TEACHING: THE GLOBAL MIDDLE AGES

Paper, Parchment, Palm: Global Medieval Manuscripts

This Mellon Collections Seminar, co-taught with Dr. Sonya Rhie Mace, explores Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain manuscripts and traces the development and metamorphoses of sacred narratives across these religious cultures. We end with studying Indian painting created in the following two centuries, to see how sacred narratives transmuted and found resonances across multiple societies. This seminar participates in and contributes to the global turn in scholarly inquiry through consideration of some of the major themes across medieval visual cultures, keyed to specific objects in the CMA’s collection.

Gothic Art

This course examines the development and dissemination of Gothic art in Western Europe in the High and Late Middle Ages. We consider a variety of media, including architecture, metalwork, sculpture, manuscript illumination, panel paintings, fresco cycles, and small devotional objects. As we study medieval art in its socio-historical contexts – private and public, monastic and political, liturgical and lay – we pay special attention to issues of patronage, relationships between texts and images, the introduction of visionary and mystical devotion, attitudes towards education and authority, differences between male and female piety, modes of medieval viewing, and reception and manipulation of art by medieval audiences. Visits to the CMA form an integral part of the course.