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About the Minor

In this interdisciplinary program, students delve into the complex histories and cultures of medieval and early modern worlds from a variety of perspectives, taking courses in art, literature, languages, history, and music from Byzantium to Shakespeare’s England. Working closely with faculty in small classes, students find one-on-one encouragement, personal direction, and research opportunities. 

A Sampling of Courses

The Nuremberg Chronicle, one of 700 surviving copies of the 1493 world history

Visual Culture of the Medieval World

This course surveys the art and architecture of Europe during the Middle Ages from ca. 500-1400. We will focus on key artworks and monuments made and built in Europe from the Visigoths and Vikings to the Valois court, as well as examine cross-cultural interactions across religious and political boundaries in medieval Africa, the Arctic, and the Mediterranean. Students will develop an awareness of the production, function, and social context of medieval visual culture through the close study of architecture, manuscript, metalwork, mosaic, painting, sculpture, and textile. Despite our historical distance from the Middle Ages, we will also consider how medieval imagery remains relevant to our current visual world.  

Explore these select courses:

Solo vocal and choral music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras from Gregorian chant to Bach. Topics include text expression through music, historical approaches to vocal compositional styles and performance practices (a cappella and accompanied), and responses to early music by later composers (Lauridsen, Whitacre, Respighi, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Orff, Pärt). Some consideration of the use of early music in film and television (Lord of the Rings, Dangerous Liaisons, Shakespeare in Love, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Game of Thrones).

This course serves as an introduction to the field of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Drawing on multiple disciplinary perspectives, including those of literature, law, history, and art, we will examine the intersection of ideas about the body, gender, and violence in the European Middle Ages. Readings may include the Bible and early patristic writings; the lives of saints; poems and advice manuals on courtly love; depictions of women in the Crusades; Icelandic sagas; and perspectives on the trial of Joan of Arc.

Beginning in the Age of Encounters and ending with the Enlightenment, the course traces how the Scientific Revolution fundamentally changed the way we think about nature through key figures, including da Vinci, Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and Linnaeus. In addition to basic concepts and terminology in the history of science, students will read and analyze primary sources; think critically about how historians write history; evaluate the role of institutions and social customs in the creation of knowledge; and articulate historical arguments orally and in writing.

"Amor condusse noi ad una morte" (“Love led us to one death”). As Dante portrayed in the Inferno, the experience love is inseparable from death. Our journey begins with Dante’s memory of Beatrice retold and reimagined in The New Life—a work inspired as much by love as by death. When Dante reunites with Beatrice in The Divine Comedy, his understanding of love also evolved. How did this shift prompt him to twist the stories of great lovers as a near-death encounter? We will explore an array of literary variations on the theme of love and death from the Middle Ages to the contemporary world. In addition to investigating the rich literary tradition, we will also turn to works in music and the visual arts. 

What is the relationship between aesthetics, material culture, and religious experience? In this course we explore this question by examining the aesthetic traditions of Islam, focusing on how Muslims have used literature, visual art, musical performance, and architecture as modes of religious expression and creativity. Through studying aesthetics and devotion in the Islamic tradition, we will reflect on questions of cultural appropriation and reuse, politics of representation, and the global circulation of objects, peoples, and capital.

Meet Our Faculty

Stephanie Bahr

Associate Professor of Literature, Director of Medieval and Renaissance Studies

sbahr@hamilton.edu

Abhishek Amar

Director, Associate Professor of Asian Studies

aamar@hamilton.edu

archaeological history of South Asian religions, especially Buddhist and Hindu traditions; research in themes of inter-religious dynamics, syncretism and religious transformation; colonialism and reconfigurations of sacred centers; and religion and water management in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions

Mackenzie Cooley

Associate Professor of History, Director of Latin American and Latine Studies

mcooley@hamilton.edu

history of science; early modern world; Colonial Latin America; environmental history; intellectual history; digital humanities; history of gender and sexuality; animal studies; genetics and history

John Eldevik

Professor of History, Director of German Studies

jeldevik@hamilton.edu

social and economic history of the early Middle Ages; history of law and mechanisms of conflict resolution; the perceptions of non-Christian peoples and lands in medieval manuscript culture

Lydia Hamessley

John and Anne Fischer Professor in Fine Arts

lhamessl@hamilton.edu

Dolly Parton; American folk and traditional musics; banjo, music and film; medieval and renaissance music; music and gender

Katherine Terrell

Associate Chair, Professor of Literature

kterrell@hamilton.edu

Old English, Middle English, and Middle Scots language and literature

Margaret Thickstun

Jane D. and Ellis E. Bradford ’45 Distinguished Writing Chair

mthickst@hamilton.edu

literature in 17th-century England and Colonial America, particularly by women and by people writing on religious subjects

Laura Tillery

Assistant Professor of Art History

ltillery@hamilton.edu

Medieval and early modern art; Scandinavian studies; German studies; economics and trade; religious iconography; object-based learning; history and methods of art history

Careers After Hamilton

Hamilton graduates who concentrated in Medieval and Renaissance studies are pursuing careers in a variety of fields, including:

  • Assistant Professor of English, Wittenberg University
  • Arts Editor, Bennington Banner

Explore Hamilton Stories

medieval map

Meshing Digital Arts and Medieval Maps

Fueled by a dual passion for production value and the Middle Ages, Ryan Mayhan ’22 created a project that successfully meshes his academic interests. It’s a video, aimed at a general audience, about how cartographers created ideological maps of the medieval mind.

John Greenlee ’00

Because Hamiltonians Feel for Eels: John Greenlee ’00

Medievalist and cartographic historian John Greenlee ’00 was working on a project involving 17th-century London when he noticed something odd. On several maps, there were two ships anchored in the Thames. These ships had been marked as civic landmarks and labeled “Eel Ships.” Interest piqued, he began researching the history behind these vessels and the history of eels in England in general.

Dew Drops of Wisdom

Teaching Tools

These days, Hamilton students and faculty delve deeply into the Lang Special Collections and Archives, and thanks to Michael Lang ’67, access to the trove is greater than ever.

Contact

Department Name

Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program

Contact Name

Margie Thickstun, Program Director

Office Location
198 College Hill Road
Clinton, NY 13323

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