ARTH 2861 East Asian Art (Wong)

Tu/Th 12:30 - 1:45 pm

This course is a general introduction to the artistic traditions of China, Korea, and Japan from the prehistoric period to the modern era. Major topics include funerary art, Buddhist art, and later court and secular art. The course seeks to understand artistic forms in relation to technology, political and religious beliefs, and social and historical contexts. It also introduces the major philosophic and religious traditions—Confucianism, Daoism, Shinto, and Buddhism—that have shaped cultural and aesthetic ideals of East Asia. The lectures survey major monuments and the fundamental concepts behind their creation.

RELB 2715 Introduction to Chinese Religion (Heller)

TR 9:30–10:45

This course serves as an introduction to the religious beliefs and practices of China, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora. Engaging textual, material, and visual traditions, the course covers several broad themes in Chinese religion, including ritual, self-cultivation, means of communicating with the gods, and the intersection of political authority and religion. 

RELC 2050 "Rise of Christianity" (Shuve)

MW 10-10:50am

How did a movement that began as a Jewish sect become the official religion of the Roman Empire and forever change the world? In this course, we will trace Christianity’s improbable rise to religious and cultural dominance in the Mediterranean world during the first millennium of the Common Era. We will examine archaeological remains, artistic creations and many different kinds of writings—including personal letters, stories of martyrs and saints, works of philosophy and theology, and even gospels that were rejected for their allegedly heretical content—as we reimagine and reconstruct the lives and struggles of early and medieval Christians. Our goal will be to understand the development of Christian thought, the evolution of the Church as an institution, and how Christianity was lived out and practiced by its adherents. 

RELG 2820 Jerusalem (Andruss)

Tu/Th 12:30-1:45

This course traces the history of Jerusalem with a focus on its significance in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. How have these communities experienced and inhabited Jerusalem? How have they imagined the city and interpreted its meaning? How have Jews, Christians, and Muslims expressed their attachments to this contested space from antiquity to modern times? Our exploration will be rooted in primary texts and informed by historical and cultural context, as well as scholarly approaches to sacred space.

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ARH 3500/ARTH 3591 Medieval Mediterranean (Phillips and Reilly)

Tu/Th 12:30-1:45 pm

In this course we will delve into the rich history of Muslim-Christian interactions in the medieval Mediterranean, focusing on the concept of 'encounters' through the lens of art, architecture, and material culture. We will consider how communities with differing beliefs and traditions shared landscapes and spaces, from religious buildings to marketplaces, workshops, and city streets. By examining case studies—from Constantinople to Palermo to Cordoba--we will gain insight into how these interactions affected contemporary visual, material and built environments. We will also reflect on whether the Mediterranean is special, or not, and assesses the ways in which connections to other parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa helped shape the region and its hinterlands.   Thus, we will develop a deeper understanding of how power, identity, and cultural translation shaped the medieval Mediterranean world and its art and architecture and reflect on contemporary issues of cultural coexistence and exchange. In a similar vein, we'll evaluate the way cultural heritage groups, tourist boards, and other official and unofficial bodies have described medieval architecture, art, and culture, and ask what is at stake right in the twenty-first century. This course fulfills the Second Writing Requirement.

ARTH 3591-003 Medieval Mayhem (Ramirez-Weaver) 

TTh 9:30-10:45 AM

In this course, we will explore the historical and ideological frameworks in which medieval mystical practices joined the human body with nature, transcended the cosmic harmonies of divine proportion, and attempted to fashion the world according to desire and belief. We examine purifying practices such as the Eucharist or baptism as well as the manipulation of cosmic forces for personal or political reasons, using techniques ranging from horoscopic astrology to necromancy. We will examine the medieval foundations of modern racist ideologies and the legacy of eugenics at UVA specifically. Lastly, we will investigate the role of medievalism in the ideological presentation of histories about the medieval period, with a focus upon the “wizarding world” of Harry Potter. Topics covered include: celestial modeling, eschatology, apocalypses, astrological prediction, horoscopes, talismans and crystals, spells and incantations, medieval gynecology, Hildegard of Bingen, monstrous races, military machinations, relics and reliquaries, late medieval mysticism, Margery Kempe, phenomena such as "holy anorexia," alchemical theory, Hieronymus Bosch, and the medievalism of Harry Potter.

ENGL 3161 Chaucer I (E. Fowler)

TTh 12:30-1:45

We’ll read The Canterbury Tales and perhaps some shorter works looking for the author that the Scots poet Gavin Douglas praised as “evir all womanis frend.” One governing question will be how, for Geoffrey Chaucer and for us, do sexual politics guide political philosophy? This is a course in Middle English, in reading poetry, in considering how fiction shapes political thought, and in thinking alongside someone who lived before modernity and can shake our sense of the world to its roots while telling brilliant stories. We’ll meet under the Scholar’s Tree by Dawson’s Row in camp chairs unless weather prohibits it: bring your sunscreen and hats. Write to Prof Fowler fowler@virginia.edu with questions.

ENGL 3275: The History of Drama I (Parker)

MW 2:00-3:15

The first third of this course will cover the drama of classical antiquity in translation, beginning with Greek plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, then moving from there to the Latin plays of Plautus, Terence, and Seneca.  The next third of the course will consider the kinds of performance that displaced (and in some cases transformed) these pagan traditions after the Christianization of the Roman empire; we will likely read a liturgical drama, a morality play, a saint play, some vernacular Biblical drama and a secular farce.  The final third of the course will cover plays from the Renaissance, focusing particularly on the commercial London stage of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.   

GETR 3464 Medieval Stories of Love and Adventure (McDonald)

Tu/Th 2-3:15 OR 3:30-4:45 (online)

Fulfills the second -writing requirement. Course readings center on King Arthur and his court, as exemplified by the quests of Erec, Yvain, and Parzival. Readings include Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History and Gottfried’s Tristan. All readings in English. 

JPTR 3010 Survey of Traditional Japanese Literature (Heldt)

TTh 2:00-3:15 PM

This course provides an introduction to Japanese literature from earliest times through to the nineteenth century. We will read selections from representative texts and genres, including myth, poetry, prose fiction, memoir literature, drama, and works of criticism. No knowledge of Japanese culture or language is required.

JPTR 3400 Tales of the Samurai (Heldt)

TTh 3:30-4:45 PM

A seminar focusing on influential medieval and early-modern narratives such as the Tale of Heike in which the notion of the samurai first developed. No prerequisites. Satisfies the non-Western and Second-Writing requirements.

LATI 3090: Medieval Latin (Hays)

TR 2:00–3:15

In this course we will read (in the original Latin) the Romance of Apollonius of Tyre, an early medieval novel involving incest, murder, piracy, riddles, shipwrecks, ball-games, prostitution, virtuous fishermen, wicked step-parents, and more riddles. Time permitting, we will also look at the novel's later influence, notably on Shakespeare's Pericles.

PLPT 3010: Ancient and Medieval Political Theory (Bird)

MW, 3-3:50

Western Political Theory from Plato to the Reformation. Among authors covered are Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther. For the medieval period, central themes are natural law, allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and the origins of modern liberal political theory.

RELC 3181 Medieval Christianity (Mathewes)

W 3:30-6:00 PM  

This seminar attempts to introduce undergraduate students with several major approaches to Christian thought in Medieval Europe, in order to offer them a taste of various styles of writing and thinking, in order to orient them to engage various major accounts of the Christian tradition. From Augustine and Boethius through Bernard, Anselm, Hildegard and Aquinas to Ockham, Eckhart, and Marguerite Porete, we will ask questions such as: What are the major debates and concepts that have informed Christian thought historically?  What styles of reasoning and deliberation have been explored, and to what ends? Engaging those questions should open angles of interpretation on what is “Christian” and “theology,” and how they relate to other disciplines.

SPAN 3400 From Kingdom to Empire (Riva)

TTH 9:30-10:45

This course will explore medieval and early modern works written in Castilian from El Cid to Calderón's theater. We will focus on the function of these literary texts in the European and Mediterranean context. Taught in Spanish. Prerequisite: SPAN 3010 and 3300, or departmental placement. Exclude Spanish majors on their 4th year.

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ENGL 4500 Metamorphosing Myth (Clare Kinney)

Tues/Thur 11:00-12:15 

This seminar will explore the appropriation and transformation of some of the influential narratives of pagan antiquity: the myths that are kidnapped and remade as artists pursue their own aesthetic, cultural and political agendas. We will start by reading (in translation) Virgil’s great epic of empire, the Aeneid, as well as Ovid’s influential and bewitching tapestry of mythic narratives, the Metamorphoses. We’ll then move on to discuss the ways in which some medieval, Renaissance and contemporary authors metamorphose these powerful archetypes. Our post-classical readings will include works by Chaucer, Christine de Pizan, Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare, as well as Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses and Ursula K Le Guin’s Lavinia. With luck, we’ll also hear from some of our own creative writing faculty about the afterlives of myth within their own work. Course requirements: regular attendance and energetic participation in discussion.  A series of  discussion board postings.  A 6-7 page paper, an oral presentation, a longer term paper.

FREN 4848 The Good Life? (Ogden)

M, 3:30-6 PM

What is the good life, and what is a good life?  How should a person balance ethical responsibilities with comforts and pleasures?  Is sacrifice required for someone who wants to be good, and if so, how much and of what kind?  How do social expectations help and harm efforts to do the right thing?  We might think of saints as people who live perfectly good lives, but stories about them often grapple with all of these questions and don’t always provide clear answers, instead encouraging audiences to think deeply about their own lives in ways that go beyond any one religious or ethical system.  Above all, such stories can lay bare both how difficult it is to solve moral dilemmas (even for saints) and how closely extreme virtue can resemble appalling vice.  Looking at old and new stories of parent-child struggles, spectacular sinning and redemption, gender transformation, and daily moral predicaments, we will explore a variety of ways to understand what it means to live well.  Course taught entirely in French.

HIEU 4511 Viking Worlds (Kershaw)

Mo 5:30-8

Contact instructor for details.

ENGL 5100 Intro to Old English (Hopkins) 

TuThu 12:30p-1:45p

In this course (open to undergraduate and graduate students) we will learn to read the Old English language (roughly 500-1100 CE). To arrive at a sound reading knowledge, we will spend the first half of the semester internalizing the basics of Old English grammar and vocabulary, and will practice translating short bits of prose and poetry, from prose works like Bede's history, and later poetry such as the Exeter Book riddles, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, and excerpts from Beowulf. Along the way, we will also study Old English genres, contexts, and critical/theoretical approaches prevalent in the field, with an emphasis on the history of the book and writing technologies. Course work includes weekly translations, midterm and final exams, and a brief research presentation (~10 min) on a topic chosen by each student. Successful completion of this course is required for admission to ENGL 5110 Beowulf and Its Monstrous Manuscript in the Spring. 

ENGL 5510 Arthurian Romances (E. Fowler)

TTh 3:30-4:45

We'll dive into what is probably the most viral fan-fiction canon ever: stories about Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, Gawain, Merlin, the Ladies of the Lake, and their friends and enemies and magical stage props. What makes this kind of narrative work? How do different authors transform it? The late medieval Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory will be at the core of our inquiry, and we'll include texts from Marie de France and Chaucer to contemporary film. We'll be looking to describe how (and why) the romance genre offers us experiences of philosophy, emotion, political thought, spirituality, and wit. This is a graduate course with room for undergraduates who have some coursework in Middle English. We will meet outside under the Scholar’s Tree by Dawson’s Row in camp chairs unless weather prohibits it. Contact Prof Fowler fowler@virginia.edu with questions.