Who were the Vikings, at home or abroad? How did their raiding and settlement change the history of the British Isles and western Europe? This course will study the political, cultural, and economic impact that Norse expansion and raiding had on early medieval Europe. It will also look at the changes in Scandinavia that inspired and resulted from this expansion. Sources will include contemporary texts, sagas and epic poetry, material culture, and archaeological excavations.

A seminar on magic speech, defined as performative language that does not so much describe reality as change it. Our subjects will range from spells and enchantments to blessings, curses, prayers and oaths. We will focus on medieval literature, philosophy, and theology; at the same time, we will discuss some contemporary perspectives on magic and speech acts in literary theory, philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology. Attention will be paid to the Arabic, Scholastic, and vernacular traditions of medieval Europe.

How does the poem Beowulf work? Who made up Beowulf, and what makes it up? We'll reply to these queries, examining the poem through its immediate manuscript context, its poetics, its performance values, its cultural and historical millieux. Topics emphasized will include the poem's analogues and afterlives, its place in race-making, its crafting of poetic space, and its troubled relationship to both deep time and our times. Tune up your harp, sharpen your wits, and get set to voice a startling and crucial poem.

Is there a historical basis for the fierce ladies of 'Game of Thrones'? Why do modern depictions of medieval queens portray them as wickedly ambitious? In a variety of texts about the villainy and sanctity, eloquence and wit, humility and power of women--both real and imagined--this course will explore the long history of negative reactions to leading women, the multiple strategies by means of which such figures have asserted various kinds of authority, as well as what they have suffered in consequence. By unraveling the complex gender and power dynamics of the past we will also develop a better understanding of such issues in the present.

A general introduction to the history of the political cultures in China and Japan, with some heed to comparisons with developments in Korea.

The course will focus on the formation of the Christian West from Ireland to the Eastern Mediterranean until ca. 1000 CE. We will start with the insignificance of the Fall of Rome in 476 CE, to move on to much more fundamental changes in the Ancient and medieval world: the Christian revolution in the 4th century, the barbarian successor states in the fifth, their transformation into Christian kingdoms, or the emergence of new nations and states whose names are still on the map today and which all came to be held together by a shared culture defined by the Rise of Western Christendom in the first Millennium.

The Crusades were a central phenomenon of the Middle Ages. This course examines the origins and development of the Crusades and the Crusader States in the Islamic East. It explores dramatic events, such as the great Siege of Jerusalem, and introduces vivid personalities, including Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. We will consider aspects of institutional, economic, social and cultural history and compare medieval Christian (Western and Byzantine), Muslim and Jewish perceptions of the crusading movement. Finally, we will critically examine the resonance the movement continues to have in current political and ideological debates

Intensive study of the "Inferno", with major attention paid to poetic elements such as structure, allegory, narrative technique, and relation to earlier literature, principally the Latin classics. Course conducted in English in a highly-interactive format.

Moving from Baghdad to Paris, Jerusalem to Addis Ababa, Iceland to Dunhuang, this course examines the musical cultures of some of the most vibrant centers of the Middle Ages. We consider what it means to study medieval music "globally," focusing on key moments of cultural contact (trade, pilgrimage, conflict), while remaining attuned to the particularities of specific places. Emphasis is on the physical traces of premodern music, and we encounter the distant musical past in a variety of materials and formats (paper manuscripts, papyrus fragments, parchment rolls, stone steles), meeting weekly in Special Collections.

The course offers a hands-on introduction to such basic genres of medieval scholarship as biography, history, tradition, and Koranic exegesis, taught through the intensive reading of texts, mostly in Arabic. The syllabus varies according to the interests of the students and the instructor.