The Natural Environment in Global Medieval Art

Catalog description

Throughout the medieval period, people engaged with nature in ways that shaped their sense of self, space, religion, art and more. This course will explore global medieval art through the phenomenon of ecology. In so doing, we will study not only art objects produced by and of the natural environment, but also the interaction of living beings with and within that environment produced by those objects. We will explore varied conceptions of nature, landscapes, rocks, gardens, trees, flowers, and (non-human) animals. In so doing, we will work to understand the shifting networks and boundaries of nature and the natural, memory and origins, and humans, animals, and posthumanist thinking.