Provisional University Bulletin (2025-2026)

• Minor

The Medieval and Renaissance studies program provides students with a broad introduction to the development of Western civilization from the end of antiquity to the seventeenth century. It is founded on the principle that an interdisciplinary perspective is the most profitable way to gain an understanding of the formation of early modern Europe and the Mediterranean. In order to develop a multifaceted picture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, all students select one of several broad core courses in history and other fields. Students then are encouraged to explore a variety of disciplinary perspectives through their choice of designated courses in History, Literature, Music, Art and Philosophy. Since each student tailors the choice of electives to their interests, this program offers a useful complement to concentrations in the contributing departments, can create a focused Humanities minor to balance a stem major, and serves as a good foundation for graduate study in a variety of fields.

The Medieval and Renaissance Studies minor provides students with a broad introduction to the emergence and formation of Western civilization, including development from and engagement with Islamic civilization in the Mediterranean, from the end of antiquity to the 17th century. The program is founded on the principle that an interdisciplinary perspective is the most profitable way to gain an understanding of the formation of Europe.

Knowledge

1. Students will gain broad knowledge of the history of Western civilization in the Medieval and/or Renaissance periods.
2. Students will develop a multifaceted picture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by exploring a variety of disciplinary perspectives including national and transnational literatures, fine arts, philosophy, religious studies, and specialized history courses.
3. Students will gain proficiency in at least one of the languages of the Medieval and Renaissance periods (including French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, Russian, Arabic or Hebrew).
4. Student training may include the interaction between the Christian and Islamic worlds as well as the significance of religious minorities in the Medieval and Renaissance periods.

Core Skills

Students in Medieval and Renaissance Studies acquire core skills that can be used in graduate study in a number of disciplines or in a variety of professions. Critical thinking, writing, using library resources, and research methods are emphasized in almost every class. Students will be able to frame questions, investigate problems, and evaluate conclusions using one or more academic disciplines or approaches (e.g., literary and artistic criticism, historical analysis, philology, and religious studies). Students will implement interdisciplinary methods by completing one of several capstone courses or an independent research project such as a senior thesis.

After Graduation

The program maintains that knowledge of the past as well as shifting representations of the past in the present are key components of a liberal arts education that allow one to reflect upon the contemporary world in a sophisticated manner. The knowledge and skills the minor provides will lay the foundation for a fuller, more productive, and engaged life after college. Exposure to the diversity of religious, ethnic and cultural aspects of the Medieval and Renaissance periods will contribute to greater understanding in the service of a more peaceful and just society.

The most important requirement for taking part in the program is an interest in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Students may enter the program at any time in their undergraduate careers, but an early start maximizes a student's range of choice, because a number of courses are offered at different intervals. Students should consult with their adviser and the chair of the program to map out their particular plan of study.

Jonathan Unglaub, Chair
(Fine Arts)

Jonathan Decter
(Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)

Karen Desmond
(Music)

William Flesch 
(English)

William Kapelle
(History)

Dorothy Kim
(English)

Charles McClendon
(Fine Arts)

Sarah Mead
(Music)

Michael Randall
(Romance Studies)

Govind Sreenivasan
(History)

Ramie Targoff
(English)

Cheryl Walker
(Classical Studies)

Affiliated Faculty (contributing occasional courses to the curriculum)
Suleyman Dost (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Carl Sharif El-Tobgui (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
ChaeRan Yoo Freeze (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Arthur Holmberg (Theater Arts)
Thomas King (English)
Marya Lowry (Theater Arts)
James Mandrell (Romance Studies)
Laura Quinney (English)
Paola Servino (Italian Studies)
Eugene Sheppard (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Amy Singer (History)

The minor consists of five semester courses and a language requirement to promote an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Middle Ages and  the Renaissance:

A. Three electives from the MERS offerings, each from a different area of study.

B. Two additional MERS electives.

C. 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.

D. Two semesters of MUS 80 (a or b), Early Music Ensemble, may count as one of the five courses required.

E. Study abroad or transfer courses can count for one of the five minor courses. They must be in the period of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For distribution, they 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.

F. 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.

G. No grade below a C will be given credit toward the minor.

H. No course taken pass/fail may count toward the minor requirements.

MERS 98a Independent Study

Usually offered every year.

MERS 98b Independent Study

Yields half-course credit. Usually offered every year.

CLAS 156b Living and Dying in Roman and Byzantine Egypt
[ djw hum wi ]

Examines the lived experiences of the Roman and Byzantine inhabitants of Egypt from the Nile valley to the desert oases. Topics include bioarchaeology, childhood, education, religious life, papyrology, important archaeological discoveries/collections, colonial archaeology, mortuary arts, and the journey from childhood to death in antiquity. Class will visit area museums to also examine the artifactual evidence of Roman and Byzantine Egypt. Usually offered every second year.

CLAS/NEJ 106b Visions of Byzantium
[ hum ]

Focuses on the medieval Roman Empire during what is known as the “Middle Byzantine” period from roughly the ninth century until the conquest of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The course is designed to establish a visual and textual history of the medieval Roman Empire during its height through the analysis of three categories of evidence: documentary sources (papyri, inscriptions); historical narratives (Michael Psellos, Anna Komnena, Michael Attaleiates); and visual culture (excavated material; museum collections). The course also explores the world of historiography surrounding the study of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. Usually offered every second year.

ECS 100b European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Making of European Modernity, 1250 to 1650
[ hum ]

Investigates how the paradigm of what we know as modernity came into being. We will look at the works of writers and philosophers such as Descartes, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Petrarch, Ficino, Rabelais, and Montaigne. Artwork from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance will be used to understand better what "the modern" means. Usually offered every spring semester.

ENG 32b Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and Medieval Dream Visions
[ hum ]

May not be taken for credit by students who took ENG 132b in prior years.

Before there was Romeo and Juliet, there was Troilus and Criseyde. Before Shakespeare’s cultural behemoth defined what it meant to be star-crossed lovers, the story of Troilus and Criseyde was the dominant and popular narrative of doomed love. So, what happened? Did Shakespeare’s treatment of it kill the story? Why has it dropped out of the canon? This class will evaluate Chaucer’s other major poem Troilus and Criseyde and contextualize it by examining its sources, philosophical underpinnings, and its impact on literary production in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Usually offered every second year.

ENG 33a Shakespeare
[ hum ]

May be repeated once for credit.

A survey of Shakespeare as a dramatist. From nine to twelve plays will be read, representing all periods of Shakespeare's dramatic career. Usually offered every year.

ENG 43b Medieval Play: Drama, LARP, and Video Games
[ djw hum oc ]

Works with a selection of medieval mystery plays, medieval-themed video games and participatory live-action role play to explore: play structures and design; alternative-world creation by way of immersion; the significance of gender, race, disability, and sexuality in performance. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 50a Love Poetry from Sappho to Neruda
[ hum oc ]

This course explores the relationship between love and poetry. Starts with the ancient Greek poet Sappho and proceeds through the centuries, reading lyrics by Catullus, Ovid, Propertius, Petrarch, Dante, Shakespeare, Donne, Rossetti, and others. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 73a Witchcraft and Magic in the Renaissance: From Scotland to Salem
[ hum oc ]

Focuses on the representation of witches, wizards, devils, and magicians in texts by Shakespeare, Marlow, and others. Historical accounts of witchcraft trials in England and Scotland are read and several films dramatizing these trials are viewed. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 103b Medieval Women in Print
[ dl hum wi ]

We will be thinking about reading women, writing women, and the production of female bodies through images, sound, and script. We will be reading about teenage runaways, real and fictional queens, Muslim princesses, business women, warrior women, and transgender women. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 108a Literature and Heresy
[ hum ]

A study of major texts of British literature through the lens of religious heresy. Does literature provide a refuge for heresy? Or is there something about literature that encourages heretical thinking? These questions are considered in light of dissident works by Milton, Blake, Shelley, James Hogg, and others. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 123a Violence and the Body in Early Modern Drama
[ dl hum ]

May not be taken for credit by students who took ENG 23a in prior years.

Explores early modern understandings of the body, with particular attention to gender, sexuality, race, and nation. Considers the role of violence in determining who counts as fully human, who can be reduced to a body, and whose bodies can be severed from citizenship, recognition, and value. Explores as well the claims of the body and voice to memorialization and belonging, and the evidence of actors' bodies on the stage. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 133a Advanced Shakespeare
[ hum wi ]

Recommended prerequisite: ENG 33a or equivalent.

An intensive analysis of a single play or a small number of Shakespeare's plays. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 143b Chaucer's "Global and Refugee Canterbury Tales"
[ deis-us djw dl hum ]

Focuses on situating Chaucer, and particularly the Canterbury Tales, as a global
work. We will examine black feminist writers, playwrights, and poets of the African diaspora who have revised, adapted, extrapolated, and voiced the Canterbury Tales in Jamaican patois, Nigerian pidgin, and the S. London dialects of Brixton. Usually offered every second year.

ENG 144a Medieval Travel Writing
[ djw dl hum ]

Examining medieval travel literature from the Old English period to the early accounts of sixteenth-century explorers in the New World, this class will consider how the area of medieval travel writing exposes how race is framed in relation to gender, disability, multifaith encounters, critical animal studies, and thick mapping. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 152b Arthurian Literature
[ dl hum ]

A survey of (mostly) medieval treatments of the legendary material associated with King Arthur and his court, in several genres: bardic poetry, history, romance, prose narrative. Usually offered every second year.

ENG 173a Spenser and Milton
[ hum ]

A course on poetic authority: the poetry of authority and the authority of poetry. Spenser and Milton will be treated individually, but the era they bound will be examined in terms of the tensions within and between their works. Usually offered every third year.

ENG 183b Gods and Humans in the Renaissance
[ ca hum ]

Examines the relationship between gods and humans in literature and art from the Renaissance, exploring how classical gods and goddesses, as well as biblical figures of the divine, are represented by major European artists and authors. Usually offered every fourth year.

ENG/WLIT 149a Hell: The Poetry
[ hum ]

Studies the Classical underworld and its reworking in English verse. Topics include the descent to the underworld, the ambiguous Satan, the myths of Orpheus and Penelope, and the psychological Hells of the modernists. Usually offered every second year.

FA 30a History of Western Art I: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages
[ ca ]

Open to all students; first-year students and sophomores are encouraged to enroll.

Surveys the artistic and architectural traditions of the peoples of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from prehistory to the end of the Middle Ages with an emphasis on their cultural context, meaning and stylistic characteristics. Usually offered every year.

FA 33b Islamic Art and Architecture
[ ca djw nw ]

Through case studies of cities, sites, and monuments, the course presents an overview of the art and the architecture of the Islamic world beginning from the seventh century up to the present. Some of the themes include, but are not limited to, Islamic material culture, orientalist imaginations, systems of governance and the colonial present, search for the local identity, urban modernity and nationalism, and globalization. Usually offered every second year.

FA 42b The Age of Cathedrals
[ ca ]

Architecture, sculpture, and painting (including stained glass) in Western Europe from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, with particular attention to the great churches of medieval France. Usually offered every fourth year.

FA 45a Early Renaissance Art in Tuscany from the Age of Dante to the Medici
[ ca ]

Course to be taught at Brandeis program in Siena.

Examines the development of late Medieval and Renaissance Art and Architecture between 1200 and 1500, with an emphasis on the centers of Siena and Florence, and artists who worked in these cities. Usually offered every year.

FA 46b High and Late Renaissance in Italy
[ ca ]

Examines the major works of art produced in Italy in the sixteenth century. It focuses on the principal centers of Florence, Rome, and Venice. The foremost artists of the age, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian, receive in-depth coverage. The course also considers the social institutions, ecclesiastical, courtly and civic, that furnished the patronage opportunities and promoted the ideas that occasioned, even demanded, new artistic forms of grace and harmony, energy and torsion. Usually offered second year.

FA 47b Renaissance Art in Northern Europe
[ ca ]

A survey of the art of the Netherlands, Germany, and France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Cultural developments such as the invention of printing, the Protestant Reformation, and the practices of alchemy and witchcraft will be considered through the work of major artists. Usually offered every third year.

FA 48a Baroque Art and Architecture in Italy
[ ca ]

This course counts towards minors in Architectural Studies, Italian Studies, and Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Immerse yourself in the spectacle of Papal Rome during the long seventeenth-century (1580-1730) when it was the artistic capital of Europe. We will study Caravaggio and Bernini in depth as the prevailing artistic forces, while considering the major contributions of the Carracci, Borromini, Poussin, Gentileschi, and Cortona. Apart from the patronage strategies of successive Popes and how they reshaped Rome with grand churches, palaces, and urban spaces, we will consider architectural and artistic production in such diverse centers as Venice, Naples, Bologna, and Turin. Usually offered every third year.

FA 149a The Age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer
[ ca wi ]

Explores the major figures of seventeenth-century painting in the Netherlands and Flanders: Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. During this time, the ideal of Renaissance painter/courtier gives way to the birth of the modern artist in an open market, revolutionizing the subjects, themes, and styles of painting. Usually offered every second year.

FA 191b Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art
[ ca oc wi ]

Preference to Fine Arts majors and minors, Italian Studies minors, and Medieval and Renaissance minors only. Topics may vary from year to year; the course may be repeated for credit as topics change.

Usually offered every third year.

FREN 142b City and the Book
[ fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: FREN 105a or FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Analyzes the symbolic appearance of the city in French literature and film from the Middle Ages to the present day. The representation of the city in literature and film is contextualized in theoretical writings of urbanists and philosophers. Literary texts include medieval fabliaux, Pantagruel (Rabelais) and Nana (Zola) as well as theoretical texts by Descartes, Ledoux, Le Corbusier, Salvador Dalí, and Paul Virillo. Usually offered every second year.

HIST 103a Roman History to 455 CE
[ hum ss ]

Survey of Roman history from the early republic through the decline of the empire. Covers the political history of the Roman state and the major social, economic, and religious changes of the period. Usually offered every year.

HIST 110a The Civilization of the Early Middle Ages
[ ss ]

Survey of medieval history from the fall of Rome to the year 1000. Topics include the barbarian invasions, the Byzantine Empire, the Dark Ages, the Carolingian Empire, feudalism, manorialism, and the Vikings. Usually offered every second year.

HIST 110b The Civilization of the High and Late Middle Ages
[ ss ]

Survey of European history from 1000 to 1450. Topics include the Crusades, the birth of towns, the creation of kingdoms, the papacy, the peasantry, the universities, the Black Death, and the Hundred Years' War. Usually offered every second year.

HIST 112b The Crusades and the Expansion of Medieval Europe
[ ss ]

Survey of the relationships between medieval Europe and neighboring cultures, beginning with the decline of Byzantium. Topics include a detailed look at the Crusades, the Spanish reconquista, the Crusader kingdoms, economic growth, and the foundations of imperialism. Usually offered every third year.

HIST 113a English Medieval History
[ ss ]

Survey of English history from the Anglo-Saxon invasions to the fifteenth century. Topics include the heroic age, the Viking invasions, and development of the English kingdom from the Norman conquest through the Hundred Years' War. Usually offered every third year.

HIST 120a Britain in the Later Middle Ages
[ ss ]

Exploration of the critical changes in government and society in the British Isles from the late fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Topics include the Black Death, the lordship of Ireland, the Hundred Years' War, the Scottish War of Independence, economic change, the Tudors, and the Reformation. Usually offered every third year.

HIST 121a Breaking the Rules: Deviance and Nonconformity in Premodern Europe
[ djw ss wi ]

Explores the ways in which "deviant" behavior was defined and punished by some, but also justified and even celebrated by others in premodern Europe. Topics include vagrancy, popular uprisings, witchcraft, religious heresy, and the status of women. Usually offered every second year.

HIST 123a The Renaissance
[ ss ]

Culture, society, and economy in the Italian city-state (with particular attention to Florence) from feudalism to the rise of the modern state. Usually offered every second year.

HIST 123b Reformation Europe (1400-1600)
[ ss wi ]

Survey of Protestant and Catholic efforts to reform religion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Topics include scholastic theology, popular piety and anticlericalism, Luther's break with Rome, the rise of Calvinism, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, the Catholic resurgence, and the impact of reform efforts on the lives of common people. Usually offered every third year.

HIST 126a Early Modern Europe (1500-1700)
[ oc ss ]

Survey of politics, ideas, and society in Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Focuses on the changing relationship between the emerging modern state and its subjects. Topics include the development of ideologies of resistance and conformity, regional loyalties and the problems of empire, changing technologies of war and repression, and the social foundations of order and disorder. Usually offered every third year.

HIST 134b The Ottoman Empire: From Principality to Republic by way of Empire
[ ss ]

Starting around the year 1300, the Ottomans grew from a tiny principality into a global Islamic empire by 1550, and in 1923 transformed into the modern Republic of Turkey. Ottoman history is the history of southeastern Europe, Anatolia, the Middle East, and most of North Africa. This course explores the arc of this 600-year history as it considers what enabled the Ottomans to emerge and flourish, as well as the processes that eventually tore the empire apart. By the end of the course, students will appreciate Ottoman legacies to politics, economics, culture, art, language, and food that are local, regional and global, with a direct influence on over two dozen modern nations. Usually offered every second year.

ITAL 110a Introduction to Italian Literature: Love, Intrigues, and Politics from Dante to Goldoni
[ fl hum oc ]

Prerequisite: ITAL 105a or 106a or permission of the instructor.

Surveys the masterpieces of Italian literature from Dante to Goldoni's stage. Students will explore different themes such as love, conflict, and politics in Italian early masterpieces by analyzing and comparing genres, historical periods, and schools of thought. Since Oral communication skills are the core of methodology and pedagogy for Italian 110, students will work on primary texts through dynamic and guided discussions, interpretive textual analysis, and different styles of presentations. Usually offered every second year.

ITAL 134b Voci e storie della cultura ebraica italiana
[ fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: ITAL 105a or 106a or permission of the instructor. Conducted in Italian. Materials fee: $20.

Analyzes Italian Jewish representations in Italian culture from medieval times to the founding of the ghetto in Venice in 1516 and leading Jewish figures of the Renaissance. Works of modern Italian Jewish writers and historians are examined as well as Italian movies that address Jewish themes within mainstream of Italian culture. This course has an interdisciplinary approach while focusing on advanced Italian language skills. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 104b Islam: Civilization and Institutions
[ hum nw ]

Provides a disciplined study of Islamic civilization from its origins to the modern period. Approaches the study from a humanities perspective. Topics covered will include the Qur'an, tradition, law, theology, politics, Islam and other religions, modern developments, and women in Islam. Usually offered every year.

NEJS 121a Cloistered Life: Masculinity, Monasticism, and Material Religion
[ djw dl hum ]

Surveys the literature and artifacts related to the early monastic movement in the Eastern Mediterranean world, where monasticism began, and concludes with examinations in the Medieval Roman (Byzantine) and European world. In translation, students read Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Coptic literature of popular Christian authors to investigate how men constructed ideals of masculinity within a religious landscape. We will use gender and materiality theorists to develop reading strategies to understand gender expectations, sexuality, and how monks lived together in their cloistered communities. Students will build a Virtual Reality monastery by building rooms of monks over time based on the texts and artifacts studied in class as part of developing skills in digital literacy. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 140b Gender, Ghettos, and the Geographies of Early Modern Jews
[ hum ]

Examines Jewish history and culture in early modern Europe: mass conversions on the Iberian peninsula, migrations, reconversions back to Judaism, the printing revolution, the Reformation and Counter Reformation, ghettos, gender, family, everyday life, material culture, communal structure, rabbinical culture, mysticism, magic, science, messianic movements, Hasidism, mercantilism, and early modern challenges to Judaism.

NEJS 144a Jews in the World of Islam
[ hum nw ]

Examines social and cultural history of Jewish communities in the Islamic world. Special emphasis is placed on the pre-modern Jewish communities. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 149a The Jews of Muslim and Christian Spain
[ hum ]

A survey of Jewish political, intellectual, and social history in the Islamic and Christian spheres from the beginnings of Jewish life in Spain until the expulsion in 1492. Students develop skills in reading historical, literary, and philosophical texts. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 194b Sufism: Mystical Traditions in Classical and Modern Islam
[ hum nw ]

An examination of the teaching and practices of the Sufi tradition. Explores the foundations of Sufism, its relation to other aspects of Islam, the development of Sufi teachings in both poetry and prose, and the manner in which Sufism is practiced in lands as diverse as Egypt, Turkey, Iran, India, Malaysia, and Europe. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 195b Early Islamic History from Muhammad to the Mongols
[ hum nw ]

Introduces Islamic history from the birth of Islam in the 7th century to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. Students will examine trends in political, social, and intellectual history, focusing on three main periods; Islamic Origins, The High Caliphate, and Fragmentation/Efflorescence. Readings will include primary sources in translation, as well as academic analyses from traditional, critical, and revisionist perspectives. Usually offered every second year.

NEJS 198a Islam and the West
[ hum ]

Explores various aspects of the interaction between “Islam” and “the West,” both historically and in contemporary times. Approximately half the course will examine the period from the rise of Islam in the 7th century until the age of Western colonialism in the 19th century, while the second half will concentrate on the modern and contemporary periods. Usually offered every third year.

THA 11a European Theater Texts and Theory I
[ ca ]

The evolution of Western drama from its ritual origins through the mid-eighteenth century. Greek tragedy, Roman comedy, medieval drama, Italian humanism, Spanish Golden Age comedias, and French neoclassicism. Attention paid to theater history, dramatic theory, and performance. Usually offered every year.

THA 102b Shakespeare: On Stage and Screen
[ ca ]

Shakespeare wrote his plays to be seen and heard, not read. This course approaches Shakespeare as a man of the theater who thought visually as well as verbally. Explores Shakespeare's scripts in their original theatrical context, subsequent production history, and migration to film. Usually offered every second year.

THA 133b Acting the Classics
[ ca ]

Explores specific approaches to rehearsing and performing in the heightened world of classical texts, including William Shakespeare. The course is designed to release the actor's creative energies by stimulating an appetite for size, power and extravagant physical/vocal communication, to deepen the actor's analytical skills and free the actor for greater intellectual and emotional engagement. You will develop a respect for and understanding of form while gaining ease and joy in the fully realized expression of heightened language texts. Usually offered every second year.

WLIT 123a Perfect Love?
[ hum ]

The conflict between "perfect' and carnal love has inspired artistic works from the Middle Ages through the present. This course studies how perfect love runs afoul of more human desires in works by authors, composers, and film makers like Chrétien de Troye, Marguerite de Navarre, Hawthorne, Monteverdi, di Sica, and Wong Karwai. Usually offered every second year.