Course Description
European society in the context of pivotal social, political, and intellectual moments, from the growth of the Humanist movement to the military revolution. The goal is a better understanding of "turning points" in history, and their creation and definition.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Extra reading and written work.
Athena Title
REBIRTH IN MOD EUR
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The principal objective of the course is to teach students to think critically for themselves about the relationships between the past and the present, to learn to ask questions of the past that enable them to understand the present and mold the future, and to become attuned to both the limitations and possibilities of change. The course seeks to acquaint students with the ways in which past societies and peoples have defined the relationships between community and individual needs and goals, and between ethical norms and decision-making. In general students will be expected to: 1. read a wide range of primary and secondary sources critically. 2. polish skills in critical thinking, including the ability to recognize the difference between opinion and evidence, and the ability to evaluate--and support or refute--arguments effectively. 3. write stylistically appropriate and mature papers and essays using processes that include discovering ideas and evidence, organizing that material, and revising, editing, and polishing the finished papers.
Topical Outline
The Textures of Experience Aristotle. Selected works from Parva Naturalia. Aristotle. De Anima. Descartes, Rene. Treatise of Man (L'homme). Reiss, Timothy. "Denying the Body? Memory and the Dilemmas of History in Descartes." Sutton, John. Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism Sutton, John. "The Body and the Brain." Ficino, Marsilio. Three Books on Life Pomponazzi, Pietro. De Immortalitate Animae Agrippa, H. C. Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic, by the famous mystic Henry Cornelius Agrippa - Book One - Natural Magic Digby, Kenelm. Two Treatises . . . Sutton, John. "Body, Mind, and Order: local memory and the control of mental representations in medieval and Renaissance sciences of self" Sutton, John. Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism Paracelsus. "Seven Defensiones" and "On the Miners' Sickness." Paracelsus. "The Herbarius of Paracelsus." Pliny the Elder. Historia naturalis. Porta, Giambattista della. Daston, Lorraine, and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 Scribner, Bob. "Cosmic Order and Daily Life: Sacred and Secular in Pre-Industrial German Society." Vernacular Epistemologies Vernacular Knowledge and Print Culture Bacon, Francis. Sylva Sylvarum. Works of Francis Bacon Lupton, Thomas. A thousand notable things Eamon, William. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture Fissell, Mary. "Imagining Vermin in Early Modern England," The Body and/in The World Moffett, Thomas. Health's Improvement Paster, Gail Kern. "The Body and Its Passions." Paster, Gail Kern. "The Clear Spirit Puddled: Physiological Tropes of Passion in Othello" Schoenfeldt, Michael. Bodies and Selves: Physiology and Inwardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton Chartier, Roger. "Culture as Appropriation." Female Bodies Heywood, Thomas. Wise Woman of Hogsdon (1604?) Fissell, Mary. "Making Bodies Speak: Prophets and Midwives." Mechanical Arts, Natural Philosophy, and Visual Representation Manetti, Antonio di Tuccio. The Life of Brunelleschi. Summers, David. "Pandora's Crown: On Wonder, Imitation and Mechanism in Western Art." The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts Summers, David. "Quello che non e sia." Holman, Beth L. "A 'subtle artifice': Giulio Romano's Salt Cellar with Satyrs for Federico II Gonzaga," Cellini, Benvenuto. The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Alberti, Leon Battista. "On Painting." Homer. Iliad Ovid. Metamorphoses Da Vinci, Leonardo. The Madrid Codices Serlio, Sebastiano. Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture: Books I-V of Tutte L'Opere d'Architettura et Prospetiva Vesalius, Andreas. De Humani Corporis Fabrica Vesalius. On the Fabric of the Human Body Gabbey, Alan. "Between Ars and Philosophia Naturalis: Reflections on the Historiography of Early Modern Mechnics." Long, Pamela O. "Power, Patronage, and the Authorship of Ars: From Mechanical Know-how to Mechanical Knowledge in the Last Scribal Age," Disciplining Experience: Cartography and Mathematics Cortes, Martin. Breve compendio de la sphera La Cosa, Juan de. Spanish World Chart, ca. 1500. Mukerji, Chandra. Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles Harley, J.B. "Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe," Turnbull, David. "Tricksters and Cartographers: Maps, Science and the state in the making of a modern scientific knowledge space." Mukerji, Chandra. "Cartography, Entrepreneurialism, and Power in the Reign of Louis XIV: The Case of the Canal du Midi." Turnbull, David. "Pacific Navigation: An Alternative Scientific Tradition." Alexander, Amir. "Lunar Maps and Coastal Outlines: Thomas Hariot's Mapping of the Moon," Latour, Bruno. "Drawing things together." Dee, John. Preface, The elements of geometrie of Euclide. Gilbert, William. De Magnete Norman, Robert. The Newe Attractive Bennett, J. A. "The Mechanics' Philosophy and the Mechanical Philosophy," Zilsel, Edgar. "The Origins of William Gilbert's Scientific Method," Henry, John. "Animism and Empiricism: Copernican Physics and the Origins of William Gilbert's Experimental Method," Hooke, Robert. Micrographia, or Descriptions of some Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses (1665) Hooke, Robert. "An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth" and "Animadversions on the Machina Coelestis of Johannes Hevelius," Borough, William. A Discours of the Variation of the Cumpas, or Magneticall Needle Objects of Art/Objects of Nature Cennini, Cennino. The Craftsman's Handbook. "Il Libro dell' Arte." Palissy, Bernard. Admirable Discourses Durer, Albrecht. Durer's Record of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries Montaigne, Michel de. "On Experience." Parshall, Peter. "Imago contrafacta: Images and Facts in the Northern Renaissance," Stone, Richard E. "Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the End of the Quattrocento," Bewer, Francesca G. "The Sculpture of Adriaen de Vries: A Technical Study." Sturman, Shelley, "A group of Giambologna Female Nudes: Analysis and Manufacture." Bacon, Francis. Novum Organum; With Other Parts of The Great Instauration Bacon, Francis. "The New Atlantis." Booker, John. A Bloody Irish Almanack, or, Rebellious and Bloody Ireland Daston, Lorraine, and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. Kemp, Martin. "'Wrought by No Artist's Hand': The Natural, the Artificial, the Exotic, and the Scientific in Some Artifacts from the Renaissance." Findlen. Paula. "Inventing Nature: Commerce, Art, and Science in the Early Modern Cabinet of Curiosities." Findlen, Paula. "Jokes of Nature and Jokes of Knowledge: The Playfulness of Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Europe," Kaufmann, Thomas Dacosta. "From Mastery of the World to Mastery of Nature: The Kunstkammer, Politics, and Science." Experience and Experiment in the Scientific Revolution Boyle, Robert. "Experiments Physico-Mechanical touching the Spring and Weight of Air." Shapin, Steven and Simon Schaffer. 'Leviathan' and the Air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Frank, Robert G., Jr. Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists: Scientific Ideas and Social Interaction Sprat, Thomas. A History of the Royal Society of London. Edited with critical apparatus by Jackson I Galilei, Galileo. Sidereus Nuncius, or, the Sidereal Messenger Hooke, Robert. The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-1680 Hooke, Robert. "The Present State of Natural Philosophy" and "Of the True Method of Building a Solid Philosophy, or of a Philosophical Algebra" Henry, John. "Robert Hooke, the Incongruous Mechanist." Iliffe, Rob. "Material Doubts: Hooke, Artisan Culture, and the Exchange of Information in 1670s London," Shapin, Steven. "Who was Robert Hooke?" Dear, Peter. Discipline & Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution Shapin, Steven and Simon Schaffer. 'Leviathan' and the Air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life Shapin, Steven. "The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England," Pascal, Blaise. "A Treatise of the Equilibrium of Liquids." Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Volume I: Optical Lectures, 1670-1672 Newton, Isaac. "New Theory about Light and Colours."