3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This writing-intensive (W) seminar investigates the role of performance and ritual in the conceptualization, production, and reception of medieval European art and architecture (ca. 500-1500). Utilizing an achronological, interdisciplinary framework formed around thematic sessions, students will engage with primary texts and secondary scholarship from the fields of art history, architecture, sociology, and performance studies. Using these sources, as well as the art objects and architectural spaces themselves, students will evaluate a key concept for the study of medieval objects and sites: the relationship between art and function. Students will be required to apply readings and seminar discussions to artworks in museum and university collections located in Baltimore, working directly with manuscripts, paintings, liturgical furnishings, and sculptures in the Johns Hopkins University Rare Books Library and the Walters Art Museum. This will allow students to make claims and conclusions about the involvement of medieval cultural artifacts in rituals and performances, from official liturgical rites to daily personal prayer. Throughout this course, students will also be asked to critically evaluate the role of objects, spaces, and performances in their own life, serving to reduce the temporal gaps between the Middle Ages and the contemporary world. Using current, broad conceptualizations of ritual and performance, students will explore the powerful potential of art objects and sites in shaping, framing, and recontextualizing communal and individual identities.