Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MRST)
Description: Transition from ancient to Medieval civilization; the so-called Dark Ages; the late Medieval Renaissance and the dawn of the modern era.
Description: Beginning of the modern era, with much attention to the secularization of European society from the Renaissance through the Age of Enlightenment.
Pre-1800 content.
Description: Examines the interconnections of religion and politics and their influence on people of all social classes. Topics include: hereditary monarchy, the signing of Magna Carta, developing Parliament, medieval peasant revolts, and seventeenth-century revolutions.
Taught in English. Letter grade only.
Description: A diachronic approach to Quran as a literature. Provides an analytic, linguistic as well as the critical study of both the Qur'anic text and its exegeses.
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing
Pre-1800 content.
Description: Examines the intellectual and artistic achievements of the Italian Renaissance, relating them to the political developments and social changes which occurred throughout the Italian peninsula between ca. 1300-1550 and highlighting those elements which would influence the evolution of European culture. Emphasis on the development of humanism and its role in the transition from medieval to modern values.
Prerequisites: Sophomore, junior, or senior standing.
Description: An introduction to the Crusades and the idea of holy war in the middle ages from both the Christian and Islamic perspectives.
Pre-1800 content.
Description: Beginning of the modern era, from the Reformation to the dawn of the Enlightenment, focusing on the impact of the Renaissance, the changing role of the post-reformation churches in European society, religious wars and the rise of the absolutist state, the development of scientific thought, and their relationship to the development of Baroque art and architecture.
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing
Description: Survey of women in European history from the Middle Ages to the present. Themes include power relations, work, love and sexuality, marriage, legal issues for women, and growth of feminist consciousness.
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing
Pre-1800 content.
Description: Traces the emergence and development of a distinctive Jewish culture and identity in medieval Europe and in the regions bordering the Mediterranean sea from the birth of rabbinic Judaism under the Roman empire until the seventeenth century orthodox synthesis of Talmudic learning, Kabbalah, and custom and Jewish responses to the Englightenment. Includes interaction of Jews with majority cultures (including the development of anti-Semitism), and the impact of Jews and Jewish learning upon western culture.
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing
Pre-1800 content.
Description: Image of the madwoman throughout European and American history. Emphasis on how women on the margins have been labelled in different periods as saintly, as witches, or as insane.
Description: Close study of stories, in various forms, from around the world. Considers the role of gender, race, and history as lenses through which to approach the production and reception of storytelling. Readings, discussions, and assignments conducted in English.
Taught in English.
Description: French texts from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries (drama, prose, poetry, autobiography), all of which use the body as a reference point to explore developments in gender, religion, science, and society in French literature and civilization.
Description: Topics vary.
Prerequisites: Junior standing
Pre-1800 content.
Description: Historical context of changes in religion, literature, philosophy, and the arts, 400-1450.
Prerequisites: Junior standing
Pre-1800 content.
Description: The cultural and intellectual developments of the German Reformation against its social background. The religious and political events of the first half of the sixteenth century. Transition from medieval to modern Christianity. The transmission and revolutionary nature of evangelical doctrines. The gradual institutionalization of the new churches.
Prerequisites: Junior standing
Description: Life and thought of significant figures and schools of thought in the Reformation period
Prerequisites: Junior standing
Pre-1800 content.
Description: Individuals from late medieval/early modern Europe, such as Joan of Arc, Henry V, and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Examines how history can be used to serve social, cultural, and political needs, and the difficulties of determining historic truth about a person or event.
Prerequisites: Junior standing
Pre-1800 content.
Description: History of English society, politics, and culture from the time of Henry VIII through that of Elizabth I, Shakespeare, Donne, Charles I, Cromwell, and Milton.
Prerequisites: Permission
Description: Individual or group project in research, literature review, or extension of course work.
Prerequisites: Permission
Students must complete an interdisciplinary seminar paper or project to complete the MRST degree; they may use MRST 499 to complete this capstone requirement. They may use MRST 499 while preparing a CAS Thesis for Distinction or Honors thesis, but they do not have to submit an MRST 499 thesis to CAS or Honors.
Description: Conduct a scholarly research project and write a University Honors Program project, a thesis for CAS Degrees with Distinction, or an undergraduate thesis specific to MRST.