Last modified: 31 Jul 2023 11:19
This core course is aimed at providing an introduction for students who have chosen the MLitt in Medieval and Early Modern Studies and want to study the Renaissance and early modern period from around 1450 to 1750 through a variety of interdisciplinary approaches.
| Study Type | Postgraduate | Level | 5 |
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| Term | First Term | Credit Points | 30 credits (15 ECTS credits) |
| Campus | Aberdeen | Sustained Study | No |
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The Renaissance is an elastic term that brings together developments in the arts (including literature, art, music, and the built environment), with historical transformations in technologies, practices and belief systems. It is inherently cross-cultural, encompassing cultural exchange that has been increasingly understood in global terms, beyond an exclusively European framework. The Renaissance is then an inherently interdisciplinary concept and in this course we bring together specialists from different subject areas to explore a range of approaches to the period and its cultural products.
Drawing on the research expertise of staff from the interdisciplinary Centre for Early Modern Studies, this core course approaches the early modern period through the eyes of Renaissance artists, writers and scholars from within their own creative and ideological contexts, and through the study of cultural consumption within popular and elite contexts. It also introduces students to the manifold interpretations of what scholars over time have called ‘the Renaissance’, traditionally, associated with an awakening of individualism in art and literature, a focus on ‘state-building’, religious scepticism, rationalism, natural knowledge and new artistic perspectives.. Instead of perceiving the period from 1450-1750 as transient centuries, moving towards ‘modernity’, we offer students an exciting interdisciplinary exploration of Renaissance and early modern culture, making them familiar with the cultural changes following the Middle Ages, and an awareness of different ways of interpreting and analysing texts, objects and art from the period. Areas of potential study will include material culture, the meaning and role of translation, music, the reformation of society and belief and the increasingly global position of Renaissance ideas and practices. Students will read key texts on the Renaissance, attend research seminars by CEMS and other centres/departments (e.g. EL, HA, PH, DRS) with fitting Renaissance- and early modern-related papers and write a comparative review of their seminar experiences. They will also visit the University’s Museum and Special Collections Archives to choose sources, objects and materials to analyse for their assessment. With this focus they will reflect on the limits of scholarly disciplines and experiment with interdisciplinarity themselves.
Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.
| Assessment Type | Summative | Weighting | 30 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assessment Weeks | 16 | Feedback Weeks | 18 | |
| Feedback |
Written feedback on Blackboard Collaborate and in individual tutorial meeting. |
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| Knowledge Level | Thinking Skill | Outcome |
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| Assessment Type | Summative | Weighting | 70 | |
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| Assessment Weeks | 19 | Feedback Weeks | 21 | |
| Feedback |
Report on two different disciplinary approaches to a chosen object of study. The object of study can be a text (e.g. literary, historical, religious), material object, piece of music, or element of visual culture or other artefact by agreement from the period 1450-1750. Written feedback on Blackboard Collaborate and in individual tutorial meeting. |
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| Knowledge Level | Thinking Skill | Outcome |
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| Assessment Type | Formative | Weighting | ||
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| Assessment Weeks | 17,18 | Feedback Weeks | 17,18 | |
| Feedback |
Oral feedback by tutor and peers in seminar meeting. |
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| Knowledge Level | Thinking Skill | Outcome |
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| Knowledge Level | Thinking Skill | Outcome |
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| Factual | Understand | To become familiar with the range of resources available for studying the cultures of Europe and the wider world during the period from ca. 1450 to ca. 1750 |
| Procedural | Analyse | To acquire research skills needed to find, read and analyse these sources. |
| Reflection | Evaluate | To acquire the knowledge of, assess and evaluate the relationship between European and Global cultures during this period of dramatic geographical and intellectual expansion and of profound political |
| Conceptual | Create | To be able to pursue research questions across departmental and disciplinary boundaries. |
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