Archives shape the stories we tell about the past. Blending fiction and fact, history conditions how archives are constructed and read. This course thinks past conventional modes of knowledge production to reimagine the use and interpretation of archival documents at Firestone Library, the Princeton University Art Museum and elsewhere. Students acquire their own methods by attending to questions of Indigenous sovereignty, access, archival silences, and traces of what Marisa Fuentes calls "dispossessed lives." We expand sites of knowledge production beyond the archive to the land itself. Archival reimagining shifts understanding of the past.

Advanced research in the history of architecture from 1400 to 1750. Topics vary, with the focus each year on important European centers and architects, and on issues related to architectural theory and practice. In fall 2018, this course considers the forms of early modern architectural theory, with particular attention on the history of the architectural book. We explore a set of key genres-including the treatise, the model book, the biography, the construction manual, and the travel narrative-through a close reading of primary sources and direct study of original objects.

The history of ancient Greek literature in the middle ages has long been reduced to "transmission", relegating the period to curator instead of co-creator of the classical canon. We study the medieval reception of antiquity's literary legacy in institutional and intellectual practices which underwrote the copying, reading, and commenting of classical Greek texts, including the manuscript traditions of Homeric epic, the Pindaric odes, Greek historiography, and the works of Plato, among others. Palaeography and codicology are paired with medieval and Byzantine studies more generally in a bid to rewrite this chapter of classicism.

A comprehensive introduction to the central topics and methods of Greek history, offering a chronological overview of periods and significant developments; a survey of the current state of the field and of specialized sub-disciplines (e.g., epigraphy and numismatics); and an exploration of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to the study of the past.

A comprehensive introduction to the central topics and methods of Greek history, offering a chronological overview of periods and significant developments; a survey of the current state of the field and of specialized sub-disciplines (e.g., epigraphy and numismatics); and an exploration of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to the study of the past.

The graduate seminar provides a chronological survey of the development of Latin handwriting from its origins, the Roman scripts, through to humanistic scripts, in all their diversity of forms and styles. A particular emphasis is put on the book-based scripts of the western European Middle Ages and the Renaissance from c. 500 - 1500 AD, including scribal conventions and text typologies.

Texts that survive on stone, bronze, or terracotta provide one of the best and most direct sources for Roman history and culture. Such texts survive in large quantities and new discoveries are made every year. This course offers an introduction to Roman epigraphy, the study of non-literary ancient texts, by familiarizing students with a wide variety of writing preserved from Antiquity.

Texts that survive on stone, bronze, or terracotta provide one of the best and most direct sources for Roman history and culture. Such texts survive in large quantities and new discoveries are made every year. This course offers an introduction to Roman epigraphy, the study of non-literary ancient texts, by familiarizing students with a wide variety of writing preserved from Antiquity.

We analyze the principles guiding the exclusion of certain free inhabitants from the political communities in which they lived and often prospered, the initiatives taken by ancient states to integrate them despite their secondary rank, the non-citizens' own efforts at integration, and the evolution of these interactions over time. We also study the factors that influenced both exclusion and integration (ethnicity, religion, etc.) and how the broad and ever-changing spectrum of what we call 'non-citizens' provides us with a window into the formation/transformation of categorial infrastructures from the ancient to the medieval world.

A half-century after Marshall McLuhan's minting of the phrase "The medium is the message," media theory has made few inroads in the study of ancient Mediterranean literatures and cultures, with some fields making more use of it than others. This seminar approaches the study of the ancient world as a discipline of mixed media, examining the potentials of both its textual and non-textual "things" in shaping past and present modes of knowledge production. Modern media studies and its kindred disciplines (semiotics, communication theory, mediology, the New Materialism, etc.) guide our theoretical approaches to ancient materials.

A seminar covering the basic methodology of numismatics, including die, hoard and archaeological analysis as well as a survey of pre-modern coinages. The Western coinage tradition is covered, from its origins in the Greco-Persian world through classical and Hellenistic Greek coinage, Roman imperial and provincial issues, Parthian and Sasanian issues, the coinage of Byzantium, the Islamic world, and medieval and renaissance Europe. Students research and report on problems involving coinages related to their own areas of specialization. Open to undergraduates by permission of the instructor.

A seminar covering the basic methodology of numismatics, including die, hoard and archaeological analysis as well as a survey of pre-modern coinages. The Western coinage tradition is covered, from its origins in the Greco-Persian world through classical and Hellenistic Greek coinage, Roman imperial and provincial issues, Parthian and Sasanian issues, the coinage of Byzantium, the Islamic world, and medieval and renaissance Europe. Students research and report on problems involving coinages related to their own areas of specialization. Open to undergraduates by permission of the instructor.

A seminar covering the basic methodology of numismatics, including die, hoard and archaeological analysis as well as a survey of pre-modern coinages. The Western coinage tradition is covered, from its origins in the Greco-Persian world through classical and Hellenistic Greek coinage, Roman imperial and provincial issues, Parthian and Sasanian issues, the coinage of Byzantium, the Islamic world, and medieval and renaissance Europe. Students research and report on problems involving coinages related to their own areas of specialization. Open to undergraduates by permission of the instructor.

This course aims to demystify the methods, instruments, and skills of palaeography and textual criticism, while furnishing participants with hands-on experience of discovering, researching, and editing a previously unpublished Greek text. Students are introduced to relevant aspects of codicology and manuscript study more broadly, as well as scholarship on the potential and the limits of editorial practice in the humanities. Strong classical Greek (e.g., ability to handle Attic prose) a must.

From the inception of writing in ancient times to the present, the intersection of images with texts has created subtle and ingenious systems of signs as well as philosophical, aesthetic and psychological discourses about how such signs relate to cognition and semiotics. This course studies several of these systems and discourses. Objects of study derive from ancient Egypt and Meso-America, Early Modern Europe, Modernism and Post-Structuralism, from competing theses on speech, writing, and gesture to attempts to develop new taxonomies of images. The class makes use of materials in our Rare Books Collection and objects in the Museum.

The seminar examines the gradual evolution of early Chinese textuality from the pre-imperial through the early imperial period, with particular emphasis on questions of materiality and sociology of text; authorship, compilation, and circulation; canon formation and the rise of commentary; and classification and bibliography. Readings are in classical Chinese and in various languages of modern scholarship. Languages of instruction: English and Chinese.

In this seminar, we read selected poems from the Anhui University Shijing bamboo manuscript from ca. 300 BCE that was published in 2019 and includes 57 poems known from the ancient Classic of Poetry. In closely comparing these poems to those in the received Shijing as well as to other manuscript evidence, we analyze the manuscript text in detail from the perspectives of paleography, historical phonology, and codicology. Thus, the seminar introduces students to the principal technical disciplines in reading an ancient Chinese manuscript while at the same time exploring the formation of early Chinese poetry and of the Shijing anthology.

This course examines classical Chinese texts and their commentary traditions, with commentary selections and additional readings from the earliest periods through the early twentieth century. Readings are selected from the three ritual classics (so-called San Li), historical writings, and excavated manuscripts relating to ritual, broadly construed. Secondary readings selected from the theory of ritual and the use of ritual texts and commentaries in Chinese intellectual, social, and cultural history.

This course introduces texts of different genres carved into stones in China from the Han to the Qing dynasty. Compared to printed texts and manuscripts, stone inscriptions are a group of sources that remain underutilized and are often read only in transcriptions. Combining close reading of the texts with perspectives from art history and archaeology, this course places these texts back onto the stones and in the social and cultural contexts of their production. The exploration of these inscriptions will help students open up possibilities of their research in various disciplines from history and literature to religion and art history.

This research seminar introduces graduate students to the history and bibliography of archival documents produced during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), with chronological extensions also into the pre-Conquest period and transition to the early Republican era. Emphasis is on government papers, and students gain essential knowledge of the Qing state from a survey of what primary sources have survived from this period. The second half of this course focuses on the craft of close reading, annotation and translation of original documents, and offers in-class instructions on research, writing and presentation skills.

This course provides an introduction to the written sources of Japanese history from 750- 1600. Instruction focuses on reading and translating a variety of documentary genres, and court chronicles, although visual sources (e.g. maps, scrolls, and screens) are introduced in class as well. Each week entails a translation of five or six short documents and a library research assignment. Research resources and methods are also emphasized. A substantial research assignment, involving primary source research, is due at the end of the semester. The final week of class is devoted to presentations about the research project.

This course provides an introduction to the written sources of Japanese history from 800-1600. Instruction focuses on reading and translating a variety of documentary genres, although court chronicles and some visual sources are introduced in class as well. Each week entails the translation of several short documents. Some research resources are also introduced. Weekly assignments include documents which are published on Princeton's komonjo website. In a presentation of the final translation project and analysis is required during the final class and a 12-15 page paper is due on Dean's Day.

Through close readings of original sources in classical Chinese, we analyze the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) in its aesthetic, historical, and hermeneutic dimensions from pre-imperial manuscripts through modern scholarship. In addition to reading the actual poetry and its classical commentaries, we discuss in detail its origins of composition and its reception as the master text of early Chinese cultural memory and identity, drawing on the relevant scholarship in Chinese, Japanese, English, and other languages.

This course examines the practices of collecting and anthologizing literary texts in a wide variety of forms during the Tang and Song dynasties. We begin by looking at a range of pre-Tang models for collecting literary material in different forms and consider their different approaches to compilation, including selection criteria, and organization, and then examine the impact of their choices on canonization and transmission. We study collection practices in state-sponsored anthologies; in primers and literary composition guides in individual literary collections; and finally in large collectanea.

Reading of poetic works from pre-Meiji Japan together with an introduction to relevant topics including: commentaries and reception, book history and manuscript transmission, historical and social background, and the use of modern reference tools.

Reading of poetic works from pre-Meiji Japan together with an introduction to relevant topics including: commentaries and reception, book history and manuscript transmission, historical and social background, and the use of modern reference tools.

With a walled city of thirty square miles and a population of more than one million, Chang'an, capital of the Tang dynasty, was the largest city in the world at the time. Through reading texts in different genres including official history, governmental documents, literary collections, anecdotes, legal codes, and stone inscriptions along with secondary scholarship, this course introduces the political, ritual, and economic structures of the city, and explores the lives of its citizens that in different ways either maintained or challenged these structures.

This course introduces manuscripts of medieval China preserved in different forms from caves in Dunhuang and tombs in South China to calligraphic works and manuscripts found on the back sides of printed texts. It helps students to independently approach medieval manuscripts by introducing knowledge about the paper, formal and cursive writing, non-standard characters, and methods of punctuation on medieval manuscripts. It also introduces types of texts found only in manuscript forms, and offers ways of thinking about the culture of writing and reading in medieval China.

The course offers a comprehensive history of books in China, with reference to relevant developments in Korea and Japan and to parallels in the West, from the advent of actual books in East Asia during the first millennium BCE until the introduction of virtual books at the end of the 20th century. It covers the physical evolution of traditional Chinese books as well as their crucial role in the transmission of text and knowledge throughout China's long and complex history, especially for the period of 9th to 19th century. Visual images and actual specimens are used to reinforce presentations and stimulate discussion.

Introduction to Middle High German language and literature 1100-1300. Selections from Arthurian romance (Parzival, Tristan), epic (Nibelungenlied), lyric poetry (Minnesang), and mysticism (Meister Eckhart, Mechthild von Magdeburg). Class sessions focus on close-reading and translating original texts and also include visits to Rare Book Room and Art Museum (in person, if feasible).

Team-taught seminar focuses on history of the book in German speaking regions with a specific focus on the 15th century, an age of both increased manuscript production and the invention of print. Students explore book-making both in manuscript and early print form, examining how these forms converged and diverged with the advent of new technologies. In addition to the basics of manuscript and early print book archival research, the seminar explores the 15th-c. historical context (late medieval devotion, gender and the book, reformation). Final project on manuscript or early book in the Princeton collection, resulting in on-line exhibit.

This seminar examines the ways in which philosophers and imaginative writers, historians and philologists, antiquaries and collectors interpreted texts and objects from the ancient world. We begin by raising methodological questions, examining "reception" as a concept and setting it in the larger context of hermeneutical theory and practice. Then we carry out a series of case studies. We examine major texts and works of art and architecture, while also attending to the institutional and disciplinary contexts within which the study of the ancient world was carried on.

The seminar explores the transition from the late ancient to the medieval world in the Merovingian kingdoms, the most successful successor state of the Western Roman empire. We study the various efforts to find order and orientation in a quickly and constantly changing world that was shaped by its continuing connections to the Mediterranean as well as by its interaction with the European North and Northwest. We particularly focus on how the intellectual, social, and spiritual resources and models of the late Roman world were adopted and adapted in an ongoing bricolage which some of the baselines of medieval Europe were created.

This seminar explores the transition from the late ancient to the medieval world through the lens of law and legal practice from the late Roman to the Carolingian empire. We look at how the different codifications built on earlier legal models and traditions but adopted and adapted them in their respective circumstances. We explore these processes until the ninth century when the Carolingian rulers came to rule an Empire which comprised a variety of different Roman and post Roman legal traditions and laws and were confronted with the challenge to find new ways and strategies for their coexistence, compatibility and convergence.

The seminar explores the cultural history of Europe from the 9th to the 12th c. and the emergence of a cultural convergence that allowed to imagine the Latin West as the Latin West. Our window into this process is the codification of various subjects in books and libraries and in the collection, arrangement and transmission of history books, legal handbooks, patristic, hagiographical or liturgical collections. In so doing the course introduces students to paleography, codicology, basic techniques of editing texts and the study of Latin manuscripts, scriptoria and libraries.

The seminar explores the cultural history of Europe from the 9th to the 12th c. and the emergence of a cultural convergence that allowed to imagine the Latin West as the Latin West. Our window into this process is the codification of various subjects in books and libraries and in the collection, arrangement and transmission of history books, legal handbooks, patristic, hagiographical or liturgical collections. In so doing the course introduces students to paleography, codicology, basic techniques of editing texts and the study of Latin manuscripts, scriptoria and libraries.

Reading and research seminar on thirteenth-century France.

How should we think about the history of language and communication, especially in light of the digital revolution of our own time? This course considers the different themes, approaches, and conclusions of recent scholars of history and related fields. Reading and discussion of one or two books each week. All readings in English. No prior knowledge required.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the history of the Syriac language and Syriac-speaking Christians. We focus on important individual authors, key historical moments, and significant themes and aspects of the history of Syriac-speaking Christians in the Middle East. Since Syriac-speaking churches have traditionally been classified by Western authors as "heretics" we also examine the nature of orthodoxy and heresy. Students are introduced to and trained in the use of the most important instrumenta studiorum of Syriac studies.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the history of the Syriac language and Syriac-speaking Christians. We focus on important individual authors, key historical moments, and significant themes and aspects of the history of Syriac-speaking Christians in the Middle East. Since Syriac-speaking churches have traditionally been classified by Western authors as "heretics" we also examine the nature of orthodoxy and heresy. Students are introduced to and trained in the use of the most important instrumenta studiorum of Syriac studies.

The goal of this seminar will be to introduce students to some of the most important ideas and debates surrounding the two major religious revolutions of Late Antiquity: the triumph of Christianity and the subsequent emergence and world conquests of Islam. The course will focus on extensive reading in both primary and secondary literature and students will be introduced to and trained in using major instrumenta studiorum for this period; texts may also be read in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. No prior knowledge of Late Antiquity, Christianity, or Islam will be assumed.

The goal of this seminar will be to introduce students to some of the most important ideas and debates surrounding the two major religious revolutions of Late Antiquity: the triumph of Christianity and the subsequent emergence and world conquests of Islam. The course will focus on extensive reading in both primary and secondary literature and students will be introduced to and trained in using major instrumenta studiorum for this period; texts may also be read in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. No prior knowledge of Late Antiquity, Christianity, or Islam will be assumed.

This class approaches the history of early science and medicine by asking how past societies responded to the challenge of observing and testing nature. Historically, what counted as an experiment and how did experiment become the arbiter of scientific discovery in the European world? Drawing on ancient, medieval, and early modern sources, as well as historical reconstructions of past experiments, we trace the changing role of experience across such diverse fields as astronomy, surgery, alchemy, and magic.

What counts as an experiment and how did experiment become the arbiter of scientific discovery? Certain experiments have achieved iconic status: Galileo's pendulum, Boyle's air pump, Newton's 'crucial experiments.' But what happens when we reevaluate these from the perspective of 'borderline' practices: anatomical dissections, chemical recipes, medical cases, craft techniques? We draw on ancient, medieval and early modern sources, as well as the modern historiography of experiment, to explore the challenge of observing and testing nature. As far as possible, we attempt to recreate practices in class, from glassworking to alchemy.

This course takes alchemy as a starting point for exploring the history of medieval and early modern science and medicine. Alchemy's goals ranged from transmuting metals to prolonging life. They also invoke broader themes: religious belief, artisanal practice, secrecy, medical doctrine, experimental philosophy, visual culture. This Spring, the University Library will host an exhibition on alchemical imagery that seeks to combine these themes. We'll use this opportunity to investigate the historical approaches that inform modern presentations of art and science: from displaying artefacts, to reconstructing experiments in a modern laboratory.

An examination of the Winchester organa, the most sophisticated examples of the dominant polyphonic tradition from 850 to 1100. This tradition was based on a fundamentally different conception of polyphony than the new (and lasting) tradition that emerged around 1100. Winchester-style polyphony vanished around the same time: it was an evolutionary dead end. The organa used to be regarded as undecipherable, since the voices are written in unheightened neumes. Yet in 1968 Andreas Holschneider published his brilliant discovery of their decipherment. We will transcribe and discuss selected organa along the principles he established.

An introduction to Ottoman paleography and diplomatics. The documents are in divani and rika scripts.

An introduction to Ottoman paleography and diplomatics. The documents are in divani and rika scripts.

Introduction to the Judeo-Arabic documents of the Cairo Geniza, including personal and business letters, legal testimonies and other ephemera of the tenth through thirteenth centuries. Students learn the Hebrew alphabet, the peculiarities of middle Arabic, diplomatic technique, research methods, manuscript paleography, digital tools and the existing literature.

Introduction to the Judeo-Arabic documents of the Cairo Geniza, including personal and business letters, legal testimonies and other ephemera of the tenth through thirteenth centuries. Students learn the Hebrew alphabet, the peculiarities of middle Arabic, diplomatic technique, research methods, manuscript paleography, digital tools and the existing literature. They also have the opportunity to contribute to an evolving state of knowledge by writing up unpublished texts for an online database.