Religious Other-Early Eng Lit

Catalog description

Looking mostly at literature from the millennium known as the Middle Ages, this course investigates the themes and anxieties that shaped medieval notions of religious identity and, in particular, the strategies of religious self-definition that characterized Christianity's confrontation with Judaism and Islam during the period. The focus will be on texts that explore these issues through vivid imaginary encounters with the religious other; accounts of martyrdom and sainthood, Jewish and Muslim representations of the Crusades, literary adaptations of biblical writings, and various stage dramatizations of Jewish conversion, including Shakespeare's problematic comedy The Merchant of Venice. Prerequisite(s): BUS 1010 or FYWR 1020 .