Spring 2003

Dr. Rosanne Fleszar Denhard,
Department of English/Communications

About the Course

This Tier 2 Creative Arts travel course is unique in having a two-week travel component as part of the class schedule. The course explores medieval and Renaissance English arts, history, and culture, culminating in a 14-day trip to England. The course contextualizes the arts within the historical and cultural heritage experienced onsite during travel and on campus through class study and research. At our base locations of York, Cambridge, and London, and during day trips to other cities and towns, the class experiences the culture of medieval and early modern Britain--and its contemporary legacies--through exploration of natural and human-made landscapes/cityscapes, museums, cathedrals, castles, and historic sites, attendance at performing arts events, and active participation in workshops and activities involving theatre, music, visual arts, design, and dance.

A Message from the Instructor

Welcome to the webpages celebrating the studies and travel of CCCA 301-71: The Arts of Medieval & Renaissance England. Our journey began months before the class's actual travel, with weekly classes to preview the trip and to discuss a wide range of artworks in historical and cultural context.  This is very much an integrated approach: experiencing a sampling of several centuries of the arts of England -- literature, music, theatre, visual arts, architecture, design, and dance -- with a sense of living history that can only be experienced through travel.  The class read extensively in medieval and early modern texts, covering a span from the early Beowulf through a play by 17th-century writer Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.  We used these texts in various genres as a way to connect with voices from England's past.  The class also studied background readings focused on framing a basic history of England and its architecture, art styles, and music.  In addition, our work was enriched by our guest lecturer and fellow traveler, my husband composer-pianist David Denhard, who gave the class a mini-course in the history of medieval and Renaissance music and composed music performed in the theatre workshop led by distinguished British National Teaching Fellow Prof. Gweno Williams at York St. John's College on Margaret Cavendish's Convent of Pleasure.  The marvelous opportunity of working "live" on 17th-century theatre with Gweno and her students was certainly one of the academic and artistic highlights of the course.  It is hoped that this collaboration with York St. John's, now in its second year, will continue and grow.

After many weeks of preparation, it was finally time to set off on our travels, and as you will see from our itinerary, we were busy indeed!  Our journey took us to sites ranging from York's Jorvik Viking Centre, a stunningly lifelike recreation of a thriving 10th-century Viking City, to the cathedrals, castles, museums, and performance venues of York, Canterbury, Durham, Cambridge, and London.  The student projects introduced below explore topics chosen by the students during our travels.  In keeping with the focus of the Creative Arts domain, a number of projects encompass aspects of both traditional academic research and creative work.  Student Jessica Stone, a sophomore History major, is responsible for the design and construction of this webpage as her final project for the course.  Lauren Touhey, experience traveler and R.A., served as our capable Teaching Assistant, helping to ensure that things went smoothly before and after travel.

In addition to our lively and intellectually stimulating joint workshop with Prof. Gweno Williams and her students at York St. John, we paid particular attention to Shakespeare.  Besides our visit to the rebuilt Globe, while in London we also had the pleasure of attending the Reduced Shakespeare Company's zany production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged, of which I believe Shakespeare himself would have heartily approved.  In England we also had the opportunity to hear much magnificent music of the middle ages, Renaissance, and beyond.  We attended the Evensong program at York Minster, hearing the choir of men and boys singing in a setting that has heard liturgical music for close to 1,000 years.  In London, at the intimate Church of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, one of the premier settings for Early and Baroque music, we attended a concert of choral chamber music from 1610 Monteverdi, performed by candlelight.  In Cambridge, we even experienced traditional English dance ourselves as the guests of the Cherry Hinton Dance Club, where experienced dancers guided the class through various English country and contra dances, old and new, and then gave us the opportunity to dance in earnest.  And those of us who went to the Cecil Sharp House in London experienced the wilder side of traditional dance with a high-energy Ceilidgh.

There was also plenty of "non-scheduled" fun: many spontaneous moments of the simple pleasures of experiencing a farmer's market, the local shops (this year, shoe stores seemed to be a particular theme), parks, and pubs--and meeting the "locals" wherever we went.  For the students, there was the exhilaration of figuring out what to do when only half of the group made it onto the train; learning how to read maps while navigating through unfamiliar territory; mastering the London "tube" and the BritRail system, as well as the 24-hour clock and British currency, to say nothing of learning to decipher the wonderful regional accents of Yorkshire and County Durham.  Through it all, the students remained cheerful and remarkably energetic, perhaps encouraged in part by the presence of nine-year-old Cecilia Denhard, who relished her role as everyone's "honorary little sister."

Student travel is always a "hands on" approach to learning that operates on multiple levels of the academic and the personal, the public and the private.  And this year in particular, "real life" political events affecting both our own lives and the rest of the world came face-to-face with our academic travel.  Being out of the U.S. when the war began was certainly an experience that brought some concern.  For those who wanted to, there was ample opportunity to explore British and international responses to war without the intervention of the U.S. media.  Yet another common ground with the British students of York St. John College occurred when we were working there on the day designated as a national strike of college and university students.  Due to this, some students who had planned to work with us on the Cavendish Project Workshop had to bow out due to political obligations.  The British students had organized the national strike to protest drastic increases in tuition and fees that over the past decade have been eroding the ability of middle-and lower-income families to afford higher education.  This has similarities to the funding crisis that the U.S.'s own public higher education systems are facing and was of great interest to the MCLA students.

The Arts of Medieval & Renaissance England in 2004

Plans are already underway for the Spring 2004 version of this course.  Enrollment will be limited to 15 students in order to ensure the optimal experience for all, so it is advisable for those students interested to contact me early for information on next year's course and specifics of the travel component, including pre-registration instructions. 

With Thanks

Many people on both sides of the Atlantic contributed to the success of this course, and we are grateful to all of them.  In particular, we thank Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. John Frazee and the staff of Academic Affairs; Academic Dean Dr. Monica Joslin; the staff of Administration and Finance; English/Communications Department Chair Prof. Bob Bishoff; and Core Coordinator Prof. David Langston.  We are especially grateful to Prof. Gweno Williams and her students, as well as the administration and staff of York St. John College. And finally, we thank the welcoming hosts and staff at the Blue Bridge Hotel, York; A & B Guest House, Cambridge; and Columbia Hotel, London.

This was an experience rich in exploration and discovery.  We hope you enjoy sharing it with us through these webpages.

Rosanne Fleszar Denhard, Ph. D.
Department of English/Communications
rdenhard@mcla.mass.edu

Our Class Members:

Michelle Annessi, Meg Behrens, Emily Bethel, Susan D'Anna, Trisha Farco, Jessica Fitts, Megan Gorton, Andrea Huda, David Powers, Emily Salvas, Amy Simansky, Jessica Stone, and T.A. Lauren Touhey.