MRST 110 - Medieval and Renaissance Culture

FDR: Offered as 110A when HL; or as 110 when HU; depending on topic.
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Winter

An introduction to the interdisciplinary study of the Medieval and Renaissance periods through the study of a particular topic. Recent studies: The Crusades, Monasticism, Chivalry, Elizabethan England, the Birth of Italian Literature, Pilgrimage, and European Encounters with Islam.

Winter 2015 topic:

MRST 110A: Dreaming in the Middle Ages (3). This course explores a broad range of medieval dream theories and literature of dreaming by authors such as Boethius, Chaucer, Langland, Julian of Norwich, and Shakespeare. Student consider how dream vision functions as a vehicle for understanding the human, the divine, the demonic, and the cosmic. We consider how medieval dream literature engages with romance, epic, devotion and theology, philosophy, allegory, travel narrative, and early science fiction. At the same time. we examine how modern cognitive science and psychoanalysis differ from medieval concepts, and how they might be useful in the reading of medieval texts. (HL) Kao. Winter 2015