Southern France Study Abroad Program
Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature
Department of Visual Arts and Art History, School of the Arts
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
Boca Raton, Florida

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ARH 4957

Art and Classical Archaeology in Southern France

June 30 - August 11, 2008

Preliminary Syllabus

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Location:             Classroom facilities (EDM, Alès) and on-site

Credits:                4

Professor:             Dr. Brian E. McConnell

Pre-requisites:       ARH 2000 or permission of the instructor

Course Description:

This course focuses on three important periods in the cultural history of southern France, the Paleolithic period, the Roman Empire, and the Middle Ages. In the course of six weeks, a combination of classroom lectures and on-site presentation will introduce students to the major works of art and their archaeological and historical contexts at several significant locations.

Southern France offers well-known examples of drawn, incised, and painted images of real and imaginary animals of the Paleolithic period, the longest period in all of Art History, at such famous sites at Lascaux, Font du Gaume, and Rouffignac. Major museums and archaeological sites dedicated to this form of art, as well as examples of sculpture in stone, bone, wood, and clay, are accessible to the public in the area of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, and a extended trip from the program center to this town, which is styled as 'The Prehistory Capital of the World', will be a cornerstone of the first third of the course.

The second third will focus on southern France's Roman heritage. From the time of the Roman conquest under Julius Caesar (students will read from Caesar's own memoires, the Bellum Gallicum), southern France has seen the construction of some of the best known and typical monuments of Classical Antiquity anywhere, from the Pont du Gard acqueduct; the Maison Carrèe (a Roman temple) and the amphitheater at Nimes; to the large Roman theater and triumphal arch at Orange; and the amphitheater at Arles—all cities within easy driving distance of the program base. Attention will be paid to the construction techniques employed on these monuments and the way in which they are simultaneously products of centralized Roman authority and instruments in the transformation of a landscape characterized by both urban centers and agricultural countryside.

The final portion of this course will focus on the extensive heritage of medieval architecture and art that sprang up around the pilgrimage routes to Spain (les chemins de Compostelle/the Routes of Saint James) and Italy; these routes, although instituted over many centuries and associated with the height of medieval culture, still stand as important religious and cultural venues today. Several major cathedrals and churches that are located relatively close to the program base, such as St. Sernin at Toulouse, St. Foy at Conques, Saint Tropheme at Arles, and the Cluniac monastery at Moissac, will be the subject both of lectures and field-trips. Visits to these diverse sites will draw students' attention to techniques of production and stylistic tendencies of the Romanesque and Gothic periods, Europe's first 'modern age'.

 

Requirements:

Classroom participation (20%) -- classroom lectures and discussion will prepare students for on-site presentations: attendance is mandatory.

Four, short, three-page (750-word) essays (10% each) on topics related to the site visits (Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Nimes, Orange/Avignon, Carcassone or Arles). Advanced students may substitute two essays with presentations of a building or work of art that will be seen on the site visits (the writing requirement remains the same).

Two in-class examinations (20% each) coordinated with the component units on factual and thematic information related to the topics under discussion and the works of art and sites that have been seen.

 

Required Texts:

Cleere, H. Southern France: An Oxford Archaeological Guide.

Curtis, G. The Cave Painters.

 

Other Assigned Readings from:

Bromwich, J. Roman Remains of Southern France: A guide book. Routledge, London and New York, 1996, ISBN 0-415-143586, $48.46

Caesar, Bellum Gallicum.

David Lewis-Williams, The Mind in the Cave.

Pierre Nora, ed., Realms of Memory.

 

Supplemental Readings in French (for students with advanced French skills)

Clottes, J., et al. La plus belle histoire de l'homme.

Passard, J. La grotte prehistorique de Rouffignac.