MedRen 2618 - Travel and Exploration: Narratives of Travel and Intercultural Contact in the Age of Discovery

Instructor: Jonathan Burgoyne, WF: 11:10AM-12:30PM, 050 Hagerty Hall, Class Number: 36005

In Travel and Exploration: Narratives of Travel and Intercultural Contact in the Age of Discovery we will not only explore victorious accounts of discovery and conquest, but also tales of failed expeditions, shipwrecks and captivity. To do so, we will study narratives produced by the Portuguese and their main competitors in European imperial expansion, particularly the Spanish, English and French. 

GE Foundations (New): Historical and Cultural Studies

GE (Legacy): Culture and Ideas and Diversity – Global Studies

Required Textbooks: TBD

MedRen 3217 - Shakespeare's London

Instructor: Chris Highley, TuTh: 2:20PM-3:40PM, 082 University Hall, Class Number: 35830

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 on to a Civil War that saw the Kifng lose his head and culminating with the devastating plague and Great Fire of London in 1666. 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 William Shakespeare, we will also meet prostitutes, vagabonds and gulls (!). You’ll 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 around the theatres, bear gardens, alehouses and brothels that made up London’s burgeoning entertainment industry. 

GE Theme (New): Lived Environments

GE (Legacy): Culture and Ideas and Diversity – Global Studies

Required Books:

Jonson, Ben, George Chapman and John Marston. Eastward Ho! Edited by C.G. Petter. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN-13: 9781408144145R365 (365-day e-book rental)

MedRen 5695 - The Dire Sisterhood: Women of Norse Myth and Legend

Instructor: Merrill Kaplan, TuTh: 9:35AM-10:55PM 455 Hagerty Hall, Class Number: UG: 35163 G: 25164

Goddesses. Prophetesses. Wronged lovers. Patrons of war. Meet the ladies of Norse mythology and heroic legend in the medieval Icelandic poetry and prose that tells their tales. Students will read lays from the 13th-century Poetic Edda to learn about the distaff side of the Old Norse mytho-legendary tradition, focusing on the poems that let queens, valkyries, ogresses, and other women speak for themselves. Students will also engage with peer-reviewed scholarship and develop their own research paper topics. All readings are in English.

Required Books:

Larrington, Carolyn, trans. The Poetic Edda. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN-13: 9780199675340 (paperback), 9780191662935 (e-book purchase), 9780191662935R180 (180-day e-book rental), 9780191662935R365 (365-day e-book rental)

Friðriksdóttir, Jóhanna Katrín. Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World. London: Bloomsbury, 2021. ISBN-13: 9781350230309 (paperback), 9781350137103 (e-book purchase), 9781350137103R180 (180-day e-book rental), 9781350137103R365 (365-day e-book rental)