090050 UE Lateinische Lektüre II: Als Mönch leben (2020W)

This Lektüre will offer a text-based introduction to selected themes and episodes in the history of monastic culture, which naturally also includes nuns. Every week we will read and discuss a new Latin passage. Authors studied will include Evagrius, Jerome, Cassian, Cassiodorus, Benedict of Nursia, Gregory the Great, Gregory of Tours, and Aelred. While some attention will be paid to hermits and to anchorites, the emphasis will lie on the communal monastic life (coenobium), its joys and its troubles, its “lived experience." The monastic tradition is a continuous one and I hope to arrange some contact with modern monastic “native informants” who might be willing to give us an insider perspective on the vita monastica. While the course will not provide any systematic history of monastic orders, there will be some chance to explore different traditions from a later period, e.g. Franciscans and Dominicans.