All courses numbered 500 and above are graduate courses.
Undergraduates need to submit a course permit to enroll.
HIST 520 The Mediterranean in History
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
For more than a century, ‘The Mediterranean’ has not only been the subject of intense and creative historical inquiry, it is the arena in which scholars from several disciplines have tested out ways to write about the past beyond the confines of political boundaries. In this course, we explore both the history of the Mediterranean, and the history of writing about the Mediterranean. We will read a variety of debates in Mediterranean history written over the past century, and covering the topics across the period from Antiquity to the Early Modern era. We will explore several intersecting problems in this historiography: what kinds of topics, methodologies, and questions can successfully be brought to the Mediterranean in particular, or history defined by a sea in general? How do debates in one period or discipline of Mediterranean history help illuminate or re-fresh narratives in other areas? This course is designed to familiarize students working in a variety of Mediterranean fields with an overview of the historiographic landscape. As this is primarily a reading course, assignments will include a book review, an annotated area bibliography, and a final bibliographic essay.
