GLOBAL MEDIEVAL

Catalog description

Investigates how the “medieval period”, spanning the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century CE) and the Fall of Constantinople (1453) and generally cast as European, was a complex millennium of global travel, commerce, and cultural exchange, far more heterogeneous than contemporary television, movies, and medievalising fantasy literature usually depicts. Identifies how the literature, travelogues, and life narratives written in Europe, Africa, and Asia reflect political, religious, philosophical, and artistic interpenetration. Examines how these texts help us redefine the medieval and illuminate modern discourses of the nation-state, debates about race and ethnicity, and the concerns of post- and decoloniality.