MSC06 3620
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
Physical Location:
Mesa Vista Hall 2045
Phone: (505) 277-2252
medinst@unm.edu
This course will trace the development of societies in the West from the first human settlements in the ancient Near East, through the Greek and Roman worlds and their legacies in the Islamic and Christian Middle Ages, and up to the Protestant Reformation and the European arrival in the Americas in the early modern period in Europe. We will roughly cover the period from 10,000 B.C.E. to 1648 C.E. Course lectures, readings, and discussions will focus primarily on what we call “western” civilization, but always with a view to connections and comparisons with the rest of the world. We will ask what constitutes “civilization” and why make the “western” distinction at the same time that we see global inter-connection and mutual influence across the eastern hemisphere. Major themes of this course will include the development and diffusion of monotheistic religions, various models for social organization, dominant paradigms of political and economic power, and the cultural and intellectual heritage of Europe and the Mediterranean region.
This course offers a broad orientation to Western culture during the Middle Ages by surveying the history, literature, art, and spirituality of the West during the thousand-year period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the eve of the Renaissance. This was an especially fertile epoch during which there evolved ideas, institutions, and forms of cultural expression of enduring importance, many of them still influential today. Far from being a long interlude of darkness and stagnation separating Antiquity from the Renaissance, the Middle Ages were a time of vibrant transformation, of innovative developments in many areas of human endeavor. Yet, while medieval men and women sowed the seeds for changes whose impact can still be detected today, medieval habits of thought and action differed in fundamental ways from those of our contemporary world. This course will highlight, investigate, and seek to explain what is most typical and most significant in the culture of the Middle Ages through a multi-faceted approach focusing on a broad range of texts and artifacts. The course will introduce students to several of the great vernacular works of the Middle Ages, including Beowulf, The Song of Roland, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; will cover such key topics as the evolution of rulership and the beginnings of parliamentary democracy; and will provide an orientation to major cultural breakthroughs, including the evolution of the manuscript book, the origins of the university system of education, and the development of the architecture of Gothic cathedrals. The overall aim of the course is to provide a well-rounded assessment and evaluation of the most significant developments during this rich historical period.
This course will survey the history of the Christian religion from its origins in first-century Palestine up until the eve of the Reformation. These fifteen centuries witnessed momentous growth, development, and change, as Christianity progressed from being the creed of a dedicated few followers to the official religion of the Roman empire to the way of life around which the whole of medieval society was structured. The course will offer the opportunity to study the major developments and also focus on the lives and writings of specific individuals. Key topics covered will include: the growth of the early Church; the writings of the Church Fathers; the origins of monasticism; the conversion of northern countries; the struggles between the Papacy and the Empire; the Crusades; the rise of the friars; and the background of the Reformation. Individuals whose lives and written works we will study will include St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Benedict, the Venerable Bede, Peter Abelard, Hildegard of Bingen, and St. Francis. We will also consider the ways in which Christianity expressed itself through art, particularly in the form of illuminated manuscripts. There will be in-class quizzes, one paper, and a final examination
Apocalyptic expectations and apprehensions underpin much of what constitutes “Western Civilization.” But what is the changing definition of “apocalypse”? Originally from the Greek term meaning “revelation,” the Apocalypse attributed to John the Evangelist was dependent upon longer, more historic apocalyptic traditions as well as the political and cultural contexts in which it was composed in the first century C.E. In the twenty-first century, however, apocalyptic understandings have manifested themselves in contexts surrounding notions of plague and contagion, the fear of the alien “other,” and in ecological and environmental catastrophe, among other themes. In this class, we will analyze the changing nature of the apocalypse as a genre of historical literature. We will read traditional apocalypses within the Abrahamic faiths, trace the understanding of apocalyptic expectations and apprehensions throughout the Middle Ages and early modern eras, and investigate what constitutes an apocalyptic scenario within the modern era.
The Middle Ages have long been considered a European phenomenon and a Europe-based chronology. But how would the centuries between 500 and 1500 CE look different to historians if we considered them from the perspective of the entire world? Can we understand the premodern globe as one shaped by interconnections and trans-regional movements? Is it possible to fruitfully make comparisons between regions that are traditionally studied separately, or between regions that did not have regular contact with each other? Using the framework of global medieval studies, this seminar will ask these and other questions about the premodern world, and about the people and things that populated that world. We will discuss themes such as travel and connection across cultural boundaries, the technologies of movement and long-distance exchange, comparative approaches to world cultures, and how historians trained in specific geographical regions can approach the study of the global Middle Ages. This is a graduate seminar in the hybrid style, meaning that it will establish a base of understanding about the historiography of the field and will ask also students to produce a piece of original research.
This course description will be updated when the information is available.
In this course, students will read representative world masterpieces from ancient, medieval, and Renaissance literature. Students will broaden their understanding of literature and their knowledge of other cultures through exploration of how literature represents individuals, ideas and customs of world cultures. The course focuses strongly on examining the ways literature and culture intersect and define each other. Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area V: Humanities and Fine Arts.
A general overview of early world literature and culture with a focus on the themes of Hate and Restorative Justice. Readings will include all or parts of such works as the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Ramayana, The Tale of Genji; selections from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Bhagavad Gita, and Qur’an; plays by Aeschylus and Kalidasa; poetry by Sappho, Li Bai, Ono no Komachi, Ibn Hazm, and Farid ud-dun Attar, among others. Our ambitious goal is to investigate texts from China, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Japan, Persia, Arabia, India, and the Americas by exploring how and if the texts move away from ideologies that produce hate to a system of restorative Justice. Through this mode of study, we will gain a sense of the differences and similarities that shape the varieties of human experience across time and cultures. We will also explore how the globalization of colonization affects our understanding of early world literature and how to decenter a Western gaze in the study of the past.
In this course, we will explore Geoffrey Chaucer’s most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s collection of competitive pilgrimage tales is one of the greatest, most imaginative, and varied pieces of all English literature: poetry and prose, romances, sermons, and bawdy stories. Chaucer is credited with writing the first viable women characters in the English language. Consider also the fascinating historical backdrop in late fourteenth-century England: a generation prior, the plague had swept through Europe decimating the population; a child king had taken the throne; peasants rose up in rebellion; and the Bible was translated into English—a world of both decay and dazzling possibility. Through the voices of colorful storytellers, Chaucer’s last great poem tests the boundaries of social possibility in his age, weighing the competing claims of allegory and realism, chivalry and commerce, men and women, traditional authority and individual experience. And it does so in our ancestor language of Middle English, simultaneously a colorful, earthy, funny, and lofty idiom. We will, in essence, ride along with the pilgrims on our own journey to Canterbury and through the Middle Ages.
Immerse yourself in the rugged, arctic beauty of medieval Scandinavia by learning Old Norse. Read the sagas of Iceland, with its geysers and lava flows. Explore the global trade network of the Vikings and the magical power of runes. This course will introduce the grammar and literature of Old Norse and the history and culture of the people who spoke and wrote it.
This course explores the connections between medieval romance and race by examining the social, cultural, and literary patterns that helped create one of the most popular genres of the European Middle Ages (c. 1240-1500). Medieval romance tends to express nostalgia through the creation of foundational myths, fantastical encounters, and human interactions that helped create a national past. Perhaps more important to our discussion will be how race—specifically how whiteness as a racial category that privileges dominance by normalizing violence and marginalizing non-whiteness—helped create and express this nostalgia and desire for origins. Other important topics include: gender (women as agents and obstacles to male desire), class (who was reading romance and why?), and the boundaries and limitations of the romance genre (both ideological and physical). We will read and discuss a variety of romances in their original Middle English and in translation.
Immerse yourself in the rugged, arctic beauty of medieval Scandinavia by learning Old Norse. Read the sagas of Iceland, with its geysers and lava flows. Explore the global trade network of the Vikings and the magical power of runes. This course will introduce the grammar and literature of Old Norse and the history and culture of the people who spoke and wrote it.
This survey course explores the art and architecture of ancient pre-historic cultures through the end of the fourteenth century. While focused primarily on the art of the Western civilizations, this course will also provide insights into the works of other major cultures in order to provide alternate views of art and history. Emphasis will be placed on the relationship of artworks to political, social, spiritual, intellectual, and cultural movements that affect and are affected by their creation and development.
Religion
Intro to World Religion
Intro to the Bible
Islamic Mysticism
Languages
Latin 1110/1120/2110/303
Greek 1110/2110
Arabic 1130/2140/301
German 1110/1120/2110/2120/301/308
French 1110/1120/2110/2120/301/305/310
432: Magic, Witchcraft, Science
Spanish 1110/1120/1210/2110/2120/2210/2220