Courses:

The following syllabi come from a variety of different terms. They illustrate the evolution of this course over time, and are intended to provide alternate views into the instruction of this course.

Fall 2008, Jeffrey Ravel (PDF)

The "Renaissance" as a phenomenon in European history is best understood as a series of social, political, and cultural responses to an intellectual trend which began in Italy in the fourteenth century. This intellectual tendency, known as humanism, or the studia humanitatis, was at the heart of developments in literature, the arts, the sciences, religion, and government for almost three hundred years. In this class, we will highlight the history of humanism, but we will also study religious reformations, high politics, the agrarian world, and European conquest and expansion abroad in the period.

Attendance and class participation is mandatory. There will be a cumulative final exam at the end of the semester. In addition, students will take a map quiz, write six two-page papers, and one eight to ten-page paper due in session 25. I will hand out instructions for these assignments later in the term. Each assignment will be weighted as follows in the calculation of the final grade, although these calculations will also take into account improved performance during the course of the semester:

The web now hosts many sites which offer college-level papers of varying quality on a variety of topics. I am well acquainted with these sites, and with others that offer detection services to professors. Buying a paper and submitting it as your own work is cheating. Copying sections from someone else's print or online work into your own without an acknowledgement is plagiarism. MIT has strict policies against both activities that I will enforce. For the appropriate MIT definitions and policies, visit the following Web sites. If you are uncertain about what constitutes cheating or plagiarism, please contact me before submitting the work in question.

• MIT Online Writing and Communication Center
• Plagiarism and How to Avoid It (Be sure to check out the links to sites at the University of Toronto and Texas A & M.)