Participation will consist of three components: (1) regular attendance, (2) regular contribution to class discussions, and (3) the submission and discussion of short written assignments based on a designated part of the reading.
You are expected to attend every class, arriving on time and leaving when the class is dismissed. You are also expected to participate in the weekly seminar discussion by raising questions or making observations based on each week's reading and by responding to the comments of your classmates. Attendance without regular participation will lower your mark, and irregular attendance, which includes late arrivals and early departures, will lower your mark even more.

In Weeks 2 - 5 and 7 - 12 (15 May - 5 June, 19 June - 24 July), you will be required to submit on one or two sheets of paper an outline of part of the required reading that I will assign in advance in class. Your outline should indicate the main point that the author wishes to make and provide in point form the essential information contained in the assigned portion of the reading. Complete your outline with a brief evaluation by briefly responding to the following 5 points.

1. Did the author clearly identify an argument and provide persuasive data for it?
2. In case you are assigned a section from a book, does the assigned reading fit into the larger argument of the book? How?
3. How effectively did the author organize the information?
4. Is there something you do not understand about the reading? If so, point out what you would like to be clarified.
5. Develop one or two questions that would be suitable for a discussion of the assigned reading. We must be able to answer these questions based on the reading. Your questions should generate a discussion, not a one-sentence answer. Think in terms of questions that you could answer in essay format on an exam.
You will submit one copy of the typed outline to everyone in the seminar, including me. Keep one copy for yourself. I will accept only outlines that are typed and that are submitted at the beginning of class. Use a 12-point font. Outlines that are submitted after class or that are not submitted in person at class will be considered incomplete.

Even though you will provide an outline of part of the required weekly reading, you will be expected to do the entire reading and to discuss it in class. You are certainly welcome to make connections between your outline and the rest of the required reading. Use your outline as a foundation for your contribution to the class discussion.

In week 9 (3 July), in addition to presenting the usual outline of a portion of the required reading, everyone will present a (typed!) bibliography of four monographs, one collection of essays, and five journal articles relevant to the theme of western European (including British) religious visual culture in the period 1400-1700. The following conditions apply:

1. All citations must be to titles in English.
2. All citations must be to scholarly secondary literature with an orientation to history or art history. Avoid references to venues of publication for popular consumption, e.g. articles in History Today. Do not include references to books or articles that are more appropriate to the study of literature or language, such as articles in Shakespeare Studies.
3. The journal articles in your bibliography must be at least ten pages in length.
4. Do not include references to literature on Byzantine iconoclasm.
5. You may include only one book that deals in general with religious visual culture, provided that the book devotes at least one chapter to period 1400-1700.
6. Do not include references to dissertations, book reviews, review articles (reviews of several books), or any secondary literature listed in this syllabus.
7. You must use proper bibliographical format. Follow the guidelines at http://www.sfu.ca/~pabel/403FN.HTM.
8. Write a one-paragraph abstract of a chapter in one of the books or of a journal article in your bibliography. The abstract should indicate what the chapter / article is about, what the author's argument is, and how the author proves his or her point. Reproducing a previously published abstract on the internet or in a printed source either verbatim or by changing the sentence structure or some words constitutes plagiarism. Plagiarized abstracts will disqualify the entire assignment and will lower your participation grade. A note on terminology: a monograph is a scholarly book usually written by one person. It is not a collection of essays by various authors or a series of primary documents reproduced in a modern scholarly edition.

You will submit one copy of the analysis to me and keep one copy for yourself. I will accept only outlines that are typed and that are submitted at the beginning of class. Use a 12-point font. Outlines that are submitted after class or that are not submitted in person at class will be considered incomplete. In weeks 10 and 12 (10 and 24 July), in addition to presenting the usual outline of a portion of the required reading, everyone will present to me a brief, typed analysis of two book reviews of For the Sake of Simple Folk and one book review of Voracious Idols and Violent Hands. Choose reviews from scholarly journals, not from popular journals such as History Today. In each analysis, you will provide brief answers to the following questions:

1. What is the reviewer's assessment of the book? Or does the review simply summarize the book without evaluating it?
2. If the review does provide an evaluation, how persuasive is it?
3. What is your assessment of the review in light of your own reading of the book?

You will submit one copy of the analysis to me and keep one copy for yourself. I will accept only outlines that are typed and that are submitted at the beginning of class. Use a 12-point font. Outlines that are submitted after class or that are not submitted in person at class will be considered incomplete.

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