2:00–5:00 p.m. Thursdays, January 7 - March 11, 2010Center for Renaissance Studies Consortium graduate seminars draw from a larger pool of students than would be available on a single campus and are taught by consortium scholars in their areas of specialization. They also often provide a firsthand introduction to the Newberry's holdings of manuscripts and early editions in its areas of strength.
Learn more about teaching a Newberry Graduate Seminar.
Students may take Newberry seminars for credit or on a not-for-credit basis. All prospective students must complete our enrollment form and e-mail it to renaissance[at]newberry.org.
In addition to enrolling with the Newberry, students who wish to obtain credit for a Newberry seminar must also register at their home institutions. Some universities in the Chicago area have a permanent course listed for this purpose. For other schools, students need to arrange an independent study with a professor at their institution.
Advanced graduate students who are finished with coursework may take seminars on a not-for-credit basis, space permitting, but they are expected to complete all readings and coursework and to participate fully in the course. Faculty auditing is also encouraged.
The Center gives graduate students from consortium institutions priority for enrollment and waives the enrollment fee. When space permits, students from non-consortium institutions may also enroll in Center graduate seminars; they pay a fee (contact the Center for current fee information). Travel funds may be available for graduate students and faculty at consortium schools to participate in these seminars.
2:00–5:00 p.m. Thursdays, January 7 - March 11, 2010
James Murray and James Palmitessa, Western Michigan University
Burgundian and Habsburg princes ruled over multilingual, multiethnic populations in which cities formed a key to political control and state formation. This course will explore a central dynamic in early modern European history—the interaction of state-building and urban particularism—across the far-flung territories ruled by the Burgundian and Habsburg dynasties from the fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth century. Through an approach both thematic and chronological, this seminar argues for a vision of a dynastic, particularistic Europe, freed of the nationalist traditions of so much nineteenth- and twentieth-century historiography.
Click here for a printable pdf poster.
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2:00–5:00 p.m. Thursdays, January 7 – March 11, 2010
Professor Jana Schulman, Western Michigan University
Law and literature both embody narratives that reveal much about the community that produces them. This seminar will explore legal issues such as feud, marriage, the status of women, and theft. We will read in the original and translate Anglo-Saxon legal texts that discuss these issues and then see how literary texts incorporate legal elements to create tension and drive the narrative. Some primary texts include laws issued by Æthelberht, Alfred, Edmund, and Canute, as well as selections from Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "Juliana," and "Maxims I." Much has been written on feud in early Germanic societies, less perhaps on women and law, but the secondary sources assigned on these and other issues will help clarify the abbreviated language of the legal texts as well as provide background and fuel for discussion.
Prerequisite: Completion of or concurrent enrollment in a language course in Old English.
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Emotions in History, c. 600 – c. 17002:00–5:00 p.m. Fridays, September 25 – December 11, 2009
Barbara Rosenwein, Loyola University Chicago
Like all things human, emotions have a history, but it has not often been traced. Students first will be introduced to current psychological theories and definitions. They will then explore old and new narratives of emotions’ history. Participants will gather their own dossiers of sources to do independent research in various areas of the history of emotions. These projects will be presented orally and written up as final seminar papers.
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William D. Paden, Northwestern University
2:00–5:00 p.m., Thursdays, September 24 – December 10, 2009
This course will introduce students to the troubadours, poets of the South of France in the Middle Ages, and the Occitan language in which they wrote. Students will focus on learning to read the texts in the original language and on understanding the phenomenon of love, often called "courtly," that was the troubadours' greatest subject. They will study the language in Paden, An Introduction to Old Occitan, and learn to translate troubadour poetry in that book; read a book of English translations, Paden and Paden, Troubadour Poems from the South of France; and refer to selected essays in two recent collaborative histories, Gaunt and Kay, The Troubadours: An Introduction, and Akehurst and Davis, A Handbook of the Troubadours. Students will consider the performance of troubadour poetry in song as well as historical issues including the court, gender relations, and desire.
Past Center for Renaissance Studies Graduate Seminars
Funds may be available for graduate students and faculty of Consortium institutions to travel to the Newberry Library to attend these programs. Contact your Representative Council member or the Center for Renaissance Studies.
Announcements of individual Center for Renaissance Studies programs are made by e-mail only. To ensure that we have your most current information, please join our mailing list.