Course Syllabus

I. Description.

In this course you will learn how cities and palaces become the hubs, or “engines,” of cultural developments in the early modern period. You will become familiar with the operant principle, or “fuel,” that increasingly drives cultural developments as structured from Cities and Palaces, which is the primacy of individuality, the assumption that individuals and various individual cultural domains -- such as religion, politics, poetry, economics, etc. -- have to be understood first and foremost as functioning according to intrinsic principles. In readings and course assignments, you will observe how such cultural developments play out in religious, philosophical, and scientific thinking, art, architecture, engineering, poetry, music, and other ways in which people organize their lives in the early modern period.

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II. Due Dates of Assignments.

Module #	Module material opens	Module Assignments are Due	*Grace Period for Submission of Modules until
Module 1	Monday, January 5, 12:05 am	Friday, January 9, 5:00 pm	Sunday, January 11, 11:55 pm
Module 2	Monday, January 12, 12:05 am	Friday, January 16, 5:00 pm	Sunday, January 18, 11:55 pm
Module 3	Monday, January 19, 12:05 am	Friday, January 23, 5:00 pm	Sunday, January 25, 11:55 pm
Module 4	Monday, January 26, 12:05 am	Friday, January 30, 5:00 pm	Sunday, February 1, 11:55 pm
Module 5**	Monday, February 2, 12:05 am	Friday, February 6, 5:00 pm	Sunday, February 8, 11:55 pm
Module 6	Monday, February 9, 12:05 am	Friday, February 13, 5:00 pm	Sunday, February 15, 11:55 pm
Module 7	Monday, February 16, 12:05 am	Friday, February 20, 5:00 pm	Sunday, February 22, 11:55 pm
Module 8	Monday, February 23, 12:05 am	Friday, February 27, 5:00 pm	Sunday, March 8, 11:55 pm (after Spring Break)
Module 9	Monday, March 2, 12:05 (beginning of Spring Break)	Friday, March 13, 5:00 pm	Sunday, March 15, 11:55 pm
Module 10**	Monday, March 16, 12:05 am	Friday, March 20, 5:00 pm	Sunday, March 22, 11:55 pm
Module 11	Monday, March 23, 12:05 am	Friday, March 27, 5:00 pm	Sunday, March 29, 11:55 pm
Module 12	Monday, March 30, 12:05 am	Friday, April 3, 5:00 pm	Sunday, April 5, 11:55 pm
Module 13	Monday, April 6, 12:05 am	Friday, April 10, 5:00 pm	Sunday, April 12, 11:55 pm
Module 14***	Monday, April 13, 12:05	deadlines vary - see module	deadlines vary - see module

 

* Assignments will be accepted after the due date and before the end of the grace period with no point deductions; however, a "no excuses" principle will apply to all work submitted after the due date. For example, If you need walk-in help from the UF Computing Helpdesk (392-HELP) with hardware, software, or any e-learning interface issues, make sure you take care of this in a timely way during the work week so that you will be able to submit by the Friday due date. You can receive help by phone from the UF Computing Helpdesk 24/7.

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III. Texts.

1. Required textbook to purchase: Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789 (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2006)

2. Dante Alighieri, The New Life

3. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

4. Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

5. Martin Luther, Concerning Christian liberty

6. Martin Luther, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation

7. First log on for off-campus access to the UF Library: The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus (selections).

8. Baroque Poetry (selections linked in Module 11)

9. Gottfried Leibniz, "Explanation of Binary Arithmetic,"

10. Immanuel Kant, Essay: "What is Enlightenment?"

11. Friedrich Schiller, Poem: "Ode to Joy"

12. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Poem: "Prometheus"

Optional resources:

Professor Giuseppe Mazzotta (Yale University) lecture on Dante's Vita Nuova.

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IV. Assignments.

1. Three Tests. You will respond to questions in a 60-minute period, with an additional 30 minute review period allowed (i.e. total of 90 minutes; the test is timed), so you will need to make sure you feel in command of the material when you start your test. There will be short answer type questions in which you briefly discuss the significance of passages from the literary texts. There will be true-false and multiple-choice type questions about the content of my module lectures. I will randomly draw some questions from those on the books by Gies (Life in a Medieval City) and Hughes (Early Modern Germany) -- these are the questions you have already seen and to which you have already responded, so it should be relatively easy to prepare for this part of the test.

2. Midterm and Final Projects. Together with your Group members, you will complete collaboratively a midterm and a final project. Links in the course modules to the Midterm and Final Project provide additional information.

3. Discussions and Comments. Most modules have discussion prompts, which ask you to think both critically and creatively about the texts you are reading and other topics of interest in this course. You will be graded both for the quality of your thinking and for the quality of your writing, so might want to consider beginning the textual part of your discussions (and possibly even your comments) in a Word document and working on it there as a draft until you are sure it is ready to submit in the course. You will also be graded for completeness, so make sure you have addressed all parts of the discussion prompt and, as necessary, provided any illustrative visual material (i.e. such as pictures). In most cases you should be able to respond to discussion prompts with about a typescript page of text (ca. 250 words), which of course should be your own writing. Try to not to go too far over 250 words. All of the aforementioned applies, though to a lesser degree (because they will be briefer), to the comments that you will make on one of your peer's Discussions. Make sure your comment is substantive, i.e. that you are not merely parroting something in the discussion, but that you are thinking some aspect of the discussion through and showing that you are able to understand and appreciate the implications and add a new perspective, however subtle it might be. You will not receive full points merely for the submission of discussion and comments; only very good ones will receive full points. Consult the Discussion and Comment Rubric for details on the grading of Discussions and Comments.

4. Questions on the main secondary Texts: Gies' Life in a Medieval City and Hughes' Early Modern Germany

For each reading assignments in these texts (which are indicated in the "to do" lists in the individual modules) you will answer a number of graded content questions. If you do the reading carefully, you should not have much difficulty answering all of these questions correctly. Some questions in the three Tests will be drawn randomly from these study questions, so if you are familiar with these questions and their answers, you will be well prepared for this part of the tests.

5. Virtual Visits. As part of the course you will take "Virtual Visits" to individual sites of interest in this course, particularly sites connected to cathedrals and palaces. The aim of these visits is to provide some immediate impressions of the sights and sounds associated with these important historical buildings and their modern urban settings. You should find the questions associated with the Virtual Visits quite straightforward.

MEM 3301 has newly incorporated Virtual Visits employing VR-technology:

Click here for the VR-Ready Virtual Visit to the Palaces of Mannheim and Karlsruhe.

6. Video material and questions.  This course employs a substantial amount of video material to complement and embellish the module topic. Students are responsible for watching the videos carefully, and then responding as necessary to any associated questions or tasks. Figures, events, artistic works, etc. that you see in the videos would be entirely appropriate material to use for your Dipity Timeline posts, by the way.  

7. Weekly individual Timeline Posts & Group Timeline Presentations: Click here for information.

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V. Grade percentages.

Tests= 25%

Projects= 20% (10% each for Midterm and Final Project)

Comments/Discussions= 30%

Questions on readings in Gies and Hughes/Virtual Visits/Questions on Videos= 15%

Timeline entries, posts, and final synthesis paper= 10%

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VI. Grading Scale.

A	93
A-	90
B+	87
B	83
B-	80
C+	77
C	73
C-	70
etc.