Note: To allow conversations in class, it is important that everyone in conference be reading the same edition of the course texts. The editions listed at the end of this syllabus (and available in the bookstore) have been chosen with an eye to keeping costs low and scholarly standards high.

WEEK I (August 29 - September 2):

Dante, Divine Comedy: Inferno.

Erwin Panofsky, “Renaissance and Renascences” (pamphlet).

Lecture: The City and the World (Sacks)

WEEK II (September 6-9) [Labor Day holiday Sept. 5]:

Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2nd Part of the 2nd Part: Question 8, The Gift of Understanding, Question115, Flattery, and Question 182, The Active Life in Comparison With the Contemplative Life. The Summa is available on the World Wide Web at www.newadvent.org/summa. The required reading is at the following sites: www.newadvent.org/summa/300800.htm, www.newadvent.org/summa/311500.htm, and www.newadvent.org/summa/318200.htm. Note that Question 8 has 8 parts; Question 115 has 2 parts; and Question 182 has 4 parts—be sure to read them all. Copies of this reading will also be on reserve.

Petrarch, “Ascent of Mount Ventoux,” Renaissance Philosophyof Man, edited by Cassirer et al., 36-46

Pico della Mirandola, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” Renaissance Philosophy of Man, 215-254.

Rice/Grafton, TheFoundations of Early Modern Europe, 1-109.

Lecture: (on Wednesday) The Humanist Response to Scholasticism (Garrett)

WEEK III (September 12-16):

Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in 15th-CenturyItaly, 29-93 [optional: 1-27, 94-108].

Randolph Starn and Loren Partridge, Arts of Power, 83-148 (on reserve).

Alberti, “On Painting” Italian Art 1400-1500 (pamphlet).

Lecture: Perspective, Politics, and Piety in Fifteenth-Century Italian Painting (Katz)

WEEK IV (September 19-23):

Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, Prologue, 31-36; Book I, 39-45, 51-98, 102-104; Book II, 107-133, 199-202; Book III, 207-231, 274-278; Book IV, 281-282, 288-304, 315-345.

Lecture: Impersonating a Courtier (Steinman)

WEEK V (September 26-30):

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (entire; in Selected Political Writings).

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses, Book I: Preface, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 55; Book II: Chapter 2; Book III: Chapter 41 (in Selected Political Writings).

Rice/Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 110-45.

Lecture: Machiavelli and the Renaissance Art of History (Garrett)

WEEK VI (October 3-7):

Desiderius Erasmus, Praise of Folly (and the “Letter to Dorp”)

John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400-1700. Part I.

Lecture: Foolish Rhetoric (Steinman)

WEEK VII (October 10-14):

Thomas More, Utopia.

Lecture: Of the Best State of a Commonwealth (Sacks)

—fall break—

WEEK VIII (October 24-28):

Bartolomé Las Casas, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” (pp. 3-30, 42-56, in pamphlet).

"The New World" (pamphlet, from the Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West ).

Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain, 88-99, 107-118, 166-188, 189-204.

Hernan Cortes, “Letters from Mexico,” First Letter (pp. 3-46), Second Letter (pp. 47-81, 130-159 (in pamphlet).

Lockhart, Ed., We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico (pp. 1-21, 27-37, in pamphlet).

Lecture: Flowery Death and Eternal Life (Sacks)

WEEK IX (October 31- November 4)

Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel: 1) Pantagruel, Prologue and chapters 1-9, 16, 23-34 and
2) Gargantua, Prologue and chapters 1, 3-8, 14-17, 21-32, 34-36, 48-57 [note: Gargantua is a “prequel” to Pantagruel].

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 59-101 (pamphlet).

Lecture: Literature and Morality in Rabelais (Knapp)

WEEK X (November 7-11):

M. Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian” in Luther, Three Treatises, 277-316 (pamphlet).

Luther and Erasmus, Free Will and Salvation, 35-64, 68-69, 74-79, 85-97, 101-144, 169-173, 208-215, 246-249, 329-334 .

Erasmus, "Hyperaspites," 96-97; 135-137; 157-160; 296-297 (pamphlet, from Controversies).

Rice/Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 146-177.

Lecture: The Problem of Free Will(Jenkins)

WEEK XI (November 14-18):

S. Lotzer, “Twelve Articles of the Peasantry” (pamphlet; from The German Peasant War of 1525).

Luther, “Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants” (pamphlet; from Luther’s Works, vol 46).

Natalie Davis, Society and Culture, “The Rites of Violence,” 152-187.

Jean Calvin, “Of Eternal Election,” “On Resistance and Magistracy” (pamphlet; from Institutes of the Christian Religion).

John Sleidan, The General History of the Reformation (1555, selections in pamphlet).

Lecture: Reformation and Society (Kierstead)

WEEK XII (November 21-23) [Thanksgiving vacation Nov. 24-27]:

Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms.

Natalie ZemonDavis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, “Reasons of Misrule” and ”Women on Top” 97-151.

Lecture: Mennochio’s Reasons of Misrule (Sacks)

WEEK XIII (November 28-December 2):

Michel de Montaigne, Essays: “On the Power of Imagination,” “On Cannibals,” “On the Custom of Wearing Clothes,” “On Experience.”

Lecture: Montaigne: What Do I Know? (Kierstead)

 

BOOKS FOR PURCHASE

Hum 210 Course pamphlet (on electronic reserve)
John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400-1700. (Oxford)
Dante, The Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri: Inferno, trans. J. Hollander (Doubleday)
E. Cassirer, Renaissance Philosophy of Man (UCP)
E. Rice and A. Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe (Norton)
M. Baxandall, Painting & Experience in 15th-Century Italy (Oxford)
Castiglione, Book of the Courtier (Penguin)
Machiavelli, Selected Political Writings, Ed. Wootton (Hackett)
Erasmus, Praise of Folly, Ed. Radice, revised edition  (Penguin, 1994)†
Thomas More, Utopia, Ed. Logan (Cambridge)
Bernal Diaz, Conquest of New Spain (Penguin)
Rabelais, Gargantua & Pantagruel, trans. J. M. Cohen (Penguin)†
Luther and Erasmus, Free Will and Salvation, Ed. Rupp (Westminster John Knox Press)
Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese & the Worms (Johns Hopkins)
Natalie Davis, Society & Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford)
M. de Montaigne, Essays, trans. Cohen (Penguin, 1993)†

†Editions so marked differ in pagination from others with this title by the same publisher; if you buy a different edition, be sure to consult one of the editions on reserve in order to arrive at the correct pagination for your edition.

All readings not required for purchase will be placed on reserve in the Library.  For your convenience all other reserve books will be on two-hour desk reserve.  Lectures will be on Mondays unless announced otherwise here or in class.

 

ONLINE

The Humanities 210 syllabus is available in the Humanities course folder on Reed’s World Wide Web Site (http://web.reed.edu/academic/departments/Humanities/) and on the Griffin Exchange.