Autumn 2020 CMRS-Affiliated Courses
**Please note: This list is subject to change as the university adjusts to Autumn term planning for a mix of in-person and remote coursework. Scheduling adjustments will be reflected as information becomes available. (Updated 08/05/2020)**
Autumn 2020 CMRS Courses
MedRen 2215 - Gothic Paris: 1100 - 1300
Description: Paris became a center for learning, beauty, power, and shopping in the Gothic Age, 1100-1300. Discover the world that conceived and built the soaring Notre-Dame-de-Paris: Courtly Love, strategic kings and queens, the birth of the great university, the arguments of monks and philosophers like Abelard and his brilliant student Heloise. Explore daily life in medieval Paris with hands-on experiences and readings: the rich fabrics, the knightly chain mail, the foods, the stones.
Assignments: midterm & final exam, partly student written; short quizzes to process readings; a project researching and experiencing/ recreating something related to medieval Paris.
Class: 33949
Time: WF 2:20-3:40
Room: 180 Hagerty Hall
Instructor: Sarah-Grace Heller (FRIT)
Required Books:
- Betty Radice, trans., The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Penguin. ISBN 9780140448993
- Additional readings and media to be posted in Carmen
**Please note: A mix of in-person and remote learning is expected; please contact Professor Heller for specific details.**
**CANCELLED** MedRen 2217 - Shakespeare's London
Description: This course will explore roughly one and a half centuries of the history, politics, and culture of London, beginning with the religious upheavals of the Protestant Reformation, moving onto a Civil War that saw the King lose his head, and culminating with the devastating plague and Great Fire of London in 1666. We will ask why London experienced such phenomenal growth in the sixteenth century, making it the center of economic, political, and cultural life in Britain. We will study various primary documents, including maps, plays, poems, and pamphlets that explore the opportunities and problems created by rapid urbanization (social mobility, poverty, disease). And we will look closely at institutions and figures like the Lord Mayor and the guilds that regulated city life.
In our tour of this vibrant metropolis we will encounter an extraordinary range of figures: alongside the great and the good like Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Shakespeare, we will also meet prostitutes, vagabonds, and gulls (!). We will become familiar with the layout and buildings of London, its churches and cathedrals, its palaces and thoroughfares, and of course its iconic river Thames. We will linger especially at the theaters, bear gardens, cockpits, and brothels that made up London's burgeoning entertainment industry.
Class: 34579
Time: WF 12:45-2:05 (in-person meetings on Wednesdays, remote meetings on Fridays)
Room: TBD (Re-assignment expected to accommodate social distancing)
Instructor: Chris Highley (English)
Required Books: N/A
**CANCELLED** MedRen 2516 - Medieval Jewish Experience
Description: This interdisciplinary GEC course surveys ten centuries of medieval Jewish history, literature, religion, and culture from the rise of Islam to the death of the false messiah, Shabbetai Zvi. Students will read a wide range of primary sources in English translation. We will examine the transformation of Jewish culture in Europe and the Middle East and will explore the impact of host societies upon specific Jewish communities.
Class: 33988
Time: TR 8:00-9:20
Room: 046 Hagerty Hall
Instructor: Daniel Frank (NELC)
Required Books: N/A
MedRen 5610 - Manuscript Studies
Description: This course introduces students to the pre-print culture of the European Middle Ages and trains them in the fundamental skills required to read and understand handwritten books, documents, and scrolls from ca. 500-1500 AD. Students will work with manuscripts held in the OSU library’s Special Collections and will benefit from numerous guest lectures. Knowledge of Latin and other medieval languages is NOT a prerequisite for enrollment.
Class: 33951
Time: TR 12:45-2:05
Room: TBA (Tuesdays); 150A Thompson Library (Thursdays)
Instructors: Leslie Lockett (English) and Eric Johnson (University Libraries)
Required Books
- Introduction to Manuscript Studies, Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Cornell University Press (2007).
**Please note: A mix of in-person and remote learning is expected; please contact Professor Lockett for specific details.**