Center for Renaissance Studies graduate seminars are open to graduate students from Center for Renaissance Studies consortium member universities. Students may take the seminars on a not-for-credit basis or arrange to earn credit at their home campuses. When space permits, consortium faculty members are encouraged to audit Newberry seminars, and graduate students from non-consortium schools may also enroll. The course fee is waived for consortium students.
Seminars are taught by consortium scholars who are pre-eminent in their fields. Participants interact with fellow students from a variety of institutions and disciplines, while gaining a firsthand introduction to the Newberry's holdings of manuscripts and early editions in its areas of strength.
For professors at consortium institutions: learn about teaching a Newberry Graduate Seminar.
Students may take Newberry seminars for credit or on a not-for-credit basis. In either case, all prospective students must complete a Newberry online enrollment form.
Graduate students and faculty at consortium schools are eligible to apply for travel funds to participate in Newberry seminars.
2:00-5:00 p.m. Thursdays, January 6 – March 10
Edward Wheatley, Loyola University Chicago
This course will focus on disabled bodies and the cultural forces that acted upon them, as represented in a variety of types of early Christian and medieval texts in Latin, French, and English. Readings will devote special attention to blindness because of its strong metaphorical associations in medieval Christian discourse. The course will begin with readings in disability theory and its relation to the study of literature. Literary texts will include Old French farces and fabliaux, saints’ lives, Chaucer’s “Merchant’s Tale,” Henryson’s “Testament of Cresseid,” The Croxton Play of the Sacrament,” and “The Tale of Beryn.”
Prerequisites: Reading knowledge of French and/or Latin is desirable but not required. Some course readings will be in Middle English.
~
2:00-5:00 p.m. Fridays, January 7 – March 11
Allen Frantzen, Loyola University Chicago
Anglo-Saxon culture is the source of many masculine stereotypes, but there have been few inquiries into how masculinity was shaped in early English culture. Students will read a variety of short poems, lyric and didactic, and some prose to investigate the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons thought about and expressed gendered relations. A previous course in Old English is a prerequisite, though our course will concentrate on building linguistic and translating skills and will not take them for granted. Advanced students will be able to work at their own pace and can use the course to broaden and deepen their familiarity with the corpus of Old English. Students will write a short response paper and a research paper; no exams.
Prerequisite: A course in Old English.
Graduate students and faculty of Consortium institutions are eligible to apply for travel funding 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.