of sainthood, and gender differences among saints. Uses literary, historical, artistic, and religious documents.
Independent Study
V65.0997,0998 Prerequisite: written permission of the director of the program. Counts toward majors and minors only. May not duplicate the content of a regularly scheduled course. 1 to 4 points per term.
Internships
V65.0980,0981 Prerequisite: written permission of the director of the program. Counts toward majors and minors only. Majors and minors may find internships that can be related to medieval and Renaissance studies. A faculty director is appointed and the student writes a substantial report for 1 to 4 points of academic credit for independent study.
Senior Honors Seminar
V65.0998 Prerequisite: permission of the director of undergraduate studies. Open only to majors. Offered in the fall. 4 points.
Provides an opportunity for graduating seniors majoring in medieval and renaissance studies who have excelled academically to engage in a substantial, original research project on a topic related to their major field(s) of study and chosen by them in consultation with a faculty adviser and the director of undergraduate studies. It introduces students to appropriate critical methodologies, to the tools available in Bobst Library for advanced research, to the field standards for preparing research papers (forms of documentation, citation, and bibliography), and to current theories in the field of literary and cultural criticism.
Honors Independent Study
V65.0999 Prerequisite: permission of the director of undergraduate studies and completion of V65.0998. Offered in the spring. Open only to majors. 4 points.
Students meet regularly with their faculty advisers as they complete the research and writing of the 40-page senior honors thesis.
CROSS-LISTED COURSES
The following courses in individual disciplines are regularly offered at New York University. They are cross-listed with medieval and Renaissance studies and can count toward its majors and minors. Courses marked with an asterisk (*) must be approved by the director of the program to count toward the major or minor. See departments for course descriptions.
For cross-listed electives offered in study abroad programs via the Office of Global Programs, see the class directory. Approval of the director of the program is required to count other study abroad courses toward the major or minor.
ART HISTORY
*Art in the Islamic World
V65.0098 Identical to V43.0540. 4 points.
Medieval Art
V65.0200 Identical to V43.0004. 4 points.
Art of the Early Middle Ages
V65.0201 Identical to V43.0201. 4 points.
Romanesque Art
V65.0202 Identical to V43.0202. 4 points.
Gothic Art in Northern Europe
V65.0203 Identical to V43.0203. 4 points.
Art and Architecture in the Age of Giotto: Italian Art, 1200-1420
V65.0204 Identical to V43.0204. 4 points.
Renaissance Art
V65.0333 Identical to V43.0005. 4 points.
European Architecture of the Renaissance
V65.0301 Identical to V43.0301. 4 points.
*Architecture in Europe in the Age of Grandeur
V65.0302 Identical to V43.0302. 4 points.
The Century of Jan van Eyck
V65.0303 Identical to V43.0303. 4 points.
Italian Renaissance Sculpture
V65.0305 Identical to V43.0305. 4 points.
Early Masters of Italian Renaissance Painting
V65.0306 Identical to V43.0306. 4 points.
The Age of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo
V65.0307 Identical to V43.0307. 4 points.
The Golden Age of Venetian Painting
V65.0308 Identical to V43.0308. 4 points.
Italian Art in the Age of the Baroque
V65.0309 Identical to V43.0309. 4 points.
Dutch and Flemish Painting 1600-1700
V65.0311 Identical to V43.0311. 4 points.
French Art: Renaissance to Rococo, 1520-1770
V65.0313 Identical to V43.0313. 4 points.
*History of Western Art I
V65.0001 Identical to V43.0001. 4 points.
CLASSICS
Medieval Latin
V65.0824 Identical to V27.0824. 4 points.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Masterpieces of Renaissance Literature
V65.0017 Identical to V29.0151. 4 points.
ENGLISH
*History of Drama and Theatre I
V65.0127 Identical to V41.0125, V30.0110. 4 points.
British Literature I
V65.0210 Identical to V41.0210. 4 points.
Medieval Visionary Literature
V65.0321 Identical to V41.0309. 4 points.
Medieval Literature in Translation
V65.0310 Identical to V41.0310. 4 points.
Colloquium: Chaucer
V65.0320 Identical to V41.0320. 4 points.
16th-Century English Literature
V65.0400 Identical to V41.0400. 4 points.
Shakespeare I, II
V65.0410,0411 Identical to V41.0410,0411. 4 points.
Colloquium: Shakespeare
V65.0415 Identical to V41.0415. 4 points.
*17th-Century English Literature
V65.0440 Identical to V41.0440. 4 points.
Colloquium: The Renaissance Writer
V65.0445 Identical to V41.0445. 4 points.
Colloquium: Milton
V65.0450 Identical to V41.0450. 4 points.
Topics: Medieval Literature
V65.0953 Identical to V41.0950. 4 points.
Topics: Renaissance Literature
V65.0954 Identical to V41.0951. 4 points.
*Topics: 17th-Century British Literature
V65.0955 Identical to V41.0952. 4 points.
FRENCH
*Topics in French Culture
V65.0864 (in English), V65.0965 (in French) Identical to V45.0865 (in English), V45.0965 (in French). 4 points.
*Topics in French Literature
V65.0869 (in English), V65.0969 (in French) Identical to V45.0868 (in English), V45.0968 (in French). 4 points.
HEBREW AND JUDAIC STUDIES
Jewish Philosophy in the Medieval World
V65.0425 Identical to V78.0425. 4 points.
Foundations of the Christian-Jewish Argument
V65.0160 Identical to V78.0106. 4 points.
Jewish Mysticism and Hasidism
V65.0430 Identical to V78.0430. 4 points.
The Jews in Medieval Spain
V65.0913 Identical to V78.0113. 4 points.
HISTORY
The Early Middle Ages
V65.0111 Identical to V57.0111. 4 points.
The Crusades
V65.0113 Identical to V57.0113. 4 points.
The High Middle Ages
V65.0114 Identical to V57.0114. 4 points.
The Renaissance
V65.0121 Identical to V57.0121. 4 points.
Gendering the Middle Ages
V65.0190 Identical to V57.0197. 4 points.
Seminar: Crusade and Trade: Western Expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, 11th to 15th Centuries
V65.0265 Identical to V57.0265. 4 points.
Seminar: Women in Medieval and Renaissance Europe
V65.0270 Identical to V57.0270. 4 points.
*Seminar: Topics in Early Modern Europe
V65.0279 Identical to V57.0279. 4 points.
ITALIAN
The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance
V65.0161 Identical to V59.0161. 4 points.
Dante's Divine Comedy
V65.0271 Identical to V59.0270. 4 points.
Boccaccio's Decameron
V65.0274 Identical to V59.0271. 4 points.
LINGUISTICS
Etymology
V65.0076 Identical to V61.0076. 4 points.
MIDDLE EASTERN AND ISLAMIC STUDIES
The Making of the Muslim Middle East, 600-1250
V65.0640 Identical to V77.0640. 4 points.
*The Ottoman Empire in World History
V65.0651 Identical to V77.0650. 4 points.
*Islam and the West
V65.0694 Identical to V77.0694, V57.0250. 4 points.
*Masterpieces of Islamic Literature in Translation
V65.0710 Identical to V77.0710. 4 points.
The Arabian Nights
V65.0714 Identical to V77.0716. 4 points.
The Sufis: Mystics of Islam
V65.0863 Identical to V90.0863, V77.0863. 4 points.
*Seminar: Introduction to Islamic Texts
V65.0720 Identical to V77.0720. 4 points.
*Seminar: Women and Islamic Law
V65.0783 Identical to V77.0783. 4 points.
MORSE ACADEMIC PLAN
Conversations of the West: Antiquity and Middle Ages
V55.0401 4 points.
Conversations of the West: Antiquity and Renaissance
V55.0402 4 points.
MUSIC
Medieval and Renaissance Music
V65.0101 Identical to V71.0101. 4 points.
PHYSICS
Origins of Astronomy
V65.0008 Identical to V85.0008. 4 points.
POLITICS
*Topics in Premodern Political Philosophy
V65.0110 Identical to V53.0110. 4 points.
RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
V65.0025 Identical to V77.0800, V78.0160, V90.0102. 4 points.
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
Chronicles and Travel Literature of the Colonial World
V65.0273 Identical to V95.0273. 4 points.
Cervantes
V65.0335 Identical to V95.0371. 4 points.
Forms of the Picaresque in Spain and Spanish America
V65.0438 Identical to V95.0438. 4 points.
Theatre and Poetry of the Spanish Golden Age
V65.0421 Identical to V95.0421. 4 points.
GRADUATE COURSES OPEN TO UNDERGRADUATES
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Themes and Forms of Medieval Literature
G29.1452 4 points.
European Renaissance Literature I
G29.1500 4 points.
European Renaissance Literature II
G29.1550 4 points.
ENGLISH
Introductory Old English
G41.1060 4 points.
Introductory Middle English
G41.1061 4 points.
Studies in Beowulf
G41.1152 Prerequisite: G41.1060 or the equivalent. 4 points.
The Renaissance in England
G41.1322 4 points.
Shakespeare I, II
G41.1344,1345 4 points.
*17th-Century Poetry
G41.1420 4 points.
FRENCH
Introduction to Medieval French Literature
G45.1211 4 points.
The Medieval Epic
G45.1241 4 points.
Prose Writers of the 16th Century
G45.1331 4 points.
La Pléiade
G45.1342 4 points.
MIDDLE EASTERN AND ISLAMIC STUDIES
History of the Islamic Near East to 1200
G77.1640 4 points.
Medieval Iran
G77.1660 4 points.
MUSIC
Collegium Musicum
G71.1001 4 points.
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
Introduction to Medieval Spanish Literature
G95.1211 4 points.
16th-Century Novelistic Forms
G95.1334 4 points.
Spanish Poetry of the Renaissance
G95.1341 4 points.
Mystics and Contemplatives
G95.2311 4 points.
Portuguese Literature: The Cancioneiros to Camões
G87.1817 4 points.
