Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Instructor: Richard Wang

This course features an interdisciplinary survey of Chinese civilization and culture. It introduces China’s return to the status of world power, carefully investigates how this return is connected to China’s cultural past, and actively questions the notions of “China” and “culture” as they are defined by the modern fields of sinology and cultural studies. By investigating and comparing different regions and aspects of China’s past and present, from diverse disciplinary perspectives, and using both primary and secondary sources, students will develop and demonstrate knowledge of the diverse traditions, institutions, texts, and practices that have shaped “Chinese culture” over time.

Instructor: Florin Curta

Late Antiquity is a period in history that has attracted much attention recently. In part, that is because of an old, 19th-century preoccupation with demarcating the clear chronological boundaries between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. An older generation of historians used to believe that once the Western Roman Empire disappeared in 476, the medieval world began. By now, scholarly opinions have shifted towards the model of a “transformation of the Roman world,” gradually leading to a new type of society, with different values and rules. Since that transformation took a long time, from ca. 300 to ca. 600, a new name was chosen to describe that period-Late Antiquity to cover the history of the Old World “between Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad,” as Peter Brown put it half-a-century ago in the subtitle of his famous book (the title of which was the inspiration for the subtitle of this course). The course consists of a survey of all aspects of the transformation, from political developments in the Late Roman Empire to the economic and social changes, both inside and outside the empire that marked Late Antiquity. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role of religion, especially the rise of Christianity, and the fundamental innovations in art and architecture epitomized by the great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.

https://people.clas.ufl.edu/fcurta/late-antiquity/

Instructor: Florin Curta

The Middle Ages were a formative period in the history of France. Irrespective of whether people in the 10th or 11th centuries thought of their land(s) as France, France existed, as did the political obligations to the French king. There has been a recent scholarly effort to dismantle the idea that France existed as such at an early date. Some have dismissed the idea as the product of the 19th-century nationalism, others have focused on regions of France, in an attempt to show how different various parts of the future France were in relation to each other. However, France was clearly a political concept (at the very least) during the reign of Louis VII. Louis’s title nonetheless still made reference to the Franks, for he was a rex Francorum. Suger, who wrote a biography of the king’s father, called the country regnum Franciae, the kingdom of France. Territory, not ethnicity was what mattered in the 12th century. A clear distinction between the French and the other peoples of Europe came with the Second Crusade, in which there was an opportunity to meet Germans in large numbers, who, though still perceived as Franci, were not French. With Breton, Basque, and Flemish pushed to the peripheries, a sense of linguistic commonality (if not yet uniformity) is expressed in the literary explosion of the 12th century. To look back from that century means therefore to understand how the basic elements of Frankish history became French. To look forward for another century or so, is to see how France began to be built.

This course is designed as a chronological and topical introduction to the history of medieval France, from the abandonment of the Roman province of Gaul to the beginning of the Hundred Years War. Since this is a survey, it is impossible to cover everything. Instead, the course will offer a selection of representative topics from a much larger possible list. We will examine some of the key political, economic, and social developments that had historical significance, the growth of the Church and its relation to the State, and the growth of urban culture in medieval France. Anyone with enough curiosity and desire to learn is welcome.

https://people.clas.ufl.edu/fcurta/medieval-france/

Instructor: Christopher Smith

Surveys Japanese literature of the Early Modern period (also called the Edo period), 1600-1868. Introduces and analyzes historically significant, foundational works of Early Modern Japanese literature and theater. Explores the history of the period and the development of print technologies and new genres and introduces critical aesthetic and cultural concepts.

Instructor: Sarra Tlili

What would happen if humans were dragged into court by animals? This is precisely what the medieval fable The Case of the Animals versus Man in the Court of the King of the Jinn imagines. And what if dogs turned out to be better than humans? The Book of the Superiority of Dogs over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes makes exactly that claim. We’ll also explore animal themes in scriptural sources and read Ibrahim al-Koni’s modern novel The Bleeding of the Stone, where desert creatures confront human greed. From cosmic comedy to ecological parable, this course explores Arabic and Islamic texts where animals are never just background characters but key players in history and imagination. challenging human-centered assumptions and asking whether humans are truly the stars of the show in the cosmic theater.

Instructor: Richard Wang

Explores the intellectual and social life of traditional China through the 18th century epic novel, Story of the Stone. Also studies interpretive theories of the novel, both Chinese and Western. All readings are in English.

Prerequisite: CHI 3500 or CHT 3110, or instructor permission