Getting Medieval:

Tolerance, Persecution & Religious Violence

Burning


Course Description

This course explores literary and philosophical exchanges, alongside religious violence and persecution, amongst Jews, Christians, and Muslims in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

 

Attention to methodological questions concerning the study of violence and religious identity will help address the challenges of applying modern notions of multiculturalism / fundamentalism to pre-modern religious expressions.

 

Through an exploration into the historical interplay between Abrahamic traditions in the contexts of Europe and the Mediterranean basin, we will cover such topics as: cultural and literary exchanges; translation movements; theology and philosophy; martyrdom and pilgrimage; Holy war; the Inquisition and formations of orthodoxy / heterodoxy; and religious persecution and intolerance.


 


2009 Syllabus