ITAL 354 A: Travels, Migrations, and Exile
Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Middle Ages
Jointly offered with
GERM 298 A: Topics in Literature and Culture
GLITS 313 A: Literature Across Places
Taught by Annegret Oehme and Beatrice Arduini, this class explores literary expressions of cross-cultural interactions between European and Non-European cultures in the Middle Ages, as well as representations of "Otherness" in cultural settings and literary texts.
Students will engage with a wide range of literary texts; explore how diversity and interconnectivity materialize in the contexts of politics, commerce, migration, religion and similar philosophical and cultural frameworks; and examine how such ‘modern’ global phenomena find root in the 'premodern' world. While focusing on German and Italian-speaking areas, this class will take a critical view of Eurocentric approaches.
Note:
The syllabus is going to be available on Canvas and may be changed at any time if necessary.
We will communicate changes to the schedule via Canvas.
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When and What are the Middle Ages? |
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Thursday, 09/26 |
Introduction |
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Tuesday, 10/01 |
Introduction cont. |
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Medieval Saints |
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Thursday, 10/03 |
Cult of Saints 1 |
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Tuesday, 10/08 |
Cult of Saints 2 (and Religious Superstition) |
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Tolerance and Turmoil |
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Thursday, 10/10 |
Willehalm |
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Tuesday, 10/15 |
The Three Rings Parable: Decameron Day 1, Story 3 |
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Thursday, 10/17 |
Heretics, Schismatics and Sowers of Discord: Dante, Inferno 10 |
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Tuesday, 10/22 |
Project Workshop |
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Encounters of Religious and Racial Otherness |
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Thursday, 10/24 |
“Race in the Middle Ages” |
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Tuesday, 10/29 |
Maurice, Belakane |
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Thursday, 10/31 |
Slavery in the Mediterranean |
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Mapping the Medieval World and its Wonders |
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Tuesday, 11/05 |
Maps and Fantastic Races |
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Thursday, 11/07 |
Special Collections Visit |
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Tuesday, 11/12 |
Birdshead Haggadah and Herzog Ernst |
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Traveling the Medieval World |
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Thursday, 11/14 |
The Far East: Decameron Day 10, Story 3, and the Travels of Marco Polo |
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Tuesday, 11/19 |
Resourceful Women Guest Lecture: Decameron Day 2, Story 9, and Li Yu |
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Thursday, 11/21 |
Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Sources and Reworkings of The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales
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Tuesday, 11/26 |
Project workshop |
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Thursday, 11/28 |
No class - Thanksgiving |
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Tuesday, 12/03 |
Ibn Batuta and Benjamin of Tudela |
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Thursday, 12/05 |
Final review and discussion |
Course-Level Objectives
▪ Describe depictions of cross-cultural encounters in diverse cultures and languages.
▪ Explain the origins of these depictions.
▪ Compare and contrast medieval, modern, and contemporary depictions.
▪ Critically examine representations of "Otherness" in pre-modern sources.
▪ Contextualize diverse historic voices in dialogue.
Assignments
▪ a short response paper
▪ an annotation/collaborative reading exercises
▪ posting an image and description
▪ participating in graded discussions
▪ a final project