History 201-206 seminars are open to history majors only during pre-registration. If the course does not reach its enrollment maximum, it will be open to all students beginning with drop/add on a first-come first-serve basis.
HIST 201 Crusading, 1095 - 2007
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
R | SEM | PRE-1800
In the first part of this seminar, students will study the Crusades of the 11th to 14th centuries using original sources in translation. The second part of the course will extend from the renaissance to the present, using the crusades as a kind of trace element to gauge later European and non-European cultures. We will read examples of crusade fantasy (Tasso, Jerusalem Liberated), Reformation polemics on the crusades, enlightenment criticism (Hume, Voltaire, Gibbon, and others), the 19th-century appropriation of crusade history for France, the emergence of academic study of the crusades, the crusades in imperial-colonial propaganda, the crusades in changing Arab/Turkish views of history, and in children's literature, operas, theater, novels (Walter Scott), and movies.
Course Syllabus (PDF)
