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