HONORS 122: READING THE ARTS PROF. LAWRENCE
SECTS. 001 AND 002 SPRING
2006
COURSE SYLLABUS
The Middle Ages have left a rich legacy of
art, architecture, music, literature and thought to the cultures of western
Europe. Echoes continue to the present
day, in the form of opera and popular song, Celtic myth, the legends of
Camelot, spiritual ideas, and Gothic architecture. In this course, we will
examine some of the original products of the high Middle
Ages--roughly the eleventh through fifteenth centuries--as well as some of the
modern works of art, music and literature they have inspired. We will consider
the common ideas and values that link the arts of the Middle Ages, as well the
forms and practices that underlie each of the arts of the period, such as the
Gothic cathedral or the mystery play. The course will build on ideas of
culture, representation and memory learned in Honors 121: "Reading
Cultural Signs." Besides the usual reading, writing and presentation,
coursework will include self-guided field trips to local monuments and
performances.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
·
Class attendance, with occasional in-class exercises.
·
Assigned readings.
·
Two self-propelled field assignments in the
·
Three two-page ungraded exercises or reaction
papers.
·
Two tests and one final exam.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:
·
Veronica Sekules, Medieval Art (
·
Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, Cathedrals and
Castles: Building in the Middle Ages
(Discoveries series). Abrams, 1995.
·
Music CD: Sinners and Saints: The
Ultimate Medieval and Renaissance Music Collection. Philip Pickett and
the
·
A photocopied packet of selected readings
on medieval music and drama.
·
More readings will be available on-line
through GMU’s electronic reserves.
TECHNOLOGY
REQUIREMENTS:
I will expect that all students have email accounts and actually use them; that
all students use computerized word-processing with spell-checkers and decent
printers for their written work; and that all students can access the Web for
information.
WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM: The work in this course
contributes towards fulfillment of GMU’s “writing
across the curriculum” requirement. All Honors
courses contribute to the GMU General Education curriculum requirements.
HOW TO REACH ME:
·
Tel. (703) 993-3770, or call
the History and Art History Department office at (703) 993-1250.
·
Email:
·
Office: Robinson B340, deep
inside the History and Art History Department.
My mailbox is in Robinson
B359, the History and Art History Department main office.
·
Office hours: Mondays and
Wednesdays,
CLASS POLICIES
Attendance is necessary; much of the
material will only be covered in our slide lectures. You are responsible for getting notes, and
for all consequences of missed classes. Class participation will affect your grade,
if it is conspicuously good, conspicuously lacking, or continually
disruptive. I will be making spot checks
of attendance—they’re not perfect, I know, but they can help us both recognize
a pattern.
Classroom atmosphere. Courtesy and common sense, please. Talking to friends during lectures, wandering
in and out, cell phones, and eating food are all badly distracting to everyone
else. Disruptive students will be asked
to leave the classroom (Oh yes I can—University policy.).
Written work Papers must be written in
good formal English, with full documentation in a standard format such as MLA,
APA or Chicago. All students are
expected to use word-processors with spell-checkers. Please submit papers
typed, double-spaced, and PROOFREAD. Badly written work will be downgraded,
returned for a rewrite, or flunked, as I see most appropriate. My policies on what constitutes “good
writing” are given below, in detail. For
any sort of help with writing, from simple questions to systematic tutoring,
please contact The Writing Center in
Robinson I, Room A116. Call them at (703) 993-1200, or see their phenomenally
good web page, at: http://
writingcenter.gmu.edu/
Written work
is due in class, printed out in hard copy. Email submission of papers is not permitted, due to recurring problems
with fairness, deadlines, viruses, etc.
Late work will be graded down five
points per day, including weekend days. Work
is due in class. Late work may be submitted to my mailbox, in Robinson B359, or
to my office, Robinson B340—not to my email, please. By the final exam, all
missing work becomes F work.
Make-up tests and excused medical absences will require
verification with a physician's or assistant dean's excuse.
English as a
Second Language: If English is not your first
language, I will be happy to help you do your best in the writing
assignments--by previewing papers, offering extra help, that sort of
thing. The final result must be good
standard written English. Please work
with The Writing Center in Robinson I, Room A116. Call them at (703) 993-1200,
or see their web page for English language help, at: http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/ .
Learning
disabilities
will be accommodated as required according to University policies. Learning disabilities must be documented by
the Disabilities Support Services. It is
the student’s responsibility to get tested, present the documentation to me,
and request accommodations in a timely way (i.e. not on the day of the test;
not after-the-fact). Call the
Religious holidays. I have planned this course according to the
Academic honesty is expected in all tests
and writing. Please respect the Honor
Code, our classroom standards, your fellow students, and yourself. Please report violations to the Honor Committee. See the explanation of plagiarism in the
guidelines for writing.
WRITTEN WORK will be graded according to
the following
criteria:
A = Startlingly
good, exceeding expectations, and well-written.
Must be imaginative; NOT given for simply following
directions.
B = Good effort with a good
result.
C = Perfunctory; or, tried but missed the point; or,
did something well but it wasn't the assignment;
or, good idea but
careless or sloppy.
D = Warning: accepted under protest.
F = Unacceptable as college-level work.
Paper grades
will be lowered for lateness, sloppiness, lack of proofreading, bad English, lack of
necessary documentation, faulty logic, or failure to follow directions for the
assignment. Please study the directions
for writing assignments, elsewhere in this syllabus.
Late written
work:
Papers are due in class, in hard copy, on the day specified. After that, late
papers will be lowered five points a day, half a grade. This makes even the best work “F” work after
about ten days. If you need an extension, you must ask for it before the due date, not
on or after, if you want to avoid a penalty. Email submissions are not accepted
without prior, individual approval.
Ungraded written work: The short reaction papers
will be given a check (“good”), plus (“outstanding”), minus (“below
expectations”) or zero (“the dog ate it”) as appropriate. They will be considered as a group for a
single grade at the end of class. Mostly
“check” will result in a B for the group; mostly “plus” will result in an A,
etc. Ungraded
work is important. Any missing ungraded work will result in the lowering of your final
course grade by 5 points!
Class
participation grade:
FINAL GRADES will be based on the
average of your paper, test and class grades, thus:
Test
Test
Final exam: 15% Class participation 10%
3 reaction papers, graded as a group: 15%
Final grades
may be raised or lowered from strict average in the following circumstances:
·
A pattern of pluses or minuses on the ungraded
assignments; or missing ungraded work. I will lower your final grade 5 points for
each piece of missing ungraded work.
·
I may raise or lower your grade for significant change over the course of
the semester.
·
TWO MAJOR PIECES OF GRADED
WORK MISSING AT THE END OF THE COURSE WILL BE GROUNDS FOR FAILING THE COURSE
REGARDLESS OF YOUR PRECISE AVERAGE.
·
IF YOU FLUNK THE FINAL EXAM,
WITH AN F ON ANOTHER MAJOR PIECE OF WORK, YOU ARE LIKELY TO RECEIVE A FAILING
GRADE FOR THE WHOLE COURSE. To pass this course you must
demonstrate some mastery of the material--no one passes for just showing
up! Failing to hand in written work, or
failing the final exam means you have not mastered the course material.
GUIDELINES FOR ALL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
Organization: College-level essays are to
be carefully constructed and presented as finished products. They are not just journal entries or
stream-of-consciousness. This means they
must have a thesis of some sort, and present reasoned arguments through the
examination of evidence. There should be
an introductory thesis statement and a conclusion. Paragraphs should be used as a way to
structure the argument so a reader can follow your thinking. An interesting or informative title is
necessary. A funny title is fine. “Art Paper #1” is not.
Mechanics: All papers must be typed and double-spaced,
using a standard font in 10 or 11-point size.
Please stick to plain old white paper and standard fonts. Handwriting is not OK. Quadruple-spacing is
not OK. Writing the whole darned thing in italics or Olde English is not
OK. (Why not? Because italics are to be used for specific
reasons: emphasis and foreign terms.
Because Olde English on perfumed blue paper is
too-too high school). Pictures are nice, but strictly optional. Pictures cannot be a substitute for
writing. Nice presentation is always
welcome, but please be clear that adding pictures will
not affect your grade unless they are explicitly part of the assignment.
Spelling and grammar are expected to
be correct. Use the spell-checker. I will mark down work for sloppy spelling and
grammar. If the writing is really
awful—ungrammatical, no evidence of proofreading, horrible spelling, or
laughably short—I will not read it. I’ll
return it as unacceptable, with an F.
Early in the semester, I’ll allow a rewrite (for a maximum of C, which
is the average of F and A). Late in the
semester there will be no time for a rewrite.
Page
limits should be observed, and should be your guide to the depth of
writing: a one-to-two page paper is pretty much a quick observation, with
thesis and conclusion. Three-to-five
pages means there is time to develop a thesis and argue it through several
paragraphs, considering several different questions, angles or pieces of
evidence. An eight-to-ten page paper
usually includes research (this will be made clear in the assignment), and
anything over ten pages is probably expected to include a great deal of
research.
Citations. Any time you use a source of
information you should consider citing it, to avoid the appearance of
plagiarism. Generally-known facts are
not normally cited. Anything else is,
including a long recitation of facts from one source that you are paraphrasing,
a single opinion stated by another author, and any direct quote.
Example 1: “George Washington lived at
Example 2: “The cathedral was begun in the 1890’s,
and not completed until the 1950’s after several design changes.” This is specialized information, and it must
have come from somewhere unless you just made it up. So please cite your source of
information! If you are paraphrasing a
large amount of information, put a citation at the end of the paragraph. Give a separate citation to each separate
source.
Example 3: “The cathedral looks as if it was begun in
the 1890’s and not completed until the 1950’s with some design changes along
the way.” Clearly your own opinion (we
hope) based on your own observations (we hope).
If this is the case, then no citation is necessary. However, if you only say it because you read
it somewhere, cite the source. This is
the honor system.
Example 4: “This is the finest example of
Romanesque-revival style in the country.”
Oh, says who? If this is your
opinion, please back it up by explaining your assertion. If you are just quoting from someone else,
you need to cite the information.
Example
5: “According to Encarta, this is the finest example of Romanesque-revival
style in the country.” That’s nice—but
you still need to add a footnote or parenthetical reference giving the details,
in a standard citation format.
Citation style: There are several acceptable
citation styles in academic writing, and you probably have been taught several
here and there. Please use the one you
know best, or the one most appropriate to your major. In history and art-history, we usually use
the
B. Plagiarism encompasses the following:
1.Presenting as one's own the works, the work, or the
opinions of someone else without proper acknowledgement.
2.Borrowing the sequence of ideas, the arrangement of
material, or the pattern of thought of someone
else without proper acknowledgement.
__________________________________________________________________________
SUMMARY OF
IMPORTANT DATES:
Last day to drop classes without tuition liability:
Tuesday, February 7.
Last day to add classes: Tuesday, February 7.
Class cancelled, Monday, February 13.
Test 1: Wednesday, February 15.
Last day to drop without the dean's permission:
Friday, February 24, by
Spring Break: March 12-19. No classes.
Test 2: Wednesday, March 29.
Final exams:
Section 001 (
Section
002 (
TENTATIVE LECTURE SCHEDULE
·
Classes will normally be held in the Fine
Arts Building, Room B212 on Mondays and Wednesdays. Section 001 meets from
·
·
All assigned
work is due in class, in hard copy only.
A self-propelled trip to the
National Cathedral in
WEEK 1:
MEDIEVAL
Topics: Medieval geography and cosmology; medieval religious institutions.
·
Sekules, Medieval
Art, Introduction: “The Realms of Art” and chapter
1: “A Sense of Place.”
·
Cathedrals and Castles,
chapter I: “A
·
Geography exercise; first response essay
assigned.
WEEK 2: ART,
ARTISTS AND PATRONS
Topics: Talking about art: the major media, concept of the artist then and now, authorship of medieval art, training of medieval artists and architects.
·
Sekules, Medieval
Art, chapter 2: “Artists.”
·
Cathedrals and Castles,
chapter II: “The Architect,” and appropriate documents.
Film:
Cathedral
WEEK 3:
ARCHITECTURE OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
Topics: Organization of the
medieval Christian church, Gothic church structure and building techniques,
aesthetics and decoration.
·
Sekules, Medieval
Art, chapter 3: “Art and Power in the Latin Church”
·
Cathedrals and Castles, chapter III: “Means of Expression” and IV: “On
Site”
·
Abbot Suger, on the building of the Abbey
Church of St.-Denis (e-reserve)
·
St. Bernard, “An Apologia for Abbot William” (e-reserve)
WEEK 4:
WEEK 5: MONASTERIES AND PILGRIMAGE
Topics: Monastery architecture, saints and martyrs,
pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
·
Review Sekules, Medieval
Art, chapter 3: “Art and Power in the Latin Church”
·
“Pilgrims and Travellers,” primary source
excerpts (e-reserve)
·
“The Bodies of the Saints…” from The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela
(e-reserve)
·
“General Prologue,” from the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey
Chaucer (on-line: http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm
Film: And They Sang a New Song
Topics: Depiction in religious art,
the cult of the Virgin Mary, the Book of Hours.
·
Sekules, Medieval
Art, chapter 4: “Design and Devotion, 1200-1500.”
·
Hildegard of Bingen,
“The Symphonia” (reading packet).
Film: Glories of Medieval Art: The Cloisters.
WEEK 7:
MEDIEVAL LEARNING
Topics: The medieval university; the Greek and Latin
inheritance, Scholasticism, numerology, the Muslim and Jewish contribution,
pagan and Christian themes in art.
·
Sekules, Medieval
Art, chapter 5: “Image and Learning.”
·
Dante Alighieri, The
Inferno, Cantos 1-4.
Film: Stealing
Heaven
WEEK 8: ART
AND WARFARE
Topics: Castles,
Bayeux Tapestry, Song of Roland,
Mont-St.-Michel, the crusader ethos, arms & armor, the tournament.
·
Sekules, Medieval
Art, chapter 6: “Art and War.”
·
“The
·
“La Chanson de Roland,” from H. Adams, Mont
St Michel and
Film: At the Met: The
Tournament
PART III: MEDIEVAL MUSIC AND PERFORMANCE
A live or recorded
performance project will be assigned.
Topics: Gregorian chant, Hildegard of Bingen (again), medieval instruments, pilgrimage songs,
troubadour songs.
Reading/listening:
·
Machlis
and Forney, “The Middle Ages,” from The Enjoyment of Music (reading
packet.)
·
Music recordings, from Sinners &
Saints CD, to be assigned.
Film: In the Symphony of the World: Hildegard of Bingen
Topics: Medieval song, satire, and humor.
Modern adaptations of medieval texts.
·
Wilhelm, “The Carmina Burana”
(reading packet).
·
Music recordings, from Sinners & Saints CD, to be assigned.
Film: Music in the 12th
Century
WEEK 12: CHIVALRY AND COURTLY LOVE
Topics: Elite culture and gender roles, courtly love,
chivalry, allegory, Arthurian stories, Unicorn Tapestries.
·
Sekules, Medieval
Art, chapter 7: “Pleasures.”
·
Marie de France, “Lanval.”
(reading packet).
WEEK 13:
MEDIEVAL THEATER
Topics: Sacred and secular
entertainment, public art, popular taste, mystery plays.
·
Cawley,
“The Towneley Cycle: The Wakefield Second Shepherds’
Pageant” (reading packet).
Film: Medieval Drama, from Sanctuary to Stage
WEEK 14: CATCH-UP AND REVIEW
Film: The Second
Shepherds’ Play
FINAL
EXAMS:
Section 001 (
Section 002 (
Cawley, A.C., ed., “The Towneley Cycle: The
Hildegard
of Bingen, “The Symphonia,”
from Secrets of God: Writings of Hildegard of Bingen,
ed. and trans. Sabina Flanagan (Boston: Shambala,
1996), pp. 119-139.
Machlis, Joseph, and Kristine Forney, “The Middle Ages,” from The Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to
Perceptive Listening (New York: Norton, 1990), pp. 57-81.
Marie
de France, “Lanval,” from The Lais
of Marie de France, trans. Robert Hanning and
Joan Ferrante (Durham: The Labyrinth Press, 1978),
pp. 105-125.
Wilhelm,
James J., “The Carmina Burana,”
from Medieval Song: An Anthology of Hymns and Lyrics (New York: Dutton,
1971), pp. 75-99.
_____________________________________________
Henry Adams, Mont Saint Michel and
The Portable Medieval Reader, ed. James Bruce Ross and
Mary Martin McLaughlin.
Abbot
Suger, on the building of the Abbey Church of
St-Denis, from Gothic Art 1140-c.1450: Source and Documents, edited by
Teresa G. Frisch.
St.
Bernard, “An Apologia for Abbot William,” from The Cistercian World:
Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century, edited by Pauline Matarasso. Penguin Classics.
Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Cantos 1-4, translated by C.H.
Sisson. From The Medieval Reader,
edited by Norman Cantor.
“Pilgrims
and Travelers,” from Early Medieval Art, 300-1150: Sources and Documents,
edited by Caecilia Davis-Weyer.