Winter 2013 MEMS Graduate Courses
ARCH 528 / HART 465 Lydia Soo [lmsoo] Baroque Architecture
The course examines the architecture of the Baroque period, the buildings and cities of the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth
centuries in Italy, France, England, and Central Europe. They will be discussed in relationship to contemporary theoretical
writings, addressing issues of function, structure, and beauty, as well as in relationship to the cultural context of the Baroque
period, including philosophical, religious, political, economic, and environmental factors
ARCH 633 Lydia Soo [lmsoo] Vision and Mathematics in Baroque Architecture (Seminar in Renaissance and
Baroque Architecture)
This seminar examines the curvilinear forms and theatrical spaces of Baroque architecture in terms of vision—formal, aesthetic,
and symbolic goals driven by certain cultural values, and mathematics—the geometrical methods, carried out using simply a
straight edge and compass, by which these goals were achieved. We will focus on Bernini and Borromini and their followers in
and outside of Italy, considering the cultural context in which they worked (political, social, religious) as well as the technical
means available to them (drawing techniques, materials, construction methods). In order to create a foundation for
understanding the phenomenon of Baroque form, during the first half of the course we will investigate the ways in which
mathematics drove the creation of architecture during the classical, medieval, and Renaissance periods: how proportion and
geometry were understood and how they were applied in design. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to draw
parallels between the mathematical basis of form creation in past architecture, including the Baroque, and the methods for
creating complex geometries in today’s architecture. The seminar will be comprised of lectures by the instructor, but primarily
discussions and student presentations based on assigned readings. Each student will pursue a term-long project on a Baroque
building(s) involving historical research, visual documentation, and experimentation with geometrical methods.
ENGLISH 642 Linda Gregerson [gregerso] Milton’s Major Poems
Throughout the term, the centerpiece of our weekly meetings will be an extended reading of Miltons' three great poems:
“Paradise Lost,” “Paradise Regained,” and “Samson Agonistes.” We will lavish attention upon each of them from as many angles
as time will allow: historical, intertextual, theological, biographical, formalist. We will be interested in all aspects of poetic
technique: the use of line; the expectations of literary genre and strategies for reforming those expectations; the figurative
imagination, including epic simile; narrative structure and narrative momentum; rhyme (and its banishment). Students will
collaborate in pairs on outside reading reports, focusing on key critical texts as well as other portions of the Miltonic canon,
especially the prose tracts which have so much to tell us about the poets' thoughts on governance, truth, collectivity and
autonomy, marriage and faith, free will. MFA students and doctoral students who specialize in areas outside the Renaissance
are warmly welcome, and final projects will be adapted to suit your interests. In addition to occasional oral reports (their nature
and frequency will depend upon our numbers), students will write a final seminar-length essay of 12-15 pages, or will devise an
alternate project of equivalent scope.
FRENCH 651 Valerie Traub [traubv] Peggy McCracken [peggymc] Animal, Human, Women
This seminar explores the role and function of concepts of embodiment (including race, gender, and sexuality) in definitions of
the human. The first part of the seminar is devoted to devising a theoretical repertoire drawn from theorists not primarily
known for their interest in gender, but who have provided influential theories of the social, disciplinarity, sovereignty, the
biopolitical, and the posthuman. In the second part of the seminar, we will use these theories to think through issues of agency,
sovereignty, and power in relation to species, gender, sexuality, and race. We will focus on two literary case studies composed
of a cluster of intertexts: the stories of Philomel and Cressida across the medieval and early modern periods in English and in
French (all French texts available in English translation). Literary authors include Chaucer, Chrétien de Troyes, Shakespeare, and
translators of Ovid; theorists include Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Agamben, Latour, and Grosz. Throughout the Term we will
consider the tension, in both theory and literary representation, between being and becoming. Students will complete a major
research project grounded in their own primary research areas and that engages with the theoretical paradigms offered in the
course. Requirements include an annotated bibliography, an oral presentation of research questions, and a final paper. The
class will culminate in the presentation of student research with the goal of preparation for publication. Although the case
studies for the course will be located in the medieval and early modern periods, no prior training in those areas is assumed, and
the seminar should be useful to any student interested in gaining a broader understanding of contemporary theory and
developing a methodological tool kit for engaging with both literary texts and historical issues in any period.
GERMAN 449.001 / HISTORY 481/ MEMS 411 /WOMEN’S STUDIES Helmut Puff [puff] Spirit and Madness:
Religious Women from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment
This course considers the contributions religious women made to the history of Christianity, Christian spirituality, religious
literature, and theology. Between 1000 and 1800, individual women and women’s communities actively shaped religious life in
the West. Whether admired as visionaries or accused of heresies, religious women’s intellectual and institutional existence was
deeply affected by their gender. We will discuss important stations of this history, with a particular focus on the Germanspeaking parts of Europe. Themes such as the emergence of a religious women’s movement in the Middle Ages, female
mysticism, the monastic reform movements, the closing of convents during the Reformation, and critiques of life behind
convent walls will be the focus of our discussions. The writings and sources at the center of this class will be complemented by
background readings as well as a site visit to a women’s community (in negotiation), films, images, etc. No prior knowledge or
German required.
HISTART 617 Patricia Simons [patsimon] Wit, Ingenuity, and Humor in Premodern Europe
Visual humor is of increasing scholarly interest (for instance, treated in this year’s conference “Rire en images à la Renaissance”
in Paris), yet it needs to be theorized more carefully and understood in historical terms. This seminar thus considers influential
theories of humor, from Aristotle and Cicero to Castiglione, Freud, Huizinga and Bakhtin. It moves beyond the ugly, grotesque
and obscene to investigate also the place of humor in other visual modes, such as religious imagery (e.g. smiling angels) and
natural history (e.g. the “serious joke”). Genres to be differentiated include parody, satire, ridicule, puns and caricature.
Further, we study the relationship between affect/emotions and humor, and the centrality of ingenuity and deceit to the
production and appreciation of visual wit.
MUSICOL 521 John Rice [riceja] Music of the Classic Era
Survey of European music from the mid-18th century to about 1810.
MUSICOL 577 James Borders [jborders] Medieval Music
Following a lecture-based survey of the early development of Western music, the second half of this course examines questions
through analyses of music, rituals, and texts (in translation) and by examining the development of the text/music relationship
over the period 800-1450. Course work involves listening and reading assignments, including musical scores, music theoretical
literature, and medieval cultural studies. The ability to read musical notation is assumed.
MUSICOL 643 John Rice [riceja] Music of the Baroque
PHIL 508 Tad Schmaltz [tschmalt] Continental Rationalism
This course concerns the interrelated views in physics and metaphysics of the great early-modern philosopher G. W. Leibniz
(1646–1716). We will consider both the significant development of these views over the course of Leibniz's philosophical
career, and the relation of these views to the work of his major philosophical contemporaries, including Thomas Hobbes, René
Descartes, Nicolas Malebranche and Sir Isaac Newton. We will focus on central claims in Leibniz concerning the nature of body
and bodily "force", the need for "substantial forms" in physics, the "pre-established harmony" of different substances, and both
the autonomy of physics from, and its dependence on, metaphysics.
MEMS 898 Alison Cornish [acorn]…Interdisciplinary Dissertation Colloquium
The Interdisciplinary Dissertation Colloquium is an integral part of the Graduate Certificate Program in
Medieval and Early Modern Studies. It seeks to meet three needs:
1. to provide useful criticism of dissertation work from a wider range of expertise and methodological
points of view than normally encompassed in a dissertation committee
2. to provide advanced students with experience in public presentation of scholarly papers
3. to create an intellectual forum that will bring together graduate students in disparate fields, so as to
encourage interdisciplinary dialogue and consequent broadening of horizons
It is intended for doctoral candidates at the prospectus- or dissertation-writing stage of their programs.
Students to not need to be admitted to the Certificate Program in order to take this course.