NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
THE COLLEGE CORE CURRICULUM
CULTURES & CONTEXTS: PAGAN EUROPE (60CE-1600CE)
Spring 2015
CORE-UA 553-001
F ULL -C LASS M EETINGS :
Tuesdays-Thursdays, 9.30-10.45AM
SILVER, 405
R ECITATION S ECTIONS :
002: Wed. 8.00-9.15AM @ Silver 504
003: Wed. 9.30-10.45AM @ Silver 506
004: Wed. 11.00AM-12.15PM @ Bobst LL 142
005: Wed. 3.30-4.45PM @ Silver 504
006: Wed. 4.55-6.10PM @Bobst LL 146
T EACHING STAFF
Instructor:
P ROFESSOR B RIGITTE M.
B EDOS -R EZAK
Office: King Juan Carlos Center (KJCC), Rm. # 610
Office Phone: 212 998-8608 e-mail: bbr2@nyu.edu
Office Hours: By Appointment
Adjunct Instructors:
A MAURY S OSA sections 2, 3 and 4
PhD Student – Department of Spanish and Portuguese - e-mail: als520@nyu.edu
Office Hours: TBA
A
RTA KHAKPOUR
, P
H
D – sections 5 and 6
Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, The College Core Curriculum – e-mail: pms262@nyu.edu
Office Hours: TBA
C
OURSE
D
ESCRIPTION
In pre-modern Europe, where a Christian outlook prevailed, the existence of pre-Christian cultures drove a master narrative that all but cast them off as the heterodox mythology and magic of primitive religions. The influence of this narrative has extending well beyond the Middle
Ages, providing modern analysts with two determinant analytical tools: 1) a conceptual framework taking for granted that Europe was, and to a great extent still is, a community of
Christian values; and 2) a conceptual category, paganism, endowed with intensely negative significance, at least until the recent rise of New Age groups, who see in paganism a respect for nature and for women. Our working definition of paganism will be broadly cultural rather than strictly religious, and sensitive to the manifold dimensions of the pagan as an “other,” separated

from the in-group by ways of life, culture, perceptions, and values. In the Middle Ages, however, the pagan label did not extend to Jews and rarely applied to Muslims.
A principal goal of the course is to engage both the medieval evidence for the nature of
European pagan cultures and the tendency of modern scholarship to endorse the medieval selfproclaimed image of a monolithic Christian occident. We will consider the extent of paganism’s
2 trajectory within the physical and intellectual landscape of medieval Europe, as it enabled social behavior and provided complex systems of understanding. The medieval discourse on paganism cannot be reduced to its condemnation and rejection; this would ignore the ways that the predominant culture had in fact integrated elements of paganism into its theology, philosophy, rituals, calendar, life-cycle events, scientific knowledge, intellectual categories, literary creations, artistic repertoire, and physical environment. From the perspective of such an inclusive discourse, pagan cultural elements have been rendered invisible. They were actually re-tooled as cogs within the machinery of the main culture, where they remained a source of energy, albeit one that had to be periodically controlled and censored. Whether pagan components were integrated or repressed, paganism as such was always suppressed in the name of a majority culture that claimed universality and represented itself as the only proper way of thinking about the world and existing within it. It is in an exploration of the synergy between pagan and
Christian values that we will fully master the master medieval narrative and come to appreciate the syncretic fabric of medieval culture and society.
As we consider a millennium of European civilization (60CE-1600CE) from the perspective of paganism, we will cross-pollinate multiple streams of evidence (textual, archeological, artifactual) with various epistemologies (history, anthropology, folklore, literary criticism), which will allow a new chronology and a new geography to emerge. Paganism itself will acquire different visages, varying according to time, place, social groups, and ethnic entities.
There is a long-term paganism that retained the ethnic traditions and folklore of newly
Christianized peoples (Celts, Romans, and Germans). For half of our millennium, powerful polities in Northern and Eastern Europe (Vikings, Slavs, Hungarians) with military clout, strong economic activity, and artistic sophistication remained pagans. Periods of intellectual renewal in
Western Europe were marked by a sustained re-evaluation of the classical learning of pagan antiquity in the arts, sciences, and literature. The most radical of these learned re-integrations of classical humanism was contemporary with the demonization of pagan ways of life, now radically condemned as witchcraft. Classical and pagan traditions were the two faces of a single coin, allowing a dominant culture to pursue its selective politics of absorption and rejection, while all along retaining pagan knowledge as an element of its main currency.
C
OURSE REQUIREMENTS
This course will consist of full-class lectures and discussion , and recitation sections ; it will involve an extensive use of NYU Classes.
NYU Classes is accessible through the "Academics" tab of NYU Home. You will find on
NYU Classes ( CORE-UA. 553.001
) the course’s syllabus ( Syllabus ), and postings of or links to most of the material assigned for reading and viewing ( Resources ). NYU Classes ( CORE-UA.
553.002-6, depending on your section) will also be the channel for you to post your own

3 response papers ( Assignments ). Remember that NYU Classes uses exclusively your NYU email account. If you use other email accounts, please make sure to have your non-NYU account automatically forward emails to your NYU account. It is important that you receive all official email sent to your NYU account.
Full-class meetings, and related readings, have been arranged as weekly topical units.
For each unit, a handout will be posted on NYU Classes ( CORE-UA. 553.001, Handouts ), containing (1) a time line; (2) an outline of the lecture, and (3) a list of proper names and unusual terms and concepts included in that lecture. Each week, you should read the relevant assignment in advance, as you will be expected to participate in full-class discussions, especially during the second meeting of the week, when the whole class will focus its attention on and analyze such primary evidence as texts, images, objects, or landscapes pertinent to the topical unit.
Recitation sections , led by the preceptors assigned to this course, will offer you the opportunity of engaging both the primary and the interpretive material in further detail. These recitations sections are an integral part of the course and will substantially affect your grade in the course. More than three unexcused absences from recitation sections will result in a failing grade for the course.
A SSIGNMENTS
There will be: weekly discussions of primary evidence;
-three (3) response papers to be submitted on NYU Classes (Assignments) to your sections’ instructors on the readings and on the day they will indicate ;
-one mid-term exam on Thursday, March 12th , 9.30-10.45AM;
a final exam on Thursday, May 14 th , 8.00-9.50AM.
Every Thursday , the full class will engage in a discussion of the primary source(s) relating to that week’s topic. In their analysis of primary material , students should seek to achieve three perspectives : 1) on meaning : what is the content of the text, image, object say?; 2) on modes of signification : how do these artefacts, textual or other, communicate (material support, genres, design, gestures, narrative formats, authorial voices, tropes, metaphors)?; 3) and on agency : what was these artefacts’ function; what did they accomplish?
Each week, a different student will be asked to begin the discussion .
GRADING
Presence and Participation
Response Papers
Mid-Term Exam
Final Exam
20%
30%
30%
30%
Late Response Papers will be graded down by one grade fraction (e.g. B to B-) for a week, by one full grade (e.g. B to C) for more than one week.
If you have any problem with attendance or in meeting deadlines, inform your section

4 instructor or the professor as soon as possible. Special circumstances will be judged on an individual basis by the professor who will be responsible for deciding how to handle personal requests about problems.
REQUIRED READINGS are made available in the following fashion:
Books available only in print have been put on Reserve at Bobst Library , where they can be read in the Reserve Room.
Books and articles available on line have been put on Electronic Reserve (e-reserves) and can be accessed via NYU Classes, NYU Libraries, Course Reserves .
Scanned articles and book chapters can be accessed via NYU Classes ( CORE-UA.
553.001, Resources) .
The following books are also available for purchase from the University Bookstore :
Jesse L. Byock, The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (London: Penguin Classics, 2005) -
ISBN: 0140447555 (pbk.); ISBN: 9780140447552
Barbara Freitag, Sheela-Na-Gigs : Unravelling an Enigma (London and New
York:Routledge, 2004) - ISBN -10: 0415345529 ISBN -13: 978-0415345521
Max Harris, Sacred Folly : A New History of the Feast of Fools (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2011) - PRINT ISBN 9780801449567; EBOOK ISBN 9780801461613
The Pagan Middle Ages , ed. Ludo J. R. Milis (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1998) -
ISBN: 085115638X (alk. paper); ISBN: 9780851156385
WEEK 1. PAGANISM : PRE-MODERN OTHERNESS, POSTMODERN IDENTITY
January 27 th
-29 th
General Readings:
Alan Cameron, “Pagans and Polytheists,” in
Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2010), pp.
14-32 (e-reserves and NYU Classes, Resources)
Faye Ringel, “New-England Neo-Pagans: Medievalism, Fantasy, Religion,”
American Culture , 17/3 (1994): 65-68 (e-reserves)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Journal of
The Druid Network - Druidism Now an Official Religion in the UK, articles to read: 1,
2, 5-8, 21-43, 45-46, 49-52, 64, 68-69, and pp. 17-21 (NYU Classes, Resources)
PAGANISM, ETHNICITY,
AND THE EUROPEANIZATION OF THE WEST

5
WEEK 2. FROM MISSIONS: ROMANS, CELTS, GERMANS …
February 3 rd
– 5 th
General Readings:
Martine De Reu, “The Missionaries: The First Contacts between Paganism and
Christianity,” in The Pagan Middle Ages, ed. L. Milis (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 13-37
(NYU Classes, Resources)
Yitzhak Hen, “Charlemagne’s Jihad,” Viator 37 (2006): 33–51 (e-reserves)
J. Palmer, “Defining Paganism in the Carolingian World,”
Early Medieval Europe 15/4
(2007): 402–425 (e-reserves)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. Leo Shirley-Price et al.
(London, 1990),
Resources)
I. 15, I. 30, II. 5, 13, pp. 62-64, 91-93, 111-113, 129-131(NYU Classes,
WEEK 3.
… TO CRUSADES: VIKINGS, SLAVS, HUNGARIANS
February 10 th -12 th
General Readings:
Robert Bartlett, “From Paganism to Christianity in Medieval Europe,” in Alan V.
Murray, ed., Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central
Europe, and Russia c. 900-1200 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 47-72 (e-reserves and NYU
Classes, Resources)
Stanislaw Rosik and Przemyslaw Urbanczyk, “Polabia and Pomerania Between Paganism and Christianity,” in Murray,
Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy , pp.
300-308 (e-reserves and NYU Classes, Resources)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Ottonian Germany. The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg , ed. and trans. David A.
Warner (Manchester, 2001), book 1, chapter 17(p. 80); book 6, chapters 22-25 (pp. 252-
254); book 7, chapters 64, 68-69 (pp. 352-353, 355-356) (NYU Classes, Resources)
PAGANISM AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES:
A CHALLENGING ENGAGEMENT
WEEK 4. THE DRUID AND THE ARCHEOLOGIST

6
February 17
General Readings: th -19 th
A. Dierkens, “The Evidence of Archeology,” in The Pagan Middle Ages
(Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 39-64 (Bobst, Book Reserves)
, ed. L. Milis
Roberta Frank, “Beowulf and Sutton Hoo. The Odd Couple,” in
Voyage to the Other
World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo , ed. Calvin B. Kendall et al. (Minneapolis, 1992), pp.
47-64 (e-reserves and NYU Classes, Resources)
Robert J. Wallis and Jenny Blain, “Sites, sacredness, and Stories: Interactions of
Archaeology and Contemporary Paganism,”
Folklore 114 (2003): 307-321 (e-reserves)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Powerpoint presentation and analysis of pagan sites and objects
WEEK 5.
THE ‘LONGUE DURÉE’ AND THE HISTORIAN
February 24 th
-26 th
General Readings:
Carlo Ginzburg, “The Processions of the Dead,” in Ginzburg, The Night Battles.
Witchcraft and the Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Baltimore,
1992), pp. 33-68 (e-reserves)
Ronald Hutton, “Paganism in the Lost Centuries,” in Hutton,
Arthur
Witches, Druids, and King
(London, 2003), pp. 137-192 (NYU Classes, Resources)
Nicholas Roger, “Samhain and the Celtic Origins of Halloween,” pp. 11-21; Festive rights. Halloween in the British Isles,” pp. 22-48, and “Coming Over: Halloween in
North America,” pp. 49-77, in Roger,
Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night reserves and NYU Classes, Resources)
, (e-
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Appendix: Record of the Trial against Paolo Gasparutto and Battist Moduco [1575-1581], in Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles. Witchcraft and the Agrarian Cults in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, pp. 147-171(e-reserves)
WEEK 6. POPULAR CULTURE AND THE FOLKLORIST
March 3 rd
-5 th
General Readings:
Carl Watkins, “Inventing Pagans,” pp. 68-106, and “Special Powers and Magical Arts,” pp. 128-169, in Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England
2007) (e-reserves and NYU Classes, Resources)
(Cambridge,

7
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Caesarius of Heisterbach, The Dialogue of Miracles , trans. H. von E. Scott et al., 2 vols
(London, 1929), Book III, chapter 12, vol. 1: 139-140; Book IV, chapter 21, vol. 1: 217-
218; Book V, chapters 2-3, vol. 1: 315-318; Book VII, chapter 2, vol. 1: 455 (NYU
Classes, Resources)
EXPLORING BOUNDARIES:
MYTHS OF THE PAGAN WORLD IN WESTERN LITERATURE
WEEK 7. NORSE MYTHS
March 10 th
– March 12 th
: Mid-Term exam
General Readings:
Margaret C. Ross, “The Conservation and Reinterpretation of Myth in Medieval
Icelandic Writings,” in in
Studies in Medieval Literature, Vol. 42: Old Icelandic
Literature and Society, ed. Margaret and NYU Classes, Resources)
C. Ross (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 116-139 (e-reserves
Preben M. Sorensen, “Social Institutions and Belief Systems of Medieval Iceland (c. 870-
1400) and their Relations to Literary Production,” in
Studies in Medieval Literature, Vol.
42: Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret
7-29 (e-reserves and NYU Classes, Resources)
C. Ross (Cambridge, 2000), pp.
Jonas Wellendorf, “The Interplay of Pagan and Christian Traditions in
Icelandic Settlement Myths,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
Vol. 109, No. 1 (January 2010) : 1-21 (e-reserves)
Reading for Full Class Discussion:
Jesse L. Byock, The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (London, 2005), pp. 18-36 (Bobst,
Book Reserves)
WEEK 8: SPRING BREAK: Enjoy!
March 17 th
-19 th
WEEK 9: PAGAN PAST AND MEDIEVAL MODERNITY
March 24 th
-26 th
General Readings:
Alexandra Cook, “O swete harm so queynte”: Loving Pagan Antiquity in Troilus and
Criseyde and the Knight’s Tale,”
English Studies: A Journal of English Language and
Literature . 91.1 (2010): 26-41(e-reserves)

8
Alastair Minnis, “The Shadowy Perfection of Pagans,” in Minnis,
Antiquity
Chaucer and Pagan
(Woodbridge, 1982), pp. 31-60 (NYU Classes, Resources)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Knight’s Tale,” From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales , trans.
Richard Brodie, highlighted excerpts at pp. 6-7, 15-16, 22-23, 28-29, 32-36
Classes, Resources)
(NYU
ANTIQUE THOUGHT AND PAGAN ART IN MEDIEVAL SETTINGS
WEEK 10: MEDIEVAL ATTITUDES TOWARD PAGAN CLASSICAL CULTURE
March 31 st
– April 2nd
General Readings:
Heckscher, “Relics of Pagan Antiquity in Mediaeval Settings,”
Journal of the Warburg
Institute 1(1937-1938): 204-220 (e-reserves)
Jennifer Summit, “Topography as Historiography: Petrarch, Chaucer, and the Making of
Medieval Rome,”
246 (e-reserves)
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30.2(2000), pp. 211-
Reading for Full-Class Discussion
Master Gregorius, The Marvels of Rome , ed. John Osborne (Toronto, 1987), pp. 17, p.
18-19 no 1; p. 19 nos 2-3; pp. 19-21 no 4; pp. 21-22 no 5; pp. 29-30 no 21 (NYU
Classes, Resources)
Francesco Petrarca, Letters on Familiar Matters , I-VIII, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo (Albany,
1975), Book VI.2, pp. 290-295 (NYU Classes, Resources)
WEEK 11: PAGAN KNOWLEDGE AND THE FOUNDATION OF WESTERN
SCIENCE – April 7 th
-9 th
General Readings:
Edward Grant, “The fate of ancient Greek natural philosophy in the Middle Ages : Islam and western Christianity,” in Grant,
Ages
The Nature of Natural Philosophy in the Late Middle
(Washington DC, 2010), pp. 253-275 (NYU Classes, Resources)
James Hannan,
Modern Science
God’s Philosophers. How the Medieval World laid the Foundations of
(London, 2009), chapters 3-9, pp. 43-151 (Bobst, Book Reserves)

Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Adhelard of Bath, Questions on Natural Science, in C onversations with his Nephew , ed.
And trans. Charles Burnett (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 141-151 (NYU Classes, Resources)
Albertus Magnus, Book of Minerals , trans. Dorothy Wyckoff (Oxford, 1967), Book I, tractate 1, chapters 6 and 7, pp. 24-29 (NYU Classes, Resources)
WEEK 12: GARGOYLES AND GROTESQUES: HEATHEN FORMS IN GOTHIC
ART – April 14 th
– 16 th
9
General Readings:
Peter Scott Brown, “As Excrement to Sacrament: The Dissimulated Pagan Idol of Ste-
Marie d'Oloron,” The Art Bulletin , 87.4 (2005), pp. 571-588 (e-reserves)
Nancy Wicker, “Would There Have Been Gothic Art Without the Vikings? The
Contribution of Scandinavian Medieval Art
,” Medieval Encounters
17 (2011): 198-229
(e-reserves)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Powerpoint presentation and analysis of relevant monuments, objects, and iconographic material
LIVING LANDSCAPES
WEEK 13: GODS MADE FLESH (or wood or stone): PAGAN IDOLS, CHRISTIAN
IMAGES, SACRED SPACES
April 21 th – 23 th
General Readings:
Barbara Freitag, Sheela-Na-Gigs : Unravelling an Enigma
2, 3, pp. 3-61(e-reserves)
(Routledge, 2004), chapters 1,
Stephanie Porras, “Rural Memory, Pagan Idolatry: Pieter Bruegel's Peasant Shrines,”
Art History 34 (2011): 486–509
Gary Varner, “Spotlight on Sacred Wells,” in reserves and NYU Classes, Resources)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Sacred Wells: A Study in the History,
Meaning, and Mythology of Holy Wells and Waters 2d ed. (NY, 2009), pp. 15-60 (e-

Ottonian Germany. The Chronicon
Warner (Manchester, 2001), book 7, chapter 59, p. 350 (NYU Classes, Resources)
Excerpts from Saxo Grammaticus, of Thietmar of Merseburg
The History of the Danes
(Woodbridge, 1996) (NYU Classes, Resources)
, ed. And trans. David A.
, trans. Peter Fisher at al
WEEK 14: THE RITUAL YEAR : CARNIVAL AND OTHER FESTIVE MISRULES
April 28 th
-30 th
General Readings:
Max Harris, Sacred Folly , A New History of the Feast of Fools
University Press, 2011), (e-reserves)
(Ithaca: Cornell
10
Edward Muir, “Carnival and the Lower Body,” in Ritual in Early Modern Europe
(Cambridge, 2007), pp. 93-124 (NYU Classes, Resources)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, “The Winter Festival,” in Le Roy Ladurie, Carnival. A people’s Uprising at Romans, 1579—1580
(London, 1980), pp. 305-324 (Bobst, Book
Reserves)
Discussion and analysis of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fight Between Carnival and
Lent , 1559, (PowerPoint Presentation)
WEEK 15: THE LIFE CYCLE: GOING THROUGH LIFE IN PAGAN EUROPE
May 5 st
-7 th
General Readings:
V. Charon, “The Knowledge of Herbs,” in
The Pagan Middle Ages,
(Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 109-128 (Bobst, Course Reserves) ed. L. Milis
B. Freitag, “Sheelas, Birth, Death, and Medieval Rural Traditions, in Sheela-Na-Gigs :
Unravelling an Enigma , chapter 4 pp. 63-107 (e-reserves)
Reading for Full-Class Discussion:
“The ‘Courtiers’ Trifles of Walter Map,” in
Medieval Ghost Stories. An Anthology of
Miracles, Marvels, and Prodigy , ed. Andrew Joynes (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 62-68
(NYU Classes, Resources)
Power point presentation and analysis of amulets, and other texts and magical objects