Offerings vary from year to year. Students should consult the Department's <Course Description> for current topics.

For Paul Zumthor, medieval literature was defined, above all, by a particular rootedness in what he called “vocalité”. Over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, writers reflected self-consciously – and somewhat anxiously – on the instability and manipulability of voice, a concept that sat troublingly between the oral and the written, the personal and the social, the material and the immaterial, the body and mind. In this class, we’ll read a selection of the most important medieval French and Occitan texts through a theoretical focus on the problem of voice and its connection to subjectivity. We'll ask: Is voice that uncanny remainder of the body? Does it mark authorial individuality, and if so, how? Is it beyond the symbolic? In a hands-on session with manuscripts at the Bancroft Library, we'll think about how written objects can only obliquely capture a culture of the viva voce, considering: how are past voices – if indeed they are – mediated through material artefacts? Our medieval readings will be supplemented with critical and theoretical writings drawn from a range of traditions, including psychoanalysis, historicism, narratology, material culture, poststructuralism, and translation studies.

No prior knowledge of medieval French or Occitan is required, as some language training will be provided. All medieval texts will be available in modern French or English translation. Students without a reading knowledge of modern French should contact the instructor. Class discussion in English.

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