The Global Middle Ages: An Introduction

This course offers a broad examination of the material remains of medieval culture through three interpretive lenses: visual culture, material culture, and globalism. It introduces medieval society through a close analysis of objects as they circulated within transregional and global networks. We will explore recent scholarship on globalism across over a thousand years, from roughly 450 to 1500 CE. While much of this work has focused on economic and political history, we will ask what art history and material culture studies can contribute to our understanding of premodern global connections. Rather than seeking a single point of origin, the course will engage a series of object-based case studies from across the Eurasian world to explore how artifacts and materials illuminate the entangled histories of premodern global exchange. The seminar will examine how a “world system” emerged before European dominance, fostering interconnected commercial and cultural networks that enabled long-distance exchange. Finally, we will consider the methods, paradigms, and sources that shape approaches to “globalism” and reflect on what these medieval histories might reveal about globalization today. 3 credits. Satisfies the chronological or geo-cultural requirement.