History: Traveling the Medieval World

Topics examining historical themes and questions on a global scale. May repeat for credit with different content. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years.

Open to Degree and PACE students

This class is about global exploration in the thirteenth-seventeenth centuries- a time when most maps were not intended for navigational purposes and monsters were thought to lurk just offshore. Leaving home meant long, uncertain years on the road, but this class tells the stories of those who took the leap anyway- some by choice, others by fate. We’ll use a global scope to explore the history of human interconnection through pilgrimage, trade, conquest, religious conversion, and diplomacy. Although Christopher Columbus is often mythologized as the father of globalization with his Atlantic crossing in 1492, this course challenges that narrative by evoking the histories of much earlier peregrinations taken on by adventurers from Africa, China, India, Japan, and the Middle East, as well as Europe. The story ends with Columbian contact but examines the history from the perspective of Indigenous Americans who travelled to Europe for the first time. Assignments for this class include two short primary source analysis assignments, a take-home midterm exam, and a final essay that will allow students to synthesize the major themes of the course. Concentration: The Americas (HI05), Europe (HI02), Africa/Asia/Middle East/Global (HI04)