The Acceleration of Europe: Mobility and Communication, 1000-1700
CHUM 267
Fall 2014
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
HIST 392 |
This research course explores the thesis that during the Middle Ages, Europeans began to move faster, to move more often, and, by doing so, transformed the nature of social life, cultural life, and the character of selves and minds in the world. The course will explore the material aspects of this, such as the nature and development of roads and bridges, ships and canals, inns and hospitality that sustained and encouraged advancing travel. Thematic importance will be given to the place of horses and horseriding in these developments. The course is about the history of communication and the idea that a particular sort of traveler was created through later medieval travel and became the means of cultural and psychological acceleration. The social and cognitive networks established through travel, including the exchange of letters and messages, linked the local to the national. Merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, judges, students, preachers, and bureaucrats became the means of spreading news, changing views, and speeding up the world. This course will expose students to methods and skills in the digital humanities such as network analysis, Geographic Information Systems, and database analysis. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (HIST-MN)(HIST) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 | | Special Attributes: CQC |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
extracts from:
Michael Clanchy, FROM MEMORY TO WRITTEN RECORD
Diana Webb, PILGRIMAGE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
Emmanuel le Roy Ladurie, THE BEGGAR AND THE PROFESSOR
Jacques Le Goff, Sophia Menache, THE VOX DEI: COMMUNICATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Hartmut Rosa, SOCIAL ACCELERATION: A NEW THEORY OF MODERNITY
Bruno Latour, REASSEMBLING THE SOCIAL
primary sources will include: PASTON LETTERS; CELY LETTERS; MEDIEVAL WOMEN'S LETTERS (http://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/); William Worcestre's ITINERARIES;
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Examinations and Assignments:
Class participation and attendance will be crucial (20%). Students will learn to develop two digital or classical humanities skills--such as GIS, text scraping, database construction, and social network analysis. These DH modules will be assessed on a pass-fail basis 10%). In addition, there will be one primary source appraisal assignment (10%), a research proposal (10%), and a research paper or project of 15-20 pages.(50%) Explorations with digital humanities techniques in the research project will be encouraged but not preferred over more 'traditional' historical or theoretical contributions to the subject. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course will involve students in Professor Shaw's ongoing research project as collaborators and assistants in assembling and analyzing materials for the project. This means their research projects will contribute to this but they will also learn relevant techniques for managing sources in the context of the "digital humanities". Some course time will be hands on 'lab time', in which students learn to work with DH skills. This will include database construction, text scraping, geographical information systems (GIS), and social network analysis as well as other skills more familiar to humanities research. At the first class, the arrangement of the timing for subsequent course sessions will be worked out to accommodate the course's diverse goals. |
| Instructor(s): Shaw,Gary Times: .M.W... 02:40PM-04:00PM; Location: CFH106; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 16 | | SR major: 2 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: 11 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 4 | SO: 5 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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