The Long Fall of the Roman Empire

Catalog description

The collapse of the Roman Empire was the crucible in which the cultures of the medieval West, Byzantium, and Islam were forged. This class examines the tensions and transformations within Mediterranean society between 250 and 1100 CE and how these tribulations gave birth to new identities, boundaries, economies, and religious beliefs. We will explore too the points of contact between the emerging Latin, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds and how people living in the late ancient and early medieval Mediterranean sought to devise solutions to the challenges that confronted them as their worlds collapsed, expanded, and changed. Class meetings will interweave narrative and thematic lectures with student analysis of primary sources in translation. Topics include early Christianity, the body, gender, barbarian invasions and the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of Islam, Charlemagne, and the Vikings. P