Research Seminars
The course load is comprised mainly of research seminars: students discover in small groups led by a professor, various ideas relevant for medieval studies. They learn research methods; discover how to define a thesis statement; where to find information and sources; and how to organize their thoughts on a given topic.
The themes of the seminars change each year.
As an example, here are the seminar topics from 2014-2015:
- Monastic communities in the 12th century
- From the field to history: historians and archeologists at work
- History of Canon and Roman Law sources
- Medieval Cyprus, an island at the intersection of Byzantine and Latin cultures
- Perceptions of the Other, Muslims in the medieval West (11th-15th centuries)
- Poverty, marginality and exclusion in Alsace in the late medieval and early modern times
- The history of art in France and Germany: institutions, figures, approaches
- The chartreuse of Champmol in Dijon
- Gothic Alsace and the artistic French/German transfer in the Middle Ages
- Monumental architecture from the 14th to the 15th centuries in Alsace and in Swabia
- Introduction to medieval literature in Northern Europe
- Ways of the North. Storytelling, theories and practices of narration in Northern Europe since the Middle Ages
- Ways of the North. The origin of monsters
- Metamorphoses of the mythical bestiary in French literature and art
- Text editions: the variations
- Tristan by Gottfried von Strasbourg
- The heroines of medieval Germanic legends
- Monumental sculpture in the medieval West
- Extravagant sculpture and arts in Byzantium
- The dance of the dead, requiem for Europe
- Oswald von Wolkenstein between writing and rewriting
- Hell and its representations in medieval and modern times
- The animal in the Middle Ages. The restauration of creation: which role do animals play?
- Middle English Breton Lays
- Commentaries on the Bible in the Middle Ages
- The medieval university, its history and knowledge models
- The presence and approach of nature in literature