Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program

Director: Nancy Bisaha^b;

Steering Committee: Mark C. Amodio^ab (English), Nancy Bisaha^b (History), Mita Choudhury^b (History), Terrence Cullen (French and Francophone Studies), Curtis Dozier (Greek and Roman Studies), Yvonne Elet^b (Art), Alberto Gelmi (Italian), Rupinder Kaur^a (French and Francophone Studies), Elizabeth Lastra^b (Art), Zoltán Márkus (English), Ronald Patkus (Library), Carl Rice (Greek and Roman Studies), Agnes Veto (Jewish Studies);

Participating Faculty: Debra Bucher (Library), Eve D’Ambra (Art), Robert DeMaria (English), Marc Epstein (Religion), Alexia Ferracuti (Learning, Teaching and Research Center), Christopher Raymond^b (Philosophy), David Tavárez (Anthropology), Pier Carlo Tommasi (Chinese and Japanese), Pasquale Toscano (English), Klaus Yoder (Religion).

^a On leave 2024/25, first semester

^b On leave 2024/25, second semester

The Medieval and Renaissance Studies program is designed to provide the student with a coherent, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural course of study of the arts, history, literature, and thought from late antiquity to the 18th century.

Programs

• Medieval and Renaissance Studies Major

• Medieval and Renaissance Studies Correlate Sequence

Art, Music, and Drama

• ART 105 - Introduction to the History of Art and Architecture  
• ART 144 - Living in the Ancient City  
• ART 211 - Rome: The Art of Empire  
• ART 215 - The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt  
• ART 219 - The First Cities: The Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East  
• ART 220 - Medieval Art and Architecture  
• ART 221 - Islamic Art and Architecture  
• ART 230 - Art in the Age of Van Eyck, Durer and Bruegel  
• ART 231 - The Golden Age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer  
• ART 235 - The Rise of the Artist, from Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci  
• ART 236 - Art in the Age of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo  
• ART 260 - Buddhist Art and Visual Culture  
• ART 292 - Collecting Antiquities at Vassar: Lost and Found in the Loeb  
• ART 314 - Seminar in Ancient Art  
• ART 320 - Seminar in Medieval Art  
• ART 331 - Seminar in Northern European Art  
• ART 332 - Seminar in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art  
• ART 333 - Gardens and Landscape in Early Modern Italy  
• DRAM 221 - Sources of World Drama  
• DRAM 241 - Shakespeare  
• DRAM 339 - Shakespeare in Production  
• MUSI 246 - Music and Ideas I — Medieval and Renaissance Music in Global Context  
• MUSI 323 - Intersections in Music and Literature  
• URBS 274 - Buildings and Cities in Early Modern Italy  

History, Philosophy, Religion, and Anthropology

• GRST 101 - Civilization in Question  
• GRST 104 - Greek Archaeology  
• GRST 203 - Women in Greek and Roman History and Myth  
• GRST 216 - History of the Ancient Greeks  
• GRST 217 - History of the Ancient Romans  
• GRST 301 - Seminar in Classical Civilization  
• GRST 302 - The End of the Ancient World: Late Antiquity in Context, c. 200-750  
• HIST 116 - The Dark Ages 400-900 CE  
• HIST 117 - High Middle Ages 950-1300  
• HIST 125 - Infamy on Trial: Famous Trials in Early Modern Europe  
• HIST 225 - Renaissance Italy  
• HIST 226 - Northern Europe in the Renaissance, c. 1300-1550  
• HIST 229 - Paris and London: Society and Culture in the Early Modern City, 1500-1800  
• HIST 315 - Crusading and the Holy Land (1095-1291)  
• HIST 326 - Machiavelli and his Contemporaries  
• HIST 382 - Marie-Antoinette  
• LALS 268 - Religion, Repression, and Resistance in Latin America  
• LALS 352 - Indigenous Literatures of the Americas  
• PHIL 101 - History of Western Philosophy: Ancient  
• PHIL 102 - History of Western Philosophy: Modern  
• PHIL 397 - Reading Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics  
• RELI 150 - Jews, Christians, and Muslims  
• RELI 250 - Across Religious Boundaries: Understanding Differences  
• RELI 255 - Western Mystical Traditions  
• RELI 350 - Comparative Studies in Religion  

Language and Literature

• GRST 102 - Myth  
• GRST 145 - Elementary Latin  
• GRST 146 - Elementary Latin  
• GRST 202 - Myth  
• GRST 245 - Intermediate Latin I  
• GRST 246 - Intermediate Latin II  
• GRST 341 - Topics in Latin Literature  
• GRST 342 - Virgil  
• GRST 343 - Tacitus  
• GRST 344 - Roman Lyric and Elegy  

**Other Greek and Roman Studies courses may also count for MRST credit in consultation with the program director**

• ENGL 215 - Pre-modern Drama: Text and Performance before 1800  
• ENGL 222 - Early British Literature  
• ENGL 235 - Old English  
• ENGL 236 - Beowulf  
• ENGL 237 - Medieval Literature  
• ENGL 240 - Shakespeare  
• ENGL 241 - Shakespeare  
• ENGL 247 - Eighteenth-Century British Novels  
• ENGL 340 - Studies in Medieval Literature  
• ENGL 341 - Studies in the Renaissance  
• ENGL 342 - Studies in Shakespeare  
• ENGL 345 - Milton  
• ENGL 350 - Studies in Eighteenth-century British Literature  
• FFS 230 - The Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period  
• FFS 332 - Literature and Society in Pre-Revolutionary France  
• HISP 226 - Medieval and Early Modern Spain  
• ITAL 175 - The Italian Renaissance in English Translation  
• ITAL 220 - Italian Roots and Branches  
• ITAL 237 - The Hell with Dante! A Journey to Inferno  
• ITAL 331 - Heroes, Paladins, and Non-existent Knights: The Italian Epic Tradition from Charlemagne to Calvino  
• ITAL 342 - Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron: The “Novella” as a Microcosm  

• Full List of Courses Accepted for Credit Towards Medieval and Renaissance Studies Major and Correlate

Courses

• MRST 202 - Thesis Preparation
• MRST 220 - Detectives in the Archive: Reading Medieval and Renaissance Texts
• MRST 221 - Medieval Science and Technology
• MRST 224 - Intersectionality in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
• MRST 250 - Whose Middle Ages and Renaissance?
• MRST 290 - Community-Engaged Learning
• MRST 298 - Independent Work
• MRST 300 - Senior Thesis
• MRST 301 - Senior Thesis
• MRST 302 - Senior Thesis
• MRST 399 - Senior Independent Work