EH 655: Medieval Outlaws, Outcasts, and Others (graduate seminar)

We will examine otherness in the context of law, nation, religion, and race. This course explores natural and positive law and theories of sovereignty and looks further into political theological theories related to the outlaw, the neighbor, and monstrous others confronting the medieval west. We will read texts from the 10th to the 16th centuries, engaging moments such as the Norman Conquest of England, the Crusades (1-3), and the Black Plague. Texts include the epic Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, chivalric romances such as Richard Coer de Lyon, holy books such as the Bible and Qur’an, and the medieval Robin Hood ballads. Theoretical readings include Agamben, Freud, Lacan, and Zizek, among others. Middle English texts will be read in original. All other texts will be read in modern English.

Syllabus

Assignments

Helpful Links:

Calendar

HW for first class: Freud, “The Uncanny”, Civilization and Its Discontents, Bible, Beowulf

Jan. 10- Course introduction, Beowulf, Freud

HW: The Holy Bible excerpts (pp. 91-93 in Beowulf book), poems “The Wanderer,” “The Seafarer,” and “The Ruin” (in Beowulf book), excerpts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (pp. 183-88 in Beowulf book); Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “The Ruins of Identity” from Of Giants (CANVAS)

Jan. 17 Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon culture

HW: Read Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne from Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, Lacan “Love Thy Neighbor” and “Antigone Between Two Deaths” from The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (CANVAS), Benjamin, “Theses on Philosophy of History” (CANVAS), Zizek, “You Only Die Twice” from Sublime Object of Ideology (CANVAS)

Jan. 24 Robin Hood poems

HW: Read the poem Song of Roland, Reinhard “Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor” in The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen “On Saracen Enjoyment” from Medieval Identity Machines

Jan. 31 Song of Roland

HW: Read Richard Coer de Lyon, read Zizek, “Neighbors and Other Monsters” in The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology

Feb. 7 Richard Coer de Lyon

HW: Read Hannah Arendt excerpt from On Totalitarianism (CANVAS) , Introduction and Part One of Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer

Feb. 14 Richard Coer de Lyon

HW: Read Urban II’s “Crusade Speech” (link), “Saladin: Ibn Shaddad” (Canvas); “A Westerner in the Holy Land” and “The Muslim Reaction: Ibn al-Athir” (Canvas)

Feb. 21 Reader Response Essay Due; Film Kingdom of Heaven and discussion

HW: Read Plague Material ("Treatment of the Jews," "Black Plague and Jewish Pogroms," "Boccaccio’s Introduction to the Decameron") (CANVAS), Croxton Play of the Sacrament (link here but also on CANVAS), Hannah Arendt, excerpts from Eichmann in Jerusalem (CANVAS)

Feb. 28 The Black Plague; Jews in Western Europe in the Middle Ages

HW: Read Siege of Jerusalem, Michel Foucault excerpts from Discipline and Punish (CANVAS) and Agamben Homo Sacer Part Two

Mar. 7 Siege of Jerusalem

HW: Read Sir Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle (link here), Foucault excerpts from pp. 239-64 in Society Must Be Defended (link here) and pp. 16-39 in Security, Territory, Population (link here), Achille Mbembe “Necropolitics” (CANVAS)

Mar. 14 Close-Reading Essay Due Sunday Mar. 18 by midnight); Sir Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle

HW: Read A Gest of Robin Hood from Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, finish Agamben, Homo Sacer and pp. 1-40 of Agamben’s State of Exception

Mar. 21 A Gest of Robin Hood

HW: Read The Avowing of Arthur (link here), finish Agamben, State of Exception, Agamben “Bartleby, or On Contingency” (CANVAS); Melville's Bartleby (if you're interested)

April 4 Argument Abstracts Due; The Avowing of Arthur

HW: Read Guy of Warwick,

April 11 Annotated Bibliographies Dues; Guy of Warwick

HW: Read Gilles Deleuze “Pure Immanence: A Life” (CANVAS), Zizek, “From Homo Sacer to Neighbor” from Eastern Republics of Gilead (linked here read pages 112-134), Walter Benjamin “Critique of Violence” (CANVAS)

April 18 Guy of Warwick

HW: Read Geoffrey Chaucer “The Man of Law’s Tale” (CANVAS); Refugee Tales (CANVAS); Arendt “We Refugees” (CANVAS); Butler “Indefinite Detention” (CANVAS

April 25 Chaucer and Refugee Tales

HW: Complete Seminar Papers