While sexuality is an inescapable human experience and touches the core of everybody’s personality, it always is religiously and socially normalized, regulated, and sanctioned. This certainly was the case in the rigorously-Christian world of medieval and early-modern Europe, when sexuality had a close connotation to the concepts of sin and pollution. This turns sexuality into an exciting, rich, as well as complex subject of historical research. Of course, as historians we are largely dependent on written sources, in which specialists on the history of medieval sexuality distinguish four different ‘discourses’ : the medical, the theological, the canonical, and the literary. Each of them has received much attention in recent scholarship, whether or not in connection with new theoretical approaches like gender studies. The participants of this course can pick the fruits of this rich harvest as a starting-point for developing their own research project, which should be based on the use of primary sources.
Time Table
Wednesdays, 9.00-11.00 in HUIZINGA/007.
Semester I, see timetables.
Method of Instruction
Research seminar; attendance is compulsory (see the rules and regulations of the Department of History, art. 2).
Course load
10 ECTS
Classes: 2 × 14 weeks = 28 hours; literature research: 3 work days = 24 hours; reading: 700 pp/7 = 100 hours; analysis + preparation presentation paper : 5 work days = 40 hours; writing final paper: 10 work days = 80 hours.
Course objectives
to get thoroughly acquainted with modern historical debate on medieval and early-modern sexuality in Europe;
to discuss theoretical approaches to the theme;
to learn how to find, read, and analyze some important corpuses of primary sources;
to report on research findings orally (by reading a paper) and in writing, in accordance with the basic standards of historical scholarship.
Required reading
Obligatory (entry test on this book in week1):
- Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in medieval Europe: doing unto others (Londen/New York 2005).
Further recommended:
John W. Baldwin, The language of sex: five voices from Northern France around 1200 (Chicago 1994).
Katherine Crawford, European sexualities, 1400-1800 (Cambridge etc. 2007).
Examination
Literature report & development argumentation (20% final mark)
Paper (read) (30% final mark)
Final paper (written; ca. 7,500 words) (50% final mark)
Information
With the tutor: Prof. dr. P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers
Blackboard/website
Will be used for communication, publication of marks, and, occasionally, for the spread of additional (source) material.
Enrolment
Please use this form to apply for MA courses.