Medieval & Renaissance Studies (MEDI-GA)

An introduction to the primary materials, reference works, journals, and research methodologies that pertain to the field of Medieval and Renaissance Studies together with an introduction to its sub-disciplines, including religion, psychology and philosophy, secular art and literature, architecture, historiography, economics and trade, science, translation studies, and the history of the book. The course is team taught.

This course is required for the Graduate Concentration in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. The course introduces students to methods and theoretical approaches from difference disciplines in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Students are also required to present their own work and participate in discussions of papers presented by members of NYU's MARC community.

The focus language of this course varies from term to term, including offerings in medieval and Neo-Latin, Old and Middle English, and early forms of Arabic, French, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish. In all cases the first objective of the course is to acquaint students with the lexical, grammatical, and phonological features that distinguish the language under study from its modern state, in the case of an early vernacular, or from its classical state, in the case of medieval or renaissance Latin. Second, the course aims to foster proficiency in the language at a level that enables scholarly study of its written record. Third, the course provides students with practice in translation together with an introduction to its theories and methods. Prerequisite: proficiency equivalent to the intermediate level in the modern state of the focal language or, for medieval or renaissance Latin, the same level of proficiency in classical Latin.

Topics vary from semester to semester.

Topics vary from semester to semester.