Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium
April 1st at 5:00, 300 Wheeler Hall
"Ascetic Arts: Literary Studies and Monastic Discipline in Early Medieval England," a lecture by Christopher A. (Drew) Jones (Dept. of English, Ohio State University)
What did the study and composition of poetry have to do with Christian ascetic movements in the earlier Middle Ages? This lecture reexamines the place of literary studies and other subjects of the arts-curriculum in monasteries of the ninth and tenth centuries, when traditional practices of monastic schooling confronted increasingly rigorous definitions of what it meant to be a monk. Although the focus of the talk will be on early English and Frankish institutions, the topic has implications touching the wider history of pedagogy, literary theory, and western spirituality.
