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Geography, Art and Material Culture: The Medieval World
Dr. Mickey Abel
AEAH 4805
AEAH 5805
Spring 2013
Wednesday 2-4:50
Office Hours: T, TH 10-11; w. 1-2; or by appt.
Art 213
Course Description:
The emphasis of the seminar is how historians of art, architecture and visual culture as well as art educators and artists and students in geography, the humanities and social sciences engage with terminology, forms, themes and methodologies of geography. Correspondingly, though, the seminar also raises questions regarding how geographers engage art and visual culture.
Some examples of the former theme are that art historians address land as a cultural frontier, reconstitute physical boundaries, landscape and social memory, theorize genres of visualizing geography, and study the production of subjectivities in and through built environments. Together, through a study of historical and contemporary art writing as well as works of art and visual culture, we will explore how we use geography to understand space, situate art in mythical or ritualistic places, and analyze what location means for art production, distribution and use. We will ask how geography shapes our critical practices and what it affords us to comprehend the ‘place’ of the observer and enhance reception-oriented approaches. Among other questions we will raise are, can geography clarify the significance of composition, perspective, or pictorial space, augment our understanding of spatiality in art writing, or revise our historical narratives or reconfigure how we represent change in relation to art and visual culture? Additional topics of interest include cultural geography, heritage landscapes, cultural heritage, tangible heritage, intangible heritage, collective memory, social memory, public memory, cultural geography, heritage tourism, difficult heritage, trauma and trauma narratives, pilgrimage, tradition, contact zone, affect, sense memory, loss, belonging, mourning and public monument.
In addition to discussing art writing that explores these and related questions, the course promotes the use of tools and forms related to academic inquiry and critical analysis. These include historiographic analysis, peer evaluation, interdisciplinarity, and the abstract, outline, draft and roundtable. The content of the course and its tools come together in assignments based on researching and writing a paper not at the end of the semester but as part of a semester-long practice facilitated by many kinds of support, including drafts and revisions based on peer and professor feedback.
Course Format: As a seminar, this course will be largely based around discussions of assigned readings. To facilitate individual participation in these discussions, each student will work with one medieval object or place. Each week the class will explore aspect of Cultural Geography, applying this critical analysis to the student’s individual object or place.The student will be expected to produce a two-page paper to be critiqued by their classmates and submitted for credit. For the graduate students of 5805, the class will culminate in the writing of a 10-15 page research paper.
Class Fee: There is a fee for all art History classes. You have already paid this fee.
Assigned Work: As a seminar, students will be expected to come to class prepared and ready to participate actively in class discussions. This will require that they come to class having read (and analyzed) all assigned readings. Assessment of the student’s performance will be based on a demonstration of more than a cursory engagement with the readings and outside research materials.
The course is writing intensive. These writing assignments are time-specific in that they are tied to the week’s readings and discussion. They are also designed to be a cumulative learning experience, and thus late work is highly discouraged.
5805 Student Assessment:
10 weekly papers……………………………………………….……..……50%
Final Prospectus or Paper, Bibliography…...………….……………….…..20%
Weekly Oral Presentations of object..……………….…………………..…20%
Attendance and meaningful discussion participation………………...…….10%
4805 Student Assessment:
10 weekly papers……………………………………………….……..……50%
Final Prospectus and Bibliography...……………………………………….20%
Weekly Oral Presentations of object..……………….…………………..…20%
Attendance and meaningful discussion participation………………...…….10%
Attendance Policy: Attendance and daily preparation of the reading materials are not only integral to the success of the class, but is also essential in terms of your grade. As the class meets only once a week, more than one un-excused absence will be considered sufficient to lower your final grade.
Policy on Quality of Written Work: The members of the art history faculty in the College of Visual Arts and Design consider the ability of each student to write well to be extremely important. Therefore, your professor will evaluate your written work in terms of proper grammar, syntax, and spelling, as well as the clear and logical presentation of ideas and arguments. If you make errors in any of these areas consistently, your professor will lower your grade. Any student needing or desiring certain kinds of assistance or general support in matters of writing should visit the University Writing Center.
Cheating or Plagiarism Policy: Cheating and plagiarism are not tolerated by the University (or the professor) and will result in disciplinary action for academic misconduct. Any act of dishonesty is forbidden by the Code of Student Conduct and will be punished with a course grade of “F” plus a letter to the Dean of the College of Visual Arts and Design andthe Dean of Students, who will investigate the matter further.
Course Risk Factor: According to University Policy, this course is classified as a Category One Course. Students enrolled in this course will not be exposed to any significant hazards and are not likely to suffer any bodily injury. Students will be informed of any potential health hazards or potential bodily injury connected with the use of any materials and/or processes and will be instructed how to proceed without danger to themselves or others.
Modifications for Students with Disabilities: I would like to hear from anyone who has a disability which may require some modification of seating, testing, or other class requirement so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Please see me during office hours. You will need to clear disability arrangements with the UNT Office of Disability Accommodation (University Union, Room 318). You must notify me one week in advance of the first exam.
Center For Student Rights and Responsibilities: Students should refer to the website at for a listing of their rights and responsibilities within the academic community. The Professor reserves the right to change this syllabus with or without notice.
Recommended texts to purchase (all readings are available through either electronic pdfs accessible on BLACKBOARD LEARN or texts on reserve at the Eagle Commons Library)
Tim Creswell, Place: A Short Introduction, Blackwell, 2004. ISBN-13: 9781405106726
Cultural Geography: A Critical Dictionary of Key Concepts.New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. ISBN-10: 1860647022 ; ISBN-13: 978-1860647024
Geoff King, Mapping Reality: An Exploration of cultural geographies. Palgrave Macmillan, 1996.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. ISBN-13: 9780312127060; ISBN-10: 0312127065
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space.Blackwell, 1991. ISBN-10: 0631181776; ISBN-13: 978-0631181774
Don Mitchell, Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction, Blackwell, 2000. ISBN:: 9781557868923
IritRogoff, Terra Infirma: Geography’s Visual Culture. New York: Routledge, 2000. ISBN-10: 0415096162; ISBN-13: 978-0415096164
Class schedule
Week 1: January 16th --introduction
What is the Problem? What is the Thesis? What is a
Prospectus
library introduction
object identification
Week 2: JANUARY 23RD—WHY ART AND GEOGRAPHY?
Present: Object choice
Read and prepare for discussion:
Kaufmann. “Instead of a Conclusion: Towards a Geography of Art,” Toward a Geography of Art, 341-352.
Cresswell. “Introduction: Defining Space,” Place: A Short Introduction, 1-14.
Blunt, “Geography and the Humanities Tradition,” in Key Concepts in Geography, 73-94.
Blaut. “Mind and matter in cultural geography,” in Culture, Form and Place: Essays in Cultural and Historical Geography, 345-356.
Mitchell. “Culture in Cultural Geography,” Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction, 16-26.
Wickam. “Geography and Politics,” Framing the Middle Ages, 17-55.
Week 3: JANUARY 30--FROM ART HISTORY TO CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
Present: Oral Description of your object
Due: 2-page written description of your object
Read and prepare for discussion:
Atkinson et al., eds., “Preface,” in Cultural Geography, vii-xviii.
Kaufmann, “Historiography,” Toward a Geography of Art,17-42.
Arnold. “Art History and Geography: A New Global Perspective”[interview with John Onians]. Art Book, v. 12 no1 (2005): 13-14.
Onians.Atlas of World Art. London: Laurence King Pub, 2004. N5300 .O948 2004, XX
Nelson, “The Map of Art History,” The Art Bulletin, 79/1. (1997): 28-40.
Mitchell, “The New Cultural Geography,” in Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction, 57-65.
Bartram. “Geography and the Interpretation of Visual Imagery,” Key Methods in Geography, 149-160.
Doel. “Analysing Cultural Texts,” Key Methods in Geography, 501 – 532
Phillips, “Cultural Geographies in Practice, Walking and Looking,” in Cultural Geographies 12 (2005): 507-513.
Week 4: FEBRUARY 6TH--PLACE and HISTORY
Read and prepare for discussion:
Casey, “How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: phenomenological prolegomena.,” Senses of Place, 13-52.
Pirenne, “Cities and European Civilization,” in Medieval Cities, 153-167.
Black. “Analyzing Historical and Archival Sources,” Key Methods in Geography, 477-500.
Lowenthal, Chapter 5, “How we know the past,” in The Past is a Foreign Country(Cambridge UP, 1985): 187-260.
Ruggles and Silverman, “From Tangible to Intangible Heritage,” in Intangible Heritage Embodied, 2009: 1-11.
Lewis. “Common landscapes as historic documents,” History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, 115-139.
Cresswell, “The Genealogy of Place,” in Place: A Short Introduction,15 – 52.
***Gelfand, “Illusionism and Interactivity: Medieval Installation Art, Architecture and Devotional Response,” in Push Me, Pull You: Physical and Spatial Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art, 87-116.
Week 5: FEBRUARY 13TH -Research day—no class
Week 6: FEBRUARY 20TH--SPACE AND SPATIALITY
Due: On-going Annotated Bibliography
Present: “Place and History” problem and thesis for your object.
Read and prepare for discussion:
Atkinson et al., “Introduction--Space, Knowledge and Power,” in Cultural Geography, 3-5.
Cook et al., “Positionality/Situated Knowledge,” in Cultural Geography, 16-26.
Cherry and Cullen. “On Location,” Art History 29/4 (2006): 533-539.
Hubbard “Space/Place,” in Cultural Geography, 41-48.
Tuathail/Toal, “Geopolitics,” in Cultural Geography, 65-71.
Hall. “Proxemics,” The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture, 51 – 73.
Lefebvre, “Plan of the Present Work,” in The Production of Space, 1-67.
Soja. “Spatializations: Marxist Geography and Critical Social Theory,” Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, 43 – 75
***Favro, “Ancient Rome through the Veil of Sight,” UNPUBLISHED Manuscript, UCLA, 2007.
***Rosenwein, “Introduction,” Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe, 1-24.
***Schlief, “Kneeling on the Threshold: Donors Negotiating Realms Betwixt and Between,” in Threshold of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces, 195-216.
***Dressler, “Sculptural Representation and Spatial Appropriation in a Medieval Chantry Chapel,” in Threshold of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Space, 217-238.
***Camille, “Signs of the City: Place, Power, and Public Fantasy in Medieval Paris,” in Medieval Practices of Space, 1-36.
Week 7: FEBRUARY 26TH–LANDSCAPE
Due: 2-page Place and History Paper
Present: “Space and Spatiality” Problem and Thesis for your object
Read and prepare for discussion:
Mitchell. “Landscape,” in Cultural Geography, 49 – 56.
Eden. “Environment,” in Cultural Geography, 57-64.
Hinchliffe, “Nature/Culture,” in Cultural Geography, 194-199.
Cosgrove. “Idea of Landscape,” Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape, 13-38.
Mitchell , “The Circulation of Meaning: Landscape as a System of Social Reproduction,” Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction, 139 – 144.
Claval, “Changing Conceptions of Heritage and Landscape.” In Heritage, Memory and the Politics of Identity: New Perspectives on the Cultural Landscape. Ed. Niamh Moore and Yvonne Whelan.Ashgate Publishing, 2007: 85-94.
***Wamsler, “Merging Heavenly Court and Earthly Council in Trecento Venice,” in Negotiating Secular and Sacred in Medieval Art, 55-73.
***Newman, “Liminalities: Literate Women in the Long Twelfth Century,” in European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century, 354-402.
Week 8: MARCH 6TH--MAPPING
Due: 2-page Space and Spatiality paper
Present: “Landscape” problem and thesis for your object
Read:
Atkinson et al., “Introduction—Borders and Boundaries,” in Cultural Geography, 153-154.
Washbourne, “Globalisation/Globality,” in Cultural Geography, 161-168.
Bingham, “Socio-technical,” in Cultural Geography, 200-206.
Cosgrove, “Mapping/Cartography,”in Cultural Geography, 27 – 32.
Harvey, “Map, Knowledge, and Power.” Cambridge Studies of Historical Geography, Vol. 9, 1988, 278-312.
Edson “Spiritual Maps,” Mapping Time and Space: 145-163.
Edson, “Introduction to Medieval Maps,” How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed their World , 1-17.
Scarfi, “Where is Nowhere?” Mapping Paradise, 160-190.
Joost-Gaugier, Chapter 11, “Pathagoreanism in Medieval Art,” Measuring Heaven, 182-222.
King. “The Map that precedes the territory,” Mapping Reality: An Exploration of Cultural Geographies, 1-17.
***Smail, The Linguistic Cartography of Property and Power in late Medieval Marseille,” in Medieval Practices of Space, 37-64.
Week 9: MARCH 13TH—SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS
Week 10: MARCH 20TH–THE SACRED
Due: 2-page “Landscape” paper
Due: On-going Bibliography
Present: “Mapping” problem and thesis for your object
Read:
Cresswell, “Moral Geographics,” in Cultural Geographies, 128-134.
Turner, “Variations on a Theme of Liminality” Secular Ritual, 6-52.
Edson, “Microcosm/Macrocosm,” Medieval Views of the Cosmos, 46-49.
Yi-Fu Tuan, “Mythical Space and Place,” Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, 85-100.
***Kobialka, “Staging Place/Space in Eleventh-Century Monastic Practices,” in Medieval Practices of Space, 128-148.
***Hanawalt, “Introduction,” Medieval Practices of Space, IX-XVIII.
***Scafi. “Locating Paradise in Space,” Mapping Paradise, 44-61.
***Ehrstine, “Passion Spectatorship Between Private and Public Devotion,” in Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces, 302-322.
Week 11: MARCH 27TH--memory and geography
Due: 2-page “Mapping” paper.
Present: “Sacred” problem and thesis for your object
Read:
Atkinson, “Heritage,” in Cultural Geography, 141-150.
Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” In Representations, No. 26, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory (Spring, 1989): 7-24.
Halbwachs, “Space and the Collective Memory; The Group in its Spatial Framework; The Influence of the Physical Surroundings,” in The Collective Memory, 1950. New York: Harper Colophon, 1980:XX.
Stewart and Strathern, “Introduction,” Landscape, Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives, 1 – 14
“Preface: participation lasts forever,” Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice, 14-21.
***Garner, Chapter Five, “(Re)Constructions of Memory,” Structuring Spaces, 147-178.
***JacobusPublicius, “The Art of Memory”,The Medieval Craft of Memory, 226-254.
***XXX“Loca Sacra: Religion and the Landscape before the Reformation,” in The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity and Memory in Early Modern Britian and Ireland, 18-79.
***Hugh of St. Victor, “A Little Book about Constructing Noah’s Ark,”The Medieval Craft of Memory, 41-70.
***Olsen, “Movement, Metaphor and Memory: The Interactions Between Pilgrims and Portal Programs,” inPush Me, Pull You: Physical and Spatial Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art, 495-522.
Week 12: APRIL 3RD --BELONGING
Due: 2-page “Sacred” paper
Present: “Memory” problem and thesis for your object
Read:
Atkinson et al., “Introduction—Difference and Belonging,” in Cultural Geography, 89-90.
Blunt, “Colonialism/Postcolonialism,” in Cultural Geography, 175-181.
Jonas and While, “Governance,” in Cultural Geography, 72-79.
O’Byrne, “Citizenship,” in Cultural Geographies, 135-140.
Sibley, “Private/Public,” in Cultural Geography, 155-160.
Rogoff, “Introduction: This is not…Unhomed Geographies,” in Terra Infirma: Geography’s Visual Culture, 1-13.
Pirenne, “Municipal Institutions,” in Medieval Cities, 121-151.
***Nicolas, “Lords, Markets, and Communities: The Urban Revolution of the Twelfth Century,” in European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century, 229-258.
***Burroughs, “Spaces of Arbitration and the Organization of Space in Late Medieval Italian Cities,” in Medieval Practices of Space, 64-100.
***Boynton, “Introduction,” in Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000-1125, 1-15.
***Smith, “Chivalric Narratives and Devotional Experience in the Taymouth Hours,” in Negotiating Secular and Sacred in Medieval Art, 17-54.
Week 13: APRIL 10TH ----SUBJECTS AND SUBJECTIVITIES
Due: 2-page “Memory” paper
Present: “Belonging” problem and thesis for your object
Read:
Representation,” in Cultural Geography, 11-15.
Longhurst, “The Body,” in Cultural Geography, 91-96.
Martin, “Identity,” in Cultural Geography,97-102.
Jackson, “Gender,” in Cultural Geography, 103-108.
Johnson, “Sexuality,” in Cultural Geography, 122-127.
Mitchell, “Hybridity,” in Cultural Geography, 188-193.
Rogoff. “Subjects/ places/ spaces,” Terra Infirma: Geography’s Visual Culture, 14 – 35
hooks, “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness,” Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, 203 – 209.
Ingold, “Culture on the Ground: The World Perceived Through the Feet.” Journal of Material Culture vol. 9 (Nov 2004): 315-340.
Mitchell, “The Geography of Sex, Geographies of Sexuality, Space and Sexuality in Capitalism,” Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction, 171-184.
Domosh. “Toward a Feminist Historiography of Geography,”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1991), pp. 95-104.
Mitchell, “Race as a Geographical Project,” Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction, 230-233.
Morley, “Belongings: Place, Space and Identity in a Mediated World,” European Journal of Cultural Studies vol. 4 (Nov 2001): 425-448.
***Stafford, “Women and the Norman Conquest,” in Debating the Middle Ages,” 219-253.
***Constable, “Clothing, Iron, and Timber: The Growth of Christian Anxiety about Islam in the Long Twelfth Century,” in European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century, 270-313.
***Snyder, “Bodies Concealed and Revealed in Twelfth-Century French Sculpture,” in Push Me, Pull You: Physical and Spatial Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissane Art, 467-494.
***McNamara, “City Air Makes Men Free and Women Bound,” in Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages, 143-158.
Week 14: APRIL 17TH----TRAVEL AND DIASPORA
Due: 2-page “Belonging” paper
Present: “Subjects and Subjectivities” problem and thesis for your object
Read:
Crang. “Travel/Tourism,” in Cultural Geography: A Critical Dictionary of Key Concepts, 34-41.
Fortier, “Diapora,” in Cultural Geography, 182-187.
Chard and Langdon, “Introduction,” Transports: Travel, Pleasure, and Imaginative Geography, 1600-1830, 1 – 29
Del Casino and Hanna. “Representations and identities in tourism map spaces,” Progress in Human Geography vol. 24 (Mar 2000): 23-46.