Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Spring 2018 - HUM 311 D100

Italian Renaissance Humanism (4)

Class Number: 12914

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 3 – Apr 10, 2018: Mon, 9:30 a.m.–1:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Exam Times + Location:

    Apr 16, 2018
    Mon, 12:00–3:00 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    45 units.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A study of the major writings, cultural milieu, and influence of the humanist movement of the Italian Renaissance. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE HUMANISM: THE ARTIST AND HIS INTELLECTUAL WORLD

The Italian Renaissance is a period well known for its revival of classical culture and for the related intellectual movement known as humanism. In this course, we will explore the impact of these cultural and intellectual transformations on one dimension of Renaissance society: the world of the artist. How and why did the artists of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy embrace the ideals of ancient Greece and Rome? In what way were Renaissance artists “intellectuals”? How did these cultural shifts affect the artist’s social standing, training and process of creation? Interdisciplinary in nature, our course will answer these and other questions using a wide range of written primary sources, including artists’ contracts, correspondence and handbooks; treatises of artistic theory; and literary works such as biography, poetry and epitaphs. A central place will also be given to visual sources —architecture, paintings, drawings and sculpture— and to scholarship on the specific topics we investigate.

Grading

  • Class participation 20%
  • Midterm exam 25%
  • Film analysis 20%
  • Final Exam (take-home) 35%

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting. Edited by Martin Kemp. Penguin Classics. 1991 ISBN: 9780140433319

Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style. 2nd edition. Oxford, 1988. ISBN: 978-0192821447

Ross King, Brunelleschi’s Dome. Bloomsbury USA; Reprint editiom (2013) ISBN: 978-1620401934. [Other editions also acceptable.]


These texts will be available for purchase at the SFU bookstore and on reserve at Bennett Library. Additional readings will be on electronic reserve at the library.

Registrar Notes:

SFU’s Academic Integrity web site http://students.sfu.ca/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating.  Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the University community.  Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the University. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the University. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS