Readings

Instead of having the bookstore order physical books to campus, we will instead largely use digital files which we will read and annotate together on Perusall. Perusall allows for social annotation which will be a key part of our learning experience this year.

You will not need to purchase any textbooks for this class. All readings will be provided as digital copies or links.

What is Social Annotation?

Social annotation takes the usually solitary act of reading and allows students to do it in community with one another. Medieval students would learn by doing this together in the room together. By using digital tools to highlight, comment, or otherwise annotate a text, modern students “do the reading”, in their own time and space, but do so in conversation with their peers.

What could you annotate? You can identity and post the following:

a Question: Write a discussion question based on any a section of the readings assigned. As you read assigned materials, note where questions come to mind about the ideas, timeline, methods or conclusions. This can be a simple, "What is X the author is talking about" or (much better) a thoughtful question that invites analysis, synthesis, or evaluation of the material, or makes connections between the readings/ previous discussion. A really good question is one that tries to link the source being read with another text or idea you've come across before.

a Quotation: Identify a quotation from the reading material. Find something that is especially pertinent –in your opinion– to the main points of the readings. Then rewrite the quotation in your own words. Your selection should be neither too short (1 line) nor too long (10-12 lines).

a Talking Point: Develop a talking point – an issue or idea developed from the reading that is of interest to you. Let us “see inside your head” as you think about, accept, reject, or otherwise engage the reading material. You do not need to answer your question (no. 1) here, but you should discuss why you think it is an important one to consider.

an Answer: As you're reading for class, read through other students' questions on hypothes.is and try to answer one or at least enter into dialogue with it.

Social annotation is an age-old process that is very medieval. What is different is speed. It would take centuries for texts to accrue a commentary surrounding a text, but we can do it online in real time in a very short span of time. Commentary (medieval or modern) can link to other media, can define key terms, provide further details or contradict the main text. We are, in essence, crowdsourcing (you being the crowd) the readings to allow you to deepen and expand your knowledge.

The above image is of a twelfth-century commentary (or Glossa) on the Biblical Song of Songs (aka, Canticles, Cantica Canticorum). The text in dark brown is the biblical text. The much more copious lighter brown ink is the commentary, definitions and explanations of the meaning. What does this say about how we interact with texts even now?

By the later Middle Ages, an official commentary of the Bible had arisen called the Glossa Ordinario, which laid out what the "Big Thinkers" had become the consensus of smart people about various parts of the Bible. They did not always agree and so the comments would make clear to those reading the Bible what areas of disagreement might exist.

We will use it that same way in class. We can use your annotation and commentary to highlight areas of confusion and disagreement and explore debates (amongst yourselves and in the field). You can use annotations to ask questions or answer them for your fellow students. They key is that we can do it together.

Bibliography

If you want to read up on the research done on the benefits of social annotation, see:

If you want to learn more about medieval glosses, a good starting point is a blog post written by a (former) MA student for the Medieval Institute blog at the University of Notre Dame:

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