Nota Bene: The Centre for Medieval Studies will be offering a full year of courses in the Fall and Spring terms of 2020-2021. Because of prevailing circumstances, most courses will be offered with a dual delivery mode – an in-person section (INPER) and an online section (SYNC). A course that indicates SYNC only means the course will be offered exclusively online.
The sessional dates for 2020-21 can be seen on the website of the School of Graduate Studies (SGS).
CMS Course Timetable for 2020-21 can be found here. The preliminary Course List for 2020-2021 can be found below.
To enrol in a course on ROSI, provide the course code in a format without spaces, and with an additional Y (for full-year courses) or H (for half courses), following the examples below:
- MST1000Y
- MST1101H
In addition to those courses offered by the Centre for Medieval Studies, students may enrol in courses offered by other departments relating to the Middle Ages. Approved courses from other departments are cross-listed below (but the list is not yet complete); other relevant courses not listed here may be taken in consultation with the Associate Director or the PhD Co-ordinator. NB: Course offerings are subject to change. All details concerning course offerings cross-listed from other departments should be checked with the relevant academic department as changes can occur which may not be reflected in our listing.
- Staff indicates that the course is team-taught, or rotates among various faculty members.
- Y and L indicate full-year courses.
- F and S indicate half-year courses taught, respectively, in the fall and spring terms.
- H indicates half-year courses.
Please refer to the calendar of the School of Graduate Studies for information about regulations.
COURSES OFFERED BY CMS
| Course | Instructor | Day/Time | Location | Term | Delivery Mode |
| MST 1000Y. Medieval Latin | C. O’Hogan | M-F 1-2 pm | LI301 | Fall & Spring | SYNC
INPER |
| MST 1001Y. Medieval Latin II | A. Andrée (F)
S. Ghosh (S) |
M-F 1-2 pm | LI 310 | Fall & Spring | SYNC
INPER |
| MST 1003Y. Professional Development for Medieval Studies PhDs | S. Ghosh | F 11–1 pm | LI 310 | Fall & Spring | SYNC
INPER |
| MST 1020H. The Medieval Latin Epic | C. O’Hogan | M 3-5 | LI 310 | Fall | SYNC |
| MST 1022H Transmission and Reception: The Survival and Use of the Latin Classics | A. Andrée | T 10-12 | LI 310 | Fall | SYNC
INPER |
| MST1101H Codicology | C. O’Hogan | M 10-12 | LI310 | Spring | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 1102H Practical Palaeography | J. Haines | R 11-1 | LI 301 | Spring | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 1105H Latin Palaeography II | G. Dinkova Bruun | T 10-12 | PIMS ‘L’ | Spring | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 1384H. Exeter Book of Old English Verse | A. Walton | R 2-4 | LI 301 | Spring | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 2010H Old Norse | R. Getz | F 9-11 | LI 301 | Fall | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 2037H Legendary History of Britain and Ireland | B. Miles | F2-4 | LI 103 | Fall | SYNC |
| MST 2040H Beginnings of Medieval Rhetoric and Poetics | J. Ross | T 2-4 | LI 301 | Fall | SYNC |
| MST 2051H Middle Welsh | B. Miles | W 11-1 | LI 301 | Spring | SYNC |
| MST 3021H. Boethius | J. Magee | M 10-12 | LI 301 | Fall | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 3123H. Intro to Medieval Medicine | N. Everett | R 10-12 | LI301 | Fall | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 3150H. Medieval French Epic: Kings and Heroes | D. Kullmann | R 2-4 | LI 301 | Fall | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 3164H Medieval French Romance: The Grail | D. Kullmann | W 11-1 | LI 103 | Spring | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 3231H. Clio’s Workshop; Intro to Historical Methods | S. Ghosh | W 2-4 | LI310 | Spring | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 3237H. Rules and Customaries | I. Cochelin | T 2-4 | LI 310 | Spring | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 3301H. Themes in Medieval Philosophy | P. King | M 2-4 | LI 301 | Spring | SYNC |
| MST 3346H. Medieval Islamic Philosophy | D. Black | W 10-12 | LI 301 | Fall | SYNC |
| MST 3501H Intro to Medieval Christian Liturgy | J. Haines | R 11-1 | LI 310 | Fall | INPER
SYNC |
| MST 3602H. Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages | Y. Iglesias | W 2-4 | LI 310 | Fall | SYNC |
| MST 9310F. Directed Reading | Staff | N/A | N/A | Fall | SYNC |
| MST 9310S Directed Reading | Staff | N/A | N/A | Spring | SYNC |
| MST 9310Y. Directed Reading | Staff | N/A | N/A | Year | SYNC |
| MST 9315F Directed Reading | Staff | N/A | N/A | Fall | SYNC |
| MST 9315S Directed Reading | Staff | N/A | N/A | Spring | SYNC |
COURSES and COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMMES/SPECIALIZATIONS OF MEDIEVAL INTEREST IN OTHER UNITS
Reminder: PhD students at the centre are free to select any courses from the annual CMS list (above) and cross-listed courses (* below identifies cross-listed courses), provided that they have the necessary prerequisites. In view of the centre’s interdisciplinary nature, some courses on the Middle Ages can be taken in other departments, with the approval of the PhD Co-ordinator. If you are interested in other courses, please remember to contact the CMS PhD Coordinator to have them approved before enrolling.
Art History |
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| FAH 1123HS Art of the Medieval Book | A. Cohen | W10-1.Winter, Wednesday 10–1
Location TBA Please check with department for details on availability. This seminar investigates a wide range of questions related to the use and function of imagery in medieval books. What are the origins of medieval book illustration in the transition from roll to codex; what kinds of books were typically illustrated—and how; who conceived of the complex pictorial programs found in medieval manuscripts, and how did these programs function? Issues of patronage, audience and reception are central to this seminar, which focuses on specific case studies of manuscripts from throughout Europe dating from the late antique period until the advent of printing. |
Book History and Print Culture (Collaborative Program) |
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Classical Studies |
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Comparative Literature |
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| COL5032H Feminist Approaches To Medieval Literature | J. Ross | Winter, Wednesday 10-12
Location TBA This course will explore how feminist theory has influenced the way medieval literature is read. The pluralistic and shifting nature of a feminist theoretical orientation which struggles with the politics of subject and gender identity, race, class, sexuality and the body is particularly apt for the exploration of the medieval literary text whose instability and variability render it resistant to critical authority and open to multiple readings. We will attempt to understand how gender structures medieval thought and its literary expression through selective readings from a variety of feminist theoretical perspectives such as psychoanalytic theory, French feminism, and postmodern theory of the body. The main focus of the course, however, will be on opening up medieval literary texts to new meanings. Texts to be studied will be drawn from a wide crosssection of medieval literary discourses such as epic, romance, courtly lyric, fabliaux, Marian literature, hagiography and drama and will include examples from writings by medieval women such as The Book of Margery Kempe, and Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies. |
East Asian Studies |
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English |
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| ENG 1001HF Old English I | D. Klausner | Fall, W10-1pm.
LI 310 Lillian Massey Building An introduction for reading knowledge to the oldest literary form of English, with discussion of readings drawn from the surviving prose and verse literature. Readings: Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson. A Guide to Old English. 8 edition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Further readings will be posted on QUERCUS. Previous acquaintance with Latin, German, or other highly inflected language is useful but not essential. |
| ENG 1007S Medieval Drama: Morality Plays | M. Sergi | Winter, Monday 10-1
Location TBA Dramatic players can embody (and in embodying, personify) ideas, tendencies, and emotions as readily as they can take on realistic human characters—so readily, perhaps, that morality plays may be taken less as a distinctively medieval genre than as a reflex of dramatic performance toward psychomachic allegory more generally. Our course, in its coverage of English-language morality plays c. 1350–c. 1530, will resist critical tendencies that assume any continuous, coherent tradition underlies the extant works, as much as it makes mutual influence among some of those works plainly visible. It will demonstrate the obvious effects of proto-Protestant reforms (and resistances to them) on morality plays, even as it rejects a critical tendency to reduce these plays to their instrumentality in broader movements. In our approach to those works, we will concentrate on newer secondary readings (i.e. published within the last fifteen years, including Johnson, Brantley, Paulson) that have brought forward the moralities’ mutual influence with literary and religious culture, while at the same time deploying performance studies and practice-based research—yes, participating in live recitation and staging will be a requirement of the class—to hone in on what makes these plays, and their outward embodiment of internality, performative. Course Reading List: TBA, but likely to include: The Pride of Life (anon), The Castle of Perseverance (anon), Wisdom (anon), Mankind (anon), Everyman (anon), Nature (Medwall), Youth (anon), Hickscorner (anon), Magnificence (Skelton), and an array of critical works. |
French Language and Literature |
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| FRE1200
Advanced Oral and Written French for Academic purposes |
NOT OFFERED IN 2020-2021 | |
| FRE471/1164
Initiation à l’ancien français /Medieval French Language |
Schedule for the graduate component:
Weeks 1, 7, and 12: Tuesday 4-6 pm (SYNC) Introduction to the basics of the French language of the Middle Ages, through a selection of extracts from original texts. We will study the morphology and syntax of Old French and have a look at the appearance of Old French in the manuscripts. The texts selected will allow students to become familiar with the different dialects as well as with the most important literary genres of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. We will, however, limit ourselves to the reading of these texts, without discussing their interpretation in detail. The course is offered jointly at the graduate and undergraduate levels; the common parts will insist more on the synchronic description of the language than on diachrony; however, the graduate participants will also acquire some basic knowledge of historical phonology and other aspects of the development of the French language from Latin. The course will be taught in French. Students from outside the French Department who are interested in taking the course, but feel that they may not have sufficient modern French, should contact the instructor (dorothea.kullmann@utoronto.ca). An effort will be made to accommodate them, at least through online materials. Required book: Geneviève Hasenohr / Guy Raynaud de Lage, Introduction à l’ancien français, 3e éd. entièrement revue par G. Hasenohr avec la collaboration de M.-M. Huchet, Paris: Armand Colin, 2019 [the 2nd ed., Paris: SEDES, 2003, works as well]. Strongly recommended: Greimas, A.J., Dictionnaire de l’ancien français jusqu’au milieu du XIVe siècle, Paris: Larousse 1968, or any later reprint. |
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| FSL6000HS Reading French Course for Graduate Students |
TBA | Winter, Tues 4-6pm Online Synchronous |
| Old French Reading Group | D. Kullmann | Time and location TBA. Please contact the instructor if interested. |
| Byzantine Greek Reading Group | D. Kullmann | Time and location TBA. Please contact the instructor if interested. |
Germanic Languages and Literature |
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| GER1200HS Introduction to Medieval German Studies | M. Stock | Winter, Monday 2-4
Location TBA This course offers an introduction to the German language, literature, and culture of the Middle Ages. We will read and translate Middle High German texts, study facsimiles of medieval manuscripts, and inquire into epochal cultural concepts like courtly love and chivalry as well as courtly and clerical designs of identity. Authors discussed will include Hartmann von Aue and Walther von der Vogelweide among others. Reading knowledge in German or any medieval Germanic language is an asset, but no prerequisite. |
| GER 6000F Reading German for Graduate Students | Fall, Friday 2-4
Location TBA In this course German reading knowledge is taught following the grammar-translation method designed for graduate students from the Humanities. It is an intensive course that covers German grammar with focus on acquiring essential structures of the German language to develop translation skills. The course is conducted in English, and consequently participants do not learn how to speak or write in German, but rather the course focuses exclusively on reading and translating German. Prior knowledge of German not mandatory. By the end of the course, students should be able to handle a broad variety of texts in single modern Standard German. This course is not intended for MA or PhD students in German. |
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| GER 6000S Reading German for Graduate Students | Winter, Friday 2-4
Location TBA Description as above. |
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History |
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| HIS 1213F Institutes of Perfection | I. Cochelin | Fall, Tuesday 2-4
Location TBA |
| HIS 1221S Topics in Early Modern European Social History | N. Terpstra | Winter, Tuesday 12-2
Location TBA This year theme will be Space, Sense, and Motion. We’ll be looking at these as representing three recent ‘turns’ in social history, and assess some examples with an eye to evaluating meanings, approaches, contributions, and impacts. |
| HIS1215H Social Change in Medieval England 1154-1279 | M. Gervers | Fall, Wednesday 11-1
Online Synchronous This course provides a framework for the study of social and economic change in England from the accession of Henry II to the passage of the Act of Mortmain under Edward I. The application of statistical methodology to the analysis of source materials is encouraged. |
Italian Studies |
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| ITA 1200. Dante | E. Brilli | Winter, Friday 2-4
An examination of Dante’s works and criticism on them. This year course will focus on Dante’s life and offer a crossed-examination of the extant documentation on Dante’s life and the “autobiographical” declarations contained in his works. |
| Near and Middle Eastern Civilization | ||
| NMC2131 Premodern Arabic Poetry | Jeannie Miller | Tuesdays, 2-5 pm, online only. First class period is Sept. 15th.
Introduction to Arabic metrics and the poetic heritage. Readings in Arabic, discussion in English. This year we will focus especially on early Abbasid poetry of ẓarf (elite wit) and its social context. |
| NML380H1F / MST3015HF
Intro to Ge’ez |
R.B. Holmstedt | Fall, Thursday 10-12
This course is an introduction to the classical language of Ethiopia, known as Ge’ez. Ge’ez, as the language of the Axumite kingdom (followed by the Ethiopian Empire), provides a linguistic and cultural link not only between antiquity and the medieval period but also between east Africa and the Near East, one hand, and the northern Mediterranean and Europe, on the other hand. Moreover, among the various historical texts in Ge’ez, there are a number of critical texts relating to the Bible, such as the earliest complete texts of 1 Enoch and Jubilees. This language, and the texts and history to which it gives access, is thus central to the study of Semitic languages, the Bible, early Christianity and monasticism, and the history of antique and medieval east Africa. The course is designed for students with no previous knowledge of Ge’ez or any other Ethiopic language and covers the essentials of grammar in order to begin reading Ge’ez manuscript texts of elementary to intermediate difficulty. Evaluation is based primarily on weekly attendance, quizzes, and term exams. The graduate course includes a research paper on a manuscript to be determined in consultation with the instructor. |
Religious Studies |
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| RLG3216H Christianity in Ancient Near East | K.Smith | Mondays 2-4pm, Online
The historical study of Christianity traditionally begins in the eastern Mediterranean and then turns westwards, focusing on the historical and theological development of Christianity in its Greek and Latin contexts. But such an approach paints an extremely partial picture of the development and spread of Christianity in late antiquity and the early medieval period more broadly—one that, for example, completely omits the rich heritage of Christianity in the Syriac tradition. A dialect of Palestinian Aramaic, Syriac was, for several centuries, the preeminent Christian literary language from the Syrian countryside through Mesopotamia to the Iranian plateau. In addition to surveying (in English translation) the unique biblical, theological, liturgical, hagiographical, and historiographical contributions of Syriac-speaking Christians and their literatures from the first centuries of the Common Era up to the early Islamic period, this course will focus on the importance of Syriac and Syriac Christianity as a bridge linking Rome with Persia and Byzantium with Baghdad. As such, some time, too, will be spent examining the history of Christianity in upper Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Arabian Peninsula. This course should thus be of interest to graduate students in a variety of fields, including biblical studies and Christian origins, Christianity in late antiquity, Sasanian/Zoroastrian studies, and early Islam. |
Slavic Languages and Literatures |
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| SLA1104H Introduction to Old Church Slavonic | T.A. Smith | Winter, Tuesday 10-1
Please check with the department for details |
Toronto School of Theology |
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COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMMES and SPECIALIZATIONS
Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Program) |
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| AMP2000Y
Proseminar for the Collaborative Program in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy |
J. Allen | Year, Monday 4-6
Breadth Requirement: N/A Location: LI 301 (Lillian Massey Building, 125 Queen’s Park) Limited to CPAMP students Mandatory for CPAMP students in Y1 and 2; program students who have fulfilled this requirement are expected to attend regularly. Other interested doctoral students are welcome to attend as well and should contact the program director to indicate their interest. The proseminar has three components: a series of seminars; an ancient Greek philosophy reading group; and a Latin medieval philosophy reading group. All students in the proseminar must attend the seminars and at least one of the reading groups; students are warmly encouraged to attend both reading groups. |
| Latin Reading Group | For details on the reading groups, see the CPAMP website. | |
| Greek Reading Group | For details on the reading groups, see the CPAMP website. | |
Book History and Print Culture (Program)Due to the current circumstances, applications will be evaluated in early September. You are welcome to contact the Director of the program, prof. Galey over the summer for information (alan.galey@utoronto.ca).
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| BKS 1001F
Introduction to Book History |
M. Teramura | Fall, Monday 2-5
Location TBA This foundational course, required for all BHPC students in their first term, will introduce students to basic topics such as the semiotics of the book; orality and writing systems; book production from manuscript to computer technology; the development of printing; the concept of authorship; copyright; censorship; the economics of book production and distribution; libraries and the organization of information; principles of bibliographical description; print in other formats (newspapers, magazines, advertisements, etc.); reading and readership; editorial theory and practice. We will also study many artifacts and tools of the trade in situ through visits to the Massey College Bibliography Room and Coach House Books. |
| BKS 1002S
Book History in Practice
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TBA | Winter, Monday 2-5
Location TBA |
| BKS 2000H
Advanced Seminar in Book History and Print Culture |
H. MacNeil | Winter, Tuesdays 2-4
Location TBA The Archive as Text. The field of textual studies is concerned with the production, transmission, preservation, and ongoing history of texts. Recent developments in this field have encouraged an expansion of the term “text” to include all attempts at representation whatever form they may take. Drawing on readings from a range of fields, including textual criticism, archival studies, history, anthropology, and lifewriting, this seminar will explore how archives might be conceptualized as texts and the implications and limitations of that conceptualization. |
| BKS 2001H
Practicum in Book History and Print Culture |
See here for information: https://bhpctoronto.com/program/core-courses/ | |
Jewish Studies (Program)
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Sexual Diversity Studies (Specialization)@ the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies |
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| SDS1999H1
Special Topics/Queering Design: Sexual Politics of Space, Place and Digital Culture. |
J. Rault | Fall, Thursday 1-4 |
| SDS1000H1 Theories and Methods in Sexual Diversity Studies. | R. Diaz. | Winter, Friday 1-3 |
Woman and Gender Studies (Specialization)(the application deadline next year will be May 1, 2021) |
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| WGS5001HS
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TBA | Winter, Tuesday 10-12 |
Location Key
- AH
- Alumni Hall, 121 St Joseph Street
- BC
- Birge–Carnegie Library, 75a Queen’s Park
- BF
- Bancroft Building, 4 Bancroft Avenue
- BT
- Comparative Literature Seminar Room, Isabel Bader Theatre 93 Charles Street West, 3rd floor
- CR
- Carr Hall, 100 St Joseph Street
- EJ
- Music Library, Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s Park
- IN
- Innis College, 2 Sussex Avenue
- JH
- Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St George Street
- KL
- PIMS Library, J.M. Kelly Library, 113 St Joseph Street, 4th floor
- LA
- Gerald Larkin Building, 15 Devonshire Place
- LI
- Lillian Massey Building, 125 Queen’s Park, 3rd floor (SE corner of Bloor Street & Queen’s Park)
- MA
- Colin Friesen Room, Massey College, 4 Devonshire Place
- NF
- Northrop Frye Hall, 73 Queen’s Park Crescent East
- OH
- Odette Hall, 50 St Joseph Street
- PI
- Pontifical Institute of Mediæval Studies (PIMS), 59 Queen’s Park Crescent East
- PR
- E.J. Pratt Library, 71 Queen’s Park Crescent East
- RB
- Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 120 St George Street
- RL
- Robarts Library, Dictionary of Old English, Room 14284, 14th floor, 130 St George Street
- SS
- Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St George Street
- TC
- Trinity College, 6 Hoskin Avenue
- TF
- Teefy Hall, 57 Queen’s Park Crescent East
- UC
- University College, 12 King’s College Circle
- VC
- Victoria College, 73 Queen’s Park Crescent East
- WI
- Wilson Hall, New College, 40 Willcocks Street