The title of this course is a quotation from Dupré’s Passages to Modernity followed by two MacIntyrian questions: whose synthesis? what breakdown? We have been struck by the return of grand cultural narrative and the compulsion of many to tell stories about the paths to modernity. We will list a sample of these below. Regardless of the virtues and vices of such enterprises we have observed that the Middle Ages often plays an important role. And it is this aspect of these diverse enterprises that we will explore in this class. How do the storytellers compose the Middle Ages? What account can we ourselves give of the Middle Ages in the kind of contexts established by such scholars? Addressing such questions will make substantial demands of the seminar. It will call for familiarity with some grand narratives combined with attention to the minute particulars of some very complex medieval texts. While most of our time in class will be given to the latter, we want the close reading of medieval works to take place in dialog with the former. We hope that the work done in this course will contribute to participants’ resources for critical evaluation of current narratives of the passages from medieval to modern. But above all we want to enhance understanding of the later Middle Ages by encouraging habits of close reading and reflection around a cluster of remarkable texts. On these our meetings will focus: however, the more medieval writings people explore the better: their various studies will certainly enrich our discussions.
Before the first class we want students to have read and thought about two works: our course begins with discussion of these and, as they are substantial, people will need to have read them in the vacation, coming to the first class with thoughts about the issues they examine and their modes of inquiry. First students should have read an exceptionally influential and beautiful book that gives a densely textured account of the late medieval English church and what its author calls “traditional religion in England,” a church and tradition destroyed by “reforming” elites from the 1520s to the 1580s. This book is Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: if you have the first edition of this book make sure you also read the eloquent new preface to the second edition (Yale paperback, 2005). Second, before the first seminar, you should have worked through two of the grand narratives we list below. By “working through” we mean the following: read the text so as to prepare a description of the shaping story (or stories), the version and role of the Middle Ages, the forms of evidence and modes of analysis. In the first two meetings we will expect all participants to share with the class their accounts of both Duffy and the grand narrative chosen. During the semester we also want all students to read chapters 1-7 of Jennifer Herdt’s Putting on Virtue (Chicago, 2008) so we have not put this book in lists below.
After this beginning our meetings will center on a cluster of works by St. Thomas Aquinas; William of Ockham; William Langland; William Tyndale and Thomas More. We list the set texts below. We anticipate that among these that emerge the following may be prominent: the virtues and vices; the relations between theological and cardinal virtues; models of communities; ideas and habits of tradition; versions of the will together with accounts of relations between will and reason; sacraments. We stress that this class is a seminar and so calls for interlocutors who come to each class well prepared to share readings and ideas: it is not a lecture course.
Grades come from one essay of 25 pages to be handed in at the final class or before. (Deadline not negotiable).
Here is the list of grand narratives:
Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism
Dupré, Passages to Modernity
Gillespie, Theological Origins of Modernity
MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Muralt, L’unité de la philosophie politique
Simpson, Reform and Cultural Revolution
Taylor, A Secular Age
NOTE: These texts will be available to purchase at the Duke University Book Store (Bryan Center). (THEY WILL NOT BE IN COKESBURY).
Here are the set texts.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on the Virtues, edited J.A. Oesterle (Notre Dame U.P, paperback).
William of Ockham, Ockham on the Virtues, edited Rega Wood (Purdue U.P., paperback).
William Langland, Piers Plowman: we will use the C version: this has just been edited and annotated by Derek Pearsall (in a work which decisively replaces his earlier edition): Exeter University Press, 2008: however, this is in Middle English and despite the copious annotations students who have not read any Middle English before will probably want to read it in a modern translation and they should use George Economu’s translation based on Pearsall’s earlier edition (Piers Plowman: The C Version, Penn paperback).
William Tyndale, Obedience of a Christian Man (Penguin paperback).
In relation to Tyndale and the English Reformation we hope that at least some of you will read Thomas More’s Dialogue of Heresies volume 6 (parts 1-2) of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More (Yale) but this is not one of the set texts.
In relation to our first medieval writer we strongly recommend Herbert McCabe On Aquinas (Continuum paperback, 2008); you will also find helpful work in the collection by Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow, The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, 2005), while the two volume work by Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas (Catholic University of America Press paperback) is an extremely fine introduction to the work and life. We will place on reserve a core of relevant secondary work and these will include materials on the other set writers.
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