The Global Middle Ages: Visual and Cultural Encounters in the Medieval Mediterranean

Catalog description

Focusing on the Mediterranean, this course considers visual manifestations of exchange. Its goal is to examine the complexity of religious, political, and visual interactions in the Middle Ages, a period that brought together diverse religious communities, generating both social frictions and new cultural forms. Students will study the dynamic interplay among Christian, Jewish, and Islamic visual cultures as they developed and coalesced through commerce, gift exchange, the reinterpretation of pre-existing forms, and the reuse of objects and spaces.