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The Minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Course Requirements for the Minor: 18 units

The following courses, or their approved transfer equivalents, are required of all candidates for this minor.

2 courses required:

SUBJ NUM Title Sustainable Units Semester Offered Course Flags
An overview of the artistic and intellectual heritage of the cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, India, China, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Medieval Europe, and Islam from their origins to 1500 C.E. Comparative analysis of music, art, architecture, and primary texts (theatre, philosophy and religion, literature, history, and political science). 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. (015843)
An overview of Western Culture from the Renaissance to the present. Serves as a broad introduction to the major forms and types of artistic expression: sculpture, architecture, painting, philosophy, literature, drama, dance, film, and music, and includes comparative analysis of primary texts (theatre, philosophy and religion, literature, history, and political science). 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. (015845)

1-2 courses selected from:

SUBJ NUM Title Sustainable Units Semester Offered Course Flags
A survey of British literature from Beowulf to mid-1700s. 3 hours lecture. (003472)
This course is also offered as MEST 261, RELS 202.
Introduces students to the history, faith, practice, and cultures of Islam, starting with the Late Antique Near Eastern milieu from which it emerged and tracing its development and geographic spread around the world to the present day. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. This is an approved Global Cultures course. (004515)
This course uses films set during the Renaissance to offer an overview on a period of time that has given the world a series of unique innovations in painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, politics, and sciences. A journey through the historical context and major themes of the political, literary, and visual culture produced in Italy between ca. 1300 and 1600 are the background of the course main focus: the examination of effective life changes occurred during the Renaissance. This is a combination of film screenings, lecture, and discussion. The use of media is intended to help students reflect upon the way in which the Renaissance phenomenon has been portrayed in western culture. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. (021202)
This course is also offered as HIST 261, RELS 202.
Introduces students to the history, faith, practice, and cultures of Islam, starting with the Late Antique Near Eastern milieu from which it emerged and tracing its development and geographic spread around the world to the present day. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. This is an approved Global Cultures course. (004515)
This course is also offered as HIST 261, MEST 261.
Introduces students to the history, faith, practice, and cultures of Islam, starting with the Late Antique Near Eastern milieu from which it emerged and tracing its development and geographic spread around the world to the present day. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. This is an approved Global Cultures course. (004515)
This course is also offered as MJIS 205.
This course traces the history of Jewish and Muslim engagement with the West, explores the diversity of Jewish and Muslim groups in contemporary Europe and the United States, and investigates how Western interactions with Jews and Muslims have defined and challenged European and American identities. 3 hours discussion. This is an approved General Education course. This is an approved US Diversity course. (020675)

2-3 courses selected from:

SUBJ NUM Title Sustainable Units Semester Offered Course Flags
In-depth thematic study of medieval art and architecture. The course is thematic, with emphasis on religion, geography, sexuality, race, and monstrosity. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved Writing Course. (000843)
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Written Communication (A2) requirement; ENGL 276, ENGL 340.
Study of the Canterbury Tales and other works by the major poet of the English Middle Ages. The study of Middle English and of medieval society, its values and beliefs as mirrored in Chaucer's works. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement course; a grade of C- or higher certifies writing proficiency for majors. This is an approved Writing Course. (003503)
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Written Communication (A2) requirement; ENGL 276, ENGL 340.
An introduction to Shakespeare's principal plays, his art, his age, and his critics; designed especially for English majors. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement course; a grade of C- or higher certifies writing proficiency for majors. This is an approved Writing Course. (003507)
Prerequisites: ENGL 276, ENGL 340.
A study of the literature and culture of Tudor England, emphasizing the prose and poetry of such figures as More, Skelton, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser and Marlowe. 3 hours seminar. (003511)
Prerequisites: ENGL 276, ENGL 340.
The development of British drama from its beginnings to the nineteenth century. Specific topics vary from semester to semester. 3 hours seminar. (003545)
A political, social, economic, and cultural history of the Middle Ages. This course examines the transformation, centralization, fragmentation, and expansion of the West (including Byzantium and the Islamic world, as well as Europe) from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. 3 hours lecture. (021307)
A survey of European history from the Renaissance through the Age of Revolution. This course prepares students for 400-level courses in European history by introducing the social, cultural, and political history of the period, with special emphasis placed upon the Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment. It also prepares students for careers in education by incorporating historical analysis skills required in K-12 classrooms. 3 hours lecture. (021308)
This course is also offered as MEST 362.
Introduction to some major aspects of culture, society and the state in the Islamic Middle East, including Islamic religion, the Arab Empire, the family, law, roles of men and women, styles of living. Examination of the post-Mongol empires of Ottoman and Safavid, and their interaction with European powers in the early modern period. 3 hours lecture. This is an approved General Education course. This is an approved Global Cultures course. (004550)
New ideas about power and social structure in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe: Humanism, socio-political transformations, secular attitudes in art and society. 3 hours seminar. (004592)
The breakdown of religious consensus among Europeans; the people and directions of Reform; technology and the military revolution of the period; rulers, people, and the idea of revolution; the reconsolidating of a European elite. 3 hours seminar. (015755)
Political, social, and cultural history of the British Isles from the advent of the Tudors through the demise of the Stuarts. This course examines the transition from a medieval society to modern Britain, by focusing upon change and continuity in matters of government, religion, gender and the economy. 3 hours seminar. (004523)
Western philosophical thought from the Renaissance through Kant, including Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. 3 hours lecture. (007182)
Catalog Cycle:20