Results for ARTHIST206

This seminar explores the processes of survival and activation of Greco-Roman art in the Middle Ages, including iconographic transformations, modalities of reuse, trajectories of return (nostos), and the poetics of embodiment. Focusing on specific case studies from Italy, Spain, France, and England, this course offers in-depth analyses of some of the most remarkable artworks of the Middle Ages in different media, paying special attention to sculpture. Reading assignments will give students the background to engage critically with the thought of scholars such as A. Warburg, E. Panofsky, S. Freud, W. Benjamin, G. Agamben, M. Schapiro, P. Nora, L. Steinberg, and others, with the aim of gaining a rich theoretical perspective on Nachleben der Antike (Afterlife of Antiquity) ¿ one of the central themes in the history of art from Vasari to the most recent Warburgian revival.

This course examines the cultural worlds of medieval women through particular attention to the books that they owned, commissioned, and created. Beginning with the earliest Christian centuries, the course proceeds chronologically, charting women¿s book ownership, scribal and artistic activity, and patronage from Late Antiquity through the fourteenth century. In addition to examining specific manuscripts (in facsimile, or digitally), we will consider ancillary questions to do with women¿s authorship, education and literacy, reading patterns, devotional practices, and visual traditions and representation.