Prospectus

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Core Course Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Course
2020-2021

Admission requirements

Not applicable

Description

Part 1

In this course lectures and seminars alternate:

A. LECTURES

The presentations will be given by the lecturers who are also involved in the seminars. After these presentations, you will take part in a group discussion on the presentation and on the text(s) which the lecturer has chosen. In the presentations and the group discussions, we will focus on the central question of our core course: what is the extent of the traditional distinction between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period? To answer this question, we focus on writers, artists, scientists, philosophers and rulers who lived between 500 and 1800. As such, we explore whether there really was a fracture around 1500 — traditionally seen as the peak of the Renaissance and the beginning of ‘modernity’. We will question this traditional periodization from a methodological and interdisciplinary perspective, looking at innovation in the Middle Ages and tradition in the Early Modern period.

B. SEMINARS

For the seminars, students can choose between a seminar in Medieval Studies or a seminar in Early Modern Studies:

Seminar Medieval Studies

The seminar that focuses on the Middle Ages continues on the theme of the ‘modernity’ of this period. We will look especially at medieval centers of innovation: the court, city and church/convent, taking as a lead Ronald Witt’s The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy (Cambridge, 2012). This book traces the origins of Renaissance humanism in the long Italian tradition of two book cultures, religious and secular, associated with the Church and legal procedures in the widest sense. We will study changes and shifts in social structures, art, literature in Western Europe as a response to or confirmation of Witt’s thesis that the Renaissance humanism could only have emerged from late medieval (northern) Italy, because of the special circumstances in political, social and intellectual life.
This seminar continues the methodological and interdisciplinary approach of the lectures, by discussing texts or objects from a wide range of disciplines, and investigating the points of contact between the various cultures that are often studied in isolation. Each class will discuss (at least) one primary and one secondary source.

Seminar Early Modern Studies

Instead of highlighting the ‘modernity’ of this period, the seminar on Early Modernity will focus on the ‘traditional’ aspects, and ask how (and why) the many new developments in this period were actually based on and ‘anchored’ in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
In order to do so we will characterize this period as a period of ‘collecting’: of texts, of objects, and of knowledge in general. We will examine the backgrounds of this quest; discuss how this accumulation of (traditional) knowledge called for new methods of knowledge management; and how it could lead to new insights in various (scientific) fields. At the same time, we will see how the renewed interest in the (ancient) past also shaped the arts and literature of this period, and how innovative features were often unintentional, and often framed in traditional terms.
This seminar continues the methodological and interdisciplinary approach of the lectures, by discussing texts or objects from a wide range of disciplines, and investigating the points of contact between the various cultures that are often studied in isolation. Each class will discuss (at least) one primary and one secondary source.

Course objectives

Knowledge

Students will become acquainted with the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in Europe from the viewpoint of a wide range of disciplines. They will question what shifts are discernible between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period and gain knowledge about the ‘traditional’ aspects of this period, that is the Early Modern fascination with the past.

Insight

Students will gain insight in the practices and challenges of interdisciplinary research, and the analysis of primary sources. They will also become acquainted with various modern approaches to the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period.

Skills

Students will be able to find and assess relevant scholarly literature, and use it to analyze and interpret primary sources from their own discipline. They will be able to understand these sources in an interdisciplinary context and to compare them with sources from other disciplines. They can use their knowledge, insight and skills in weekly assignments, discussions and a small research project of their own.

Timetable

Visit MyTimetable.

Mode of instruction

  • 6x2 hours Lecture & response in group discussion

  • 6x2 hours Seminar

  • Closing Presentations.

Attendance is compulsory. Students are allowed to miss a maximum of two seminars, provided they present a valid reason beforehand. Students who have missed more than two seminars will have to apply to the Examination Board of the MA Arts and Culture in order to obtain permission to further follow and complete the course.

Assessment method

Assessment

  • Presentation: 30%

  • Research paper: 70% (Paper is the continuation of the presentation/poster pitch and the final closing work of the core course)

Weighing

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average.

Resit

Re-examination via examination and/or paper

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

The literature will be announced via Brightspace during the course.

Registration

Students are required to register for this course via uSis, the course registration system of Leiden University. General information about uSis is available in English and Dutch.

Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs

Not applicable.

Contact

Remarks