ENROLL

Jessica Keating

"If man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided..." This statement, on the divine nature of art, was penned by the German artist Albrecht Dürer. Dürer's artworks--his paintings, his drawings, his woodblock prints, and his engravings--have been construed to be some of the most theologically sophisticated, naturalistically rendered, theoretically informed, classically inflected, and socially engaged of the period we now refer to as the "Renaissance." This thematically organized course will engage the work of Albrecht Dürer, around these issues. Discussions will be integrated with student presentations, analyses of primary and scholarly texts, and writing assignments.

Held for new first year students

Baird Jarman

Baird Jarman

Johannes M. Wietzke

From the beginnings of their civilization, the Greeks were aware that they inhabited just a small corner of a much larger world. How did they imagine faraway places and peoples? What did ancient maps look like? How much have Greek literature and science shaped later geographical thought and practice, from the Roman Empire to the European “Age of Exploration” to our own “Age of Google”? Drawing on various sources in translation, we will explore the literary and scientific frontiers of ancient geography and trace its legacy into the modern world.

Held for new first year students

Pierre Hecker

Cross-listed with English 244

Cross-listed with ENGL 244.00

Pierre Hecker

Cross-listed with ENGL 144

Austin Mason

Why did barbarians invade? Traders trade? Pilgrims travel? Vikings raid? Medieval Europe is sometimes caricatured as a world of small villages and strong traditions that saw little change between the cultural high-water marks of Rome and the Renaissance. In fact, this was a period of dynamic innovation, during which Europeans met many familiar challenges—environmental change, religious and cultural conflict, social and political competition—by traveling or migrating to seek new opportunities. This course will examine mobility and migration in northern Europe, and students will be introduced to diverse methodological approaches to their study by exploring historical and literary sources, archaeological evidence and scientific techniques involving DNA and isotopic analyses.

Held for new first year students

Susannah Ottaway

William North

Institutions emerge from the translation of ideas, ideals, needs, and values into human communities living in particular conditions, equipped with certain resources, guided and controlled by certain norms, and protected and challenged by particular ideas and actions. Once formed, institutions encounter further issues of governance and change as they evolve and encounter new realities, success, and failure. This seminar examines the complex histories and cultures of medieval institutions—churches, monasteries, secular and religious courts, households, and the universities. Through theoretical readings and case studies we will examine how, over time, questions of purpose, leadership, the distribution of power and authority, the acquisition and disposition of material and human resources, record keeping, and legitimacy are encountered and resolved. This course will be of interest to anyone interested in the dynamics of institutions and the dialogue between concepts and material conditions as they play out in time.

Allison Murphy

This course will center on a close reading of two texts, Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, both of which address what is arguably the core concern in the ancient ethical tradition: the relationship between the morally good life and the happy life. In keeping with the ancient tendency to resist a sharp divide between the private and political spheres, we will examine the significance of Plato and Aristotle’s reflections on the good human life both for the individual and for the broader community.

Sonja Anderson

What is a perfect body, and how do you get one? What makes a body, or a mind, imperfect, and what can be done about it? How are human bodies different from animal, angelic, demonic, and divine bodies, and what happens when these bodies come into contact with each other? This course considers the breakdown (illness) and manipulation (magic and medicine) of the mind and body, particularly within premodern Christianity, Judaism, and Greco-Roman traditions. Through a series of close readings and discussions, this course interrogates the categories of illness, magic, and medicine in antiquity and in select instances today. Topics include demons, gender, relics, ancient magical techniques, eating, bodily resurrection, medicine and modernity, mental illness, and the certification of miracles.

Held for new first year students

Sonja Anderson

Is mysticism just a religious word for what are actually natural, neurological processes? Is prayer a dressed-up form of positive thinking? Does mindfulness meditation have medical benefits, and should it be promoted by clinicians? Have monks been practicing a spirituality that science is now vindicating? Are these even the right questions to ask? This course offers a historical, comparative, and theoretical exploration of the techniques of rigorous bodily and mental discipline (asceticism) that humans in different cultural contexts have used as a strategy for union with the divine (mysticism). We will focus on ancient Jewish, Christian, and pagan texts that advocate ascetical practices for mastering the body’s passions, disciplining the imagination, and uncovering the deceits of the visible world, and we will trace the reception of these traditions in modern monastic and mystical movements. This course emphasizes close reading, active discussion, and critical reflection on constructions of the ideal body and the ideal mind in antiquity and the present day. Conditions permitting, there will be two field trips to monasteries in Minnesota. Each trip will take place on a weekend and will last for nearly a whole day.