RMST321

A World of Marvels

Cross-listed with MDVL 301

Detail, extended descender of a historiated initial, Bible (Latin). Champagne, France. Late 13th / early 14th c. CE). Reims, Bibliothèque municipale Carnegie, MS 40 fol. 83v. Image source: ARCA, digital library of the IRHT (Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, CNRS, France). Retrieved 2024-05-06 from https://arca.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/106168/canvas/canvas-1281353/view.

Course topics, content, and assessments will vary from term to term; this description is for the 2024W2 version.

Marvellousness (mirabilis, merveille, merveillos) suffuses French and global premodern literatures, crossing borders of time, place (and modern nation-state boundaries), form (literary genre, type of artefact), audience (social class, occupation, gender), and register. From monsters to miracles, from mysterious other-worldly beings to marginal drolleries, imaginative marvels and their preservation through storytelling help us to understand perceptions of pre-modernity and their continuity into our present world. This course is for anyone who is interested in speculative fictions, escapism and consolation, playfulness, the weird and the awesome, beauty, and the delights of dark humour and satire.

Our adventures will focus on the imaginative worlds of some French “merveilleux”texts from the 12th to the 18th centuries (CE): Marie de France’s Fables and Lais, the anonymous Aucassin and Nicolette, Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables, and the fairy tales of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and Charles Perrault. We will also encounter bestiaries, encyclopaedias, universal histories, saints’ lives, maps, almanachs, books of hours, lyric and debate poetry, games, and manuscript marginalia. While our principal focus will be the close reading of literary works, we will also consider their context and transnational influence; the historical landscape in which these landmarks are situated; the cultural background against which their actions are staged; and their relationship to an integrated creative and intellectual environment of visual and plastic arts, music, ideas, technology, ecology, medicine, and science.

Classes consist of interactive lectures interspersed with discussions. Weekly topics and recurring themes may include: perceptions of the natural world, creation and creativity, miracles, enchantment, other worlds and the other-worldly, dream-visions and mysticism, the fantastic, automata, metamorphosis and hybridity, apocalypse, nostalgia, utopias and other alternative worlds, and intelligent life.

Language of instruction: English

Prerequisites: No prerequisites
Informal recommendation: As this is a 300-level course, it will entail reading, analysis, and independent research. Informal prerequisites: a sense of curiosity and an openness to wonder.

Assignments

20% regular term-work

  • 10% preparation and participation:
    • weekly quiz or short commentary on reading
    • submission: Canvas quiz or discussion
    • due: week 2 onwards
  • 5% presentation:
    • student-led discussion sessions in “profs for the day” teams
    • submission: in class
    • due: week 4 onwards
  • 5% self-evaluation participation portfolio:
    • individual “book of marvels” curated collection of your class community contributions and reflection on your choice
    • submission: Canvas assignment
    • due: last week of classes

40% scaffolded group project: making a marvel

  • 2.5% stage 1: preliminary meeting of your group with the teaching team to consult on topic and select extra readings
    • submission after meeting: Canvas discussion
    • due: week 4
  • 12.5% stage 2: observation and reflection exercise with your group, in a museum or garden on campus, of marvels related to a course required reading
    • submission: Canvas discussion, group AV commentary
    • due: week 8
  • 2.5% stage 3: progress meeting for planning
    • submission after: Canvas assignment, work-in-progress notes
    • due: week 10
  • 2.5% stage 4: bibliography, references, and methodology outline
    • submission: Canvas assignment
    • due: week 12
  • 20% stage 5: the final project, making a marvel
    • form: written (anything except the standard academic essay or final paper), audio, video, multimedia, a recorded performance, a comic, a material object, a game, a continuation, a creative work, a translation (broad and narrow senses), a marvel
    • in relation to (echoing, inspired by, riffing on, remixing, etc.) at least one of the course set readings and at least one global premodern extra reading (as discussed and agreed in stage 1-2 meetings)
    • final projects could continue stage 3 of the project or your “prof for the day” session and should include a close reading of your own marvelling, as commentary or storytelling
    • submission: Canvas “a world of marvels” discussion as students’ community online exhibit
    • due: last week of classes

40% final exam, during the final exam period:

  • 20% poster presentation session
    • during the scheduled final exam time, as a celebratory un-exam
    • submission: group poster + live presentation and explanation by groups, to each other, of their projects
  • 20% individual written or recorded commentary
    • peer appreciation of other groups’ poster presentations, in relation to the course topic and to at least one of its set readings
    • submission: Canvas assignment, within 24 hours of the end of the final exam

Grading Breakdown

Regular weekly work during term (individual): weekly quizzes and online commentary (10%) + self-evaluation portfolio (5%) = 15%

Regular weekly work during term (group): presentation, student-led “prof for the day” discussion session = 5%

Final project (group): scaffolded stages of preliminary and progress meetings, notes, outline (7.5%) + observation, reflection, and commentary exercise (12.5%) + the project itself (20%) = 40%

Final exam: poster presentation session, by groups about their projects (20%) + individual peer appreciation commentary to be submitted within 24 hours afterwards (20%) = 40%

Total = 100%

Readings

Required readings:

All materials are in English translation; no prior knowledge of other languages is expected. Original versions will be referred to in class—to assist understanding and as a taster for future learning—and students may of course choose to work on texts in their original language for presentations and final projects. Required readings will be available in electronic form via Canvas (free online versions or UBC library online course reserve), and specific editions will be recommended at the start of term (for students who prefer to use a printed book).

  • Course site (Canvas)
  • Aucassin & Nicolette
  • Marie de France, Fables
  • Marie de France, Lais
  • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables
  • Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, Beauty and the Beast\
  • Charles Perrault, Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Tales of Mother Goose)

Recommended readings:

A list of recommended readings will be provided by the instructor:

  • additional readings from references in lectures
  • digitized manuscripts and other contemporary objects freely accessible online, via Canvas and library online course reserve
  • extra readings for student-led discussion sessions and group projects