ENROLL

Sarah Kennedy

As a field that is truly interdisciplinary, archaeology uses a wide range of methods to study the past. This course provides a hands-on introduction to the entire archaeological process through classroom, field, and laboratory components. Students will participate in background research concerning local places of historical or archaeological interest; landscape surveying and mapping in GIS; excavation; the recording, analysis, and interpretation of artifacts; and the publication of results. This course involves real archaeological fieldwork, and students will have an opportunity to contribute to the history of the local community while learning archaeological methods applicable all over the world.

Sophomore priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: ARCN 246.WL2 (Synonym 61725)

Ross Elfline, Jessica Keating

An introduction to the art and architecture of various geographical areas around the world from the fifteenth century through the present. The course will provide foundational skills (tools of analysis and interpretation) as well as general, historical understanding. It will focus on a select number of major developments in a range of media and cultures, emphasizing the way that works of art function both as aesthetic and material objects and as cultural artifacts and forces. Issues include, for example, humanist and Reformation redefinitions of art in the Italian and Northern Renaissance, realism, modernity and tradition, the tension between self-expression and the art market, and the use of art for political purposes.

Pierre Hecker

The course focuses on the relationship between literature and material culture during the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. This era of violence, plague, war, superstition, imperial expansion, and the slave trade also saw a flourishing of writing, science, technology, music, architecture, and the visual arts. Studying the literary works, theaters, historical sites, and artifacts of the period, students will explore what life was like in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Prerequisite: Participation in OCS London Program

Requires participation in OCS Program: Living London

George Shuffelton

As readers, we rarely consider the technologies, practices, and transactions that deliver us our texts. This course introduces students to the material study of writing, manuscripts, books, printing, and digital media. It attends to the processes of copying, revision, editing, and circulation; familiarizes students with the disciplines of descriptive bibliography, paleography, and textual criticism; and introduces the principles of editing, in both print and electronic media. It offers hands-on practice in most of these areas.

Pierre Hecker

The course focuses on the relationship between literature and material culture during the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. This era of violence, plague, war, superstition, imperial expansion, and the slave trade also saw a flourishing of writing, science, technology, music, architecture, and the visual arts. Studying the literary works, theaters, historical sites, and artifacts of the period, students will explore what life was like in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course or permission of instructor

For students pariticipating in OCS London Program

William North

The Byzantine world (eighth-fifteenth centuries) was a zone of fascinating tensions, exchanges, and encounters. Through a wide variety of written and visual evidence, we will examine key features of its history and culture: the nature of government; piety and religious controversy; art and music; the evolving relations with the Latin West, Armenia, the Slavic North and West, and the Dar al-Islam (the Abbasids and Seljuk and Ottoman Turks); gender; economic life; and social relations. Extra time will be required for special events and a group project (ecumenical council).

Extra Time Required

Austin Mason

Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

This course is a general introduction to Islam as a prophetic religious tradition. It explores the different ways Muslims have interpreted and put into practice the prophetic message of Muhammad through analyses of varying theological, legal, political, mystical, and literary writings as well as through Muslims’ lived histories. These analyses aim for students to develop a framework for explaining the sources and vocabularies through which historically specific human experiences and understandings of the world have been signified as Islamic. The course will focus primarily on the early and modern periods of Islamic history.

Asuka Sango

This course explores the history of samurai since the emergence of warrior class in medieval times, to the modern developments of samurai ethics as the icon of Japanese national identity. Focusing on its connection with Japanese religion and culture, we will investigate the origins of the purported samurai ideals of loyalty, honor, self-sacrifice, and death. In addition to regular class sessions, there will be a weekly kyudo (Japanese archery) practice on Wednesday evening (7-9 pm), which will enable students to study samurai history in context through gaining first-hand experience in the ritualized practice of kyudo.

Extra Time Required