Degree Requirements

The minor consists of five semester courses and a language requirement.

  • One Core Course: Courses emphasizing breadth over depth, and encompas at least two centuries and multiple distinct societies (realms, political entities, etc.)
  • To promote an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, three courses, each from a different area of study, must be chosen from the MERS core or elective course listings.
    • Two semesters of MUS 80 (a or b), Early Music Ensemble, may fulfill one elective course.
    • Study abroad or transfer courses can count for one of the five minor courses. It must be in the period of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For distribution, it must be clearly based in the particular discipline. Credit will be granted at the discretion of the Program Chair, in consultation with faculty from the relevant department.
    • One course from an honors thesis in a period based in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, advised by a MERS faculty, or an independent study with a MERS faculty (MERS 98a,b) may count for one of the electives
  • One additional elective.
  • Students in the program must complete the university language requirement in one of the following: French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, Russian, Arabic, or Hebrew.
  • No grade below a C will be given credit toward the minor.
  • No course taken pass/fail may count toward the major requirements.

For complete information, see Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program in the University Bulletin.

Spotlight on Faculty Research

Professor Ramie Targoff with student

Professor and noted scholar of English Renaissance poetry Ramie Targoff has long been fascinated by the relationship between religion and literature.  Her book “Posthumous Love: Eros and the Afterlife in Renaissance England” looks at how notions of love became bound by mortality, and the effect that change in thinking has had on centuries of poetry.

Read the profile in Brandeis Magazine