Marina S. Brownlee

  • Women in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

    An investigation of the literary, medical and philosophical treatment of women in medieval and early modern Europe. We will consider works by both female and male authors, thus enabling us to compare ways in which women saw themselves with the ways in which they were seen by men. The cult of women as well as misandry and misogyny, and debates centering around such crucial matters as childbirth, witchcraft and the evil eye will be explored.

  • Women in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

    An investigation of the literary, medical and philosophical treatment of women in medieval and early modern Europe. We will consider works by both female and male authors, thus enabling us to compare ways in which women saw themselves with the ways in which they were seen by men. The cult of women as well as misandry and misogyny, and debates centering around such crucial matters as childbirth, witchcraft and the evil eye will be explored.

  • Topics in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish Culture: Women in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

    An investigation of the literary, medical and philosophical treatment of women in medieval and early modern Spain. We will consider works by both male and female authors, thus enabling us to compare ways in which women saw themselves with the ways in which they were seen by men. The cult of women as well as misandry and misogyny, and debates centering around such crucial matters as childbirth, witchcraft and the evil eye will be explored.

  • Topics in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish Culture: Women in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

    An investigation of the literary, medical and philosophical treatment of women in medieval and early modern Spain. We will consider works by both male and female authors, thus enabling us to compare ways in which women saw themselves with the ways in which they were seen by men. The cult of women as well as misandry and misogyny, and debates centering around such crucial matters as childbirth, witchcraft and the evil eye will be explored.

  • Cervantes' Don Quijote and Beyond

    This course, open to both undergraduate and graduate students, explores Cervantes' highly experimental fiction. Known as the author of the immensely innovative 'Don Quijote', Cervantes is credited with writing the first modern European novel, with a daring exploration of human madness, a satire of New World conquistadors, the Inquisition and more. Yet he is equally bold and experimental in his daring short stories, the `Novelas ejemplares', and the work that he was certain would be his legacy, the 'Persiles'.

  • Cervantes' Don Quijote and Beyond

    This course, open to both undergraduate and graduate students, explores Cervantes' highly experimental fiction. Known as the author of the immensely innovative 'Don Quijote', Cervantes is credited with writing the first modern European novel, with a daring exploration of human madness, a satire of New World conquistadors, the Inquisition and more. Yet he is equally bold and experimental in his daring short stories, the `Novelas ejemplares', and the work that he was certain would be his legacy, the 'Persiles'.

  • Love, Death, and the Supernatural: Medieval Verbal and Visual Cultures

    This course considers the European Middle Ages - from the late antique foundational autobiography of St. Augustine's `Confessions' through Prudentius' paradigmatic allegory, `The Psychomaquia', to three appreciably different versions of epic in the `Roland', `The Cid' and `Digenis Akritis'. We then move to Chrétien de Troyes' originary romance `Cligés', Guillaume de Lorris' `Rose', the subaltern cultural production of Jews and Moors, the the practices of pilgrimage and the contexts constructed by Chaucer, as well as the invention of the modern short story in Boccaccio's `Decameron'.

  • Love, Death, and the Supernatural: Medieval Verbal and Visual Cultures

    This course considers the European Middle Ages - from the late antique foundational autobiography of St. Augustine's `Confessions' through Prudentius' paradigmatic allegory, `The Psychomaquia', to three appreciably different versions of epic in the `Roland', `The Cid' and `Digenis Akritis'. We then move to Chrétien de Troyes' originary romance `Cligés', Guillaume de Lorris' `Rose', the subaltern cultural production of Jews and Moors, the the practices of pilgrimage and the contexts constructed by Chaucer, as well as the invention of the modern short story in Boccaccio's `Decameron'.

  • Dreams and Nightmares in Hispanic Fiction and Film

    From Artemidorus in antiquity to Freud and other thinkers in modern times, dreams and nightmares are a perennial human concern. This course will consider artistic, political, philosophical, medical and psycho-sexual representations of dreams and nightmares in short stories and plays by such authors as Cervantes, Zayas, Calderón, García Lorca, Borges, Cortázar, and Fuentes. Several films inspired by the works of these authors or that served to inspire their writing will also be examined.

  • 5 Ways of Reading Don Quixote

    Why has DQ been construed in such disparate ways as: a book about good and bad reading, a funny book that mocks the medieval world view, a book about the impact of the printing press, a satire of the New World conquistadors, a study of deviant social behavior, the nature of madness, or a meditation on human sexuality and aging? In answering these questions we will consider the cultural models Cervantes rethinks: from chivalric adventure to the criminality of the picaresque, the humanist dialogue, the politics of empire, and the Inquisition.

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