Dr. Isaac Schendel

These selections will help introduce students to the breadth and depth of Old English texts available for advanced study. Each month, Dr. Larry Swain and/or Dr. Isaac Schendel surveys the group to see which text students are most interested in exploring next.

Some of the texts we could explore in a given month include:
• Advanced Old English Readings: Beowulf I
• Advanced Old English Readings: Beowulf II
• Advanced Old English Readings: Riddles
• Advanced Old English Readings in Prose: The Old English Boethius
• Advanced Old English Readings: Genesis A 1
• Advanced Old English Readings: Genesis A 2
• Advanced Old English Readings in Poetry: Judith and Exodus
• Advanced Old English Readings: Heroic Elegies
• Advanced Old English Readings: Cynewulf's Juliana
• Advanced Old English Readings: Cynewulf's Christ II
• Advanced Old English Readings: Apollonius of Tyre
• Advanced Old English Readings: Ælfric's Lives of the Saints
• Advanced Old English Readings: Ælfric's Letter to Sigeweard
• Advanced Old English Readings: The Blickling Homilies
• Advanced Old English Readings: Selections in Prose
• Advanced Old English: Alice in Wonderland
• Advanced Old English: Tolkien's Old English Poetry

Including these texts taught by Dr. Isaac Schendel:
• Readings in Old English: The Battle of Maldon & Group Reading
• Intermediate Old English: The Homilies of Wulfstan
• The Old Saxon for Old English Readers (The Old Saxon Hêliand I)

Note: Please refer to the Required Texts section on a month's iteration page to see which texts the group has decided upon for a given month.

This is the landing page for Dr. Isaac Schendel's Conversational German Series. For more information check out the module links below.

Also: Please wishlist this page if you are interested in taking Dr. Schendel's Conversation German Series when we offer it next.

One of the best methods for language learning is to read and discuss a text with friends in a relaxed setting. One can discuss the subject matter from a “literary” perspective, focusing on themes, character development, narrative styles, or from a “language-learner” perspective, focusing on new words, idioms, or syntax. Both discussion types allow us to get to know a text intimately. If one of your foreign languages is Modern German, consider joining SPACE’s German Book Club for a month, where we read German short stories or books and meet twice a week to discuss them—in either English or German!

This module is aimed at the advanced beginner or intermediate level and seeks to meet the intellectual interests of the participants. Every month, the preceptor (Isaac Schendel) chooses a new text based on student interest and German level. Examples include: the novels of Hermann Hesse, the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, or the fairy tales of Johann Karl August Musäus. Feel free to send in any suggestions and be sure to bring along some Kaffee und Kuchen.

This is the landing page for Dr. Isaac Schendel's Middle High German series. For more information, check out the module links on this page.

Also: Please wishlist this page if you are interested in taking Dr. Schendel's Middle High German series when we offer it next.

Ready to begin learning Old English? This series of modules introduces students to the vocabulary and structure of the earliest recorded form of the English language. One year of modules prepares the student to read texts from over a thousand years ago! Each one-month module builds on the previous one, so students ready to learn Old English will communicate with our Director and Professor Swain to make the right placement for everyone.

This series will help introduce students to the breadth and depth of texts available for study in Middle High German. Each month, Dr. Isaac Schendel surveys the group to see which text students are most interested in exploring next.

This module, which builds on the skills taught in the previous Middle High German Modules, looks at another representative of the Medieval German so-called Spielmannsdichtung (pseudo-minstrel tales). It tells the story of the Duke Ernest, who after unsuccessfully waging an assassination attempt and civil war against his misled step-father (and Holy Roman Emperor) flees to the Far East as a crusader, encountering mythical creatures and far-off places reminiscent to anyone who has read the Old English Wonders of the East.

We will follow the methods used in other Middle High German modules and look at the Herzog Ernst poem both as literature and as a chance for interested students to continue perfecting their Middle High German reading skills. We will read selections of the text in the original language and translate them into English. Since it’s not entirely feasible to assume that everyone has access to a modern English translation, we will primarily discuss the translated sections, although a summary of the poem in general will be given.

Questions discussed in the module will include questions of genre (as always) and the connection between the frame story and the second narrative, monsters and the bridal-quest, the medieval political philosophy and the HRE (Holy Roman Empire), crusade poetry, and more.

The language of Herzog Ernst is roughly equivalent to the language of the Nibelungenlied, so completion of the Middle High German 1 and 2 modules are strongly encouraged. If you have any questions or need help, please feel free to contact Dr. Schendel.

In 2024, Oxford University Press published An Introduction to Middle High German, which promises to become the new standard textbook for learning Middle High German. It has a selection of readings, both prose and poetry, all of which are edited for readability and annotated for instruction.

Due to popular demand, we at Signum University’s SPACE program are offering a month of just perusing the Introduction textbook and reading the prose as a group. We will begin with the introductory text “Von den siben planêten” by Berthold von Regensburg before moving on to the religious literature at the end of the book. Time permitting, we will also look at legal texts in the larger Oxford Guide to Middle High German, which will be supplied as scans according to the Fair Use doctrine. These readings will offer a chance to focus on the language’s syntax when it is not as heavily constrained by the demands of meter and rhyme.

This course is open to both veterans and newcomers to SPACE’s small, but growing Middle High German program.

In 2024, Oxford University Press published An Introduction to Middle High German, which promises to become the new standard textbook for learning Middle High German. It has a selection of readings, both prose and poetry, all of which are edited for readability and annotated for instruction.

Due to popular demand, we at Signum University’s SPACE program are offering a month of just perusing the Introduction textbook and reading the prose as a group. We will begin with the introductory text “Von den siben planêten” by Berthold von Regensburg before moving on to the religious literature at the end of the book. Time permitting, we will also look at legal texts in the larger Oxford Guide to Middle High German, which will be supplied as scans according to the Fair Use doctrine. These readings will offer a chance to focus on the language’s syntax when it is not as heavily constrained by the demands of meter and rhyme.

This course is open to both veterans and newcomers to SPACE’s small, but growing Middle High German program.

The Dominican Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361) counts as one of the most important representatives of Medieval German mysticism—so important, in fact, that some scholars consider him a predecessor to Martin Luther. That might be an oversimplification, but he stands among the giants of Middle High German literature and continues a literary tradition established by Mechthild von Regensburg and Meister Eckhart. His homilies, which begin with a Bible reading following the liturgical calendar, boast a powerful imagery. His calls to moral reform and self-reflection challenge the reader both spiritually and linguistically. With Dr. Schendel’s guidance, you can overcome your resignatio ad grammaticam and be better equipped to appreciate Tauler’s invocation of the resignatio ad infernum.

As Tauler’s repertoire is huge, and we believe in Roman Jakobson’s definition of philology as “the art of reading slowly,” every iteration of this module focuses on a different selection of homilies, which the preceptor and the class choose together based on interest and language levels.

This course is open to all veterans of SPACE’s growing Middle High German program. At least one module of previous MHG is highly recommended.

Old Saxon, the continental cousin to Old English, was the language spoken in Northern Germany from the ninth to the twelfth century. It is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Anglo-Saxon, so Old English students will easily be able to read and understand it. The language boasts a number of smaller texts, but the Hêliand, an epic poem of nearly 6,000 lines, remains its most prestigious literary monument. It tells the story of Jesus Christ (the “Hêliand,” meaning “Savior”) reimagined as a Saxon lord with a retinue of twelve thanes, and it is comparable to the Old English Beowulf. In this module, we will read and discuss selections of this poem. Some familiarity with Old English is required.