| HSS 403, Fall 2011 Office: 413 Cullimore Hall Hours: W, 2:30-4; Th, 1:30-2, and by appointment Mail: Humanities Dep't, NJIT, Newark, NJ 07102 |
IF YOU ARE NOT ADEPT AT READING
LITERATURE
AND BEING ABLE TO ANALYZE IT,
AND IF YOU ARE NOT ADEPT AT WRITING IN ENGLISH,
THEN YOU SHOULD NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS COURSE
(INSTEAD YOU SHOULD ENROLL IN A SENIOR SEMINAR THAT IS NOT CONCERNED
WITH
LITERATURE).
Course Procedures, an Introduction
Greetings,
As the faculty mentor for this distance-learning course, Romance in the Western Middle Ages, I welcome you. There are a number of texts assigned for this course (listed on the course syllabus below), which I hope will provide you with a fertile reading and thinking experience. Besides reading, we will also be doing a lot of writing. There will be frequent group postings, as well as individual postings at various intervals, and there will be a number of formal writing assignments, virtually all of them essay in format. It is important to stress at the outset of this course that the course will be very demanding, and, further, given its "distance" and "asynchronous" nature, this course may not be right for you; distance learning is not for everyone. In fact, you would be wise to take a quiz that will help you determine if you are right for this course; to do so click here. Please seriously and soberly consider if you are ready to be self-directed in carrying out a number of sometimes complicated tasks, and, also, if you are ready to do a lot of reading and writing. This on-line course will require more time, and more intense participation, than a face-to-face course.
We will be conducting our group discussions on the Moodle conferencing system (at moodle.njit.edu), so you will need to have a UCID account to be enrolled in this class’s "conference." To get this account, phone the NJIT Computing Help Desk at 973-596-2900 or try obtaining directions from NJIT's Information Services website: http://ist.njit.edu/. As a last resort, you may be able to get technical help by writing to moodle.admin@njit.edu. Once you have the account—or if you already have the account—please contact me through the Moodle messaging system and provide me with an e-mail address where if necessary you can be contacted other than through the Moodle environment or via your NJIT email address; in any case, I may have occasion, if for some reason Moodle were not working, to write to you at your NJIT eddress, via Highlander Pipeline, so make sure to check that eddress regularly or else to have your mail forwarded from there to an eddress you use often; in any case, my messages to you sent via Moodle will go to your NJIT email address.
After you have accomplished what is specified above, and once you have read over the materials waiting for you at the course site (the greater portion of which is not redundant relative to the message you are reading now), please then send a message to the class conference to introduce yourself, in the Discussions section of the class conference and in the subsection designated "Introducing Ourselves" (you need not introduce yourself until the first day of the term). Throughout the duration of this course, you will need to log on to the Moodle conferencing system. You should sign into our on-line conference discussions at least twice a day and respond to the comments and questions that I and/or your classmates have posed. It is STRONGLY recommended that you learn the Moodle system thoroughly right away; you may wish to begin your learning process by clicking the link under "Student Tutorials" at the Moodle website once you have logged in. And, again, please make sure to peruse all of the materials awaiting you at the course homepage, such as can be found in, for example, the course Syllabus, Calendar and Discussions. Also, be sure to read carefully: Course Procedures, an Introduction.CAUTION: ALL ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS YOU INITIATE MUST BE VIRUS-FREE!!
I look forward to getting to know you, to our exchanges, and otherwise to our sharing of our reading experiences that I think you will find enriching and enlightening.
Yours cordially,
Burt Kimmelman
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will examine major literary works of Western medieval romance, and will consider the medieval concept of romance as it is embedded in notions of love, chivalry, adventure, philosophy, social and/or economic class, as well as feudal economic and political systems. Works will be compared with each other and will be read in the contexts of both their own times and the present.
COURSE TEXTS
Capellanus, Andreas. The Art of Courtly Love. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde. Tr. Barry Windeatt. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.
Chrétien de Troyes. Ywain: The Knight of the Lion (Yvain, Le Chevalier au Lion). Waveland Press, 1992.
De Lorris, Guillaume, and Jean De Meun. The Romance of the Rose. Trans. Frances Horgan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Marie de France. The Lais of Marie De France. Trans. Glyn S. Burgess, and Keith Busby. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Pearl. Tr. Marie Borroff. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
Troubadour, Trouvére, Dolce Stil Nuovo,
and Minnesinger Lyrics (required poems are specified
here
and below in the syllabus):
Glossary of Terms
and Definitions
Other Online Literary Resources
See also:
Humanities Resources Links (http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma/humanities.htm).
Writing Guides Links (http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma/writing.html).
Documentation Guides Links (http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma/documentation.html).
Annotated
Bibliography Sample
Abbreviations
for Marking Papers
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
* Final examination, comprehensive, essay in format.
* Two papers, the first of about six hundred words, which will take the form of a Term Paper Announcement (see full description below^) consisting of a Working Title and Subtitle, a one-sentence Thesis Statement (one sentence only, though the sentence can be long), a Description of your future paper’s Writing Strategy (one paragraph can be enough, but more than one is acceptable), and a Bibliography of at least three secondary sources, one of which must be a hard-copy source (see full description of bibliography requirements below^); the second paper is to be of 1500 to 3000 words, which will be a researched, fully-documented, original and critical, discursive, polemical and otherwise argumentative essay that must include at least some detailed literary analysis (see below^^), along with a bibliography of all sources (the bibliography is not to be considered part of your word count). The term paper topic is open (although the topic must have something to do with medieval literary romance) but must be approved ahead of time by the instructor.
N.B.: Research Term Paper assignments can only be credited when they are submitted in order (i.e., the Term Paper will not be read unless it is preceded by the Term Paper Announcement).
N.B.: All papers must be word processed, double-spaced with
one
inch margins, spell-checked, and to the best of one's ability
grammar-checked.
If on occasion use is made of the ideas or words of someone else in
one's
writing, then the source(s) of those ideas and/or words must be cited;
that is, when appropriate, papers must be fully documented in MLA
format (you must cite sources--using footnotes, endnotes, or
parenthetical
documentation, which include specific page numbers keyed to particular
passages in your text, and complete bibliographical information).
PAPERS NOT MEETING ALL OF THESE REQUIREMENTS WILL NOT BE READ AND WILL
NOT RECEIVE CREDIT. Papers must be submitted to the instructor via
Moodle only,
as attachments, using a proper indentifying subject line.
* Conference postings of various kinds both as individual and as a member of a group (this will require daily participation).
N.B.: Failure to participate in class discussions (including but not
exclusively group deliberations) at a minimally
acceptable level will result in disqualification of end-of-term
assignments such as the term paper and final exam; such
disqualification must inevitably spell failure in the course. In order
to pass this course a student must be consistently active in
daily/weekly class work starting from the beginning of the course term.
Failure
to turn in the final exam will result in the various papers that are
part of the term paper project being disqualified.
^Term Paper Announcement:
Consists of 1) a
descriptive
paper title and subtitle, 2) a one-sentence thesis statement that
includes the point of your
argument, the breadth of that argument, and the argument’s significant
concepts
and details (the sentence can be very long and contain a number of
clauses, and
can employ one semicolon), 3) a one- or more-paragraph description of
the
writing or argumentative strategy to be employed in your paper (this is
not to
be confused with a summary of your projected essay), 4) an alphabetized
bibliography of at least three secondary sources, to be listed
along with any primary sources to be used, you plan to consult as part
of your
research project, presented in proper MLA format (see writing and
documentation
guidelines above, listed with the course readings), one of which must
be a
hard-copy source (for the purposes of this assignment encyclopedias,
dictionaries, and textbooks will not be considered as counting toward
the
requisite minimum number of secondary sources, although they can be
used in your
term paper project and should be listed in your bibliography).
^^Term Paper:
Consists of: 1) a
descriptive
paper title and subtitle, 2) a full-length essay, 3) a bibliography in
MLA format and
alphabetized. For the purposes of this assignment, use must be made of
at least
three secondary research sources (one of them hard copy) excluding
textbooks,
encyclopedias and dictionaries that may also be used and should be
cited if used.
N.B.: While one resesarch paper source must be hard copy--and
there is
no substitute for physically going to a library to do research--a
downloaded
article from one of the NJIT or Rutgers library's databases can be
considered as a hard
copy source (it is best to check with the instructor about the
suitability of
such an article).
It is STRONGLY recommended that research begin with the MLA Bibliography (locally to be found at the Rutgers-Newark library research room--ask a librarian there to show you how it works).
COURSE SCHEDULE
(see
Dates
for specific due dates,
individual and group assignments, group
membership etc.)
1: Introducing ourselves and general introduction to the course.
2: Background readings on the Middle Ages (click here:
http://web.njit.edu/%7Ekimmelma/hss403romanceDLsummerBackground.html);
The Art of Courtly Love
Introduction
and
pp. 27-36, 68-83, 107-41, 151-212.
3: Lyrics of the Troubadours, Trouvères, Minnesänger, and
Dolce Stil Novisti
(click here:
http://web.njit.edu/~kimmelma/hss403romanceDLLoveLyrics.html).
4: Ywain, pp. v-113.
Term
Paper Announcment due.
5: The Lais of Marie De France, Introduction and pp. 41-126.
6: The Romance of the Rose, Introduction, pp. ix-xxii; pp. 3-58
(ll. 1-3815), pp. 134-38
(ll. 8697-8963), pp. 259-335 (ll. 16707-21780).
7. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
Introduction and Parts
1-4.
8. Troilus and Criseyde, Introduction and Books 1-5.
9.
Portfolio of Eight Best
Posts, Researched and Fully Documented Term Paper,
and
Final Examination due.
COURSE GRADE
Background for Doing Literary Analysis and Explanations for Doing Group Work (text and links)
Writing Assignments (descriptions and helpful links)
Using the Student Presentation Tool