Medieval and Renaissance Studies


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Medieval and Renaissance Studies

The goal of Hamilton's Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program is to give students opportunities to explore these crucial periods in our development from a variety of perspectives by focusing on their similarities, their differences and their implications for what has followed.

Overview

When and how did the modern world emerge? It is a question that has attracted generations of thinkers as they seek to illuminate the past and, with it, the present. The conventional answer has been to mark an imaginary line through the 14th century. On the far side lies the "darkness" of the Middle Ages. On the near side lies the "light" of the Renaissance — empirical science, the printing press, the growth of cities and trade, and the revival of classical models of thought, art and architecture. Scholars now challenge that view, however. They point out that the past is far too complex to fit such a simple pattern. And that has led them to explore the very ways in which history is told and recorded. More ...

Academic Program

Research Opportunities

Research is at the center of the Hamilton liberal arts philosophy — a way of encouraging each student to integrate classroom learning with a larger individual vision and intellectual journey. Student projects are carried out with the close supervision of faculty members, and often with their collaboration. Many students have the opportunity to do graduate-level research and co-author scholarly papers for publication in scholarly journals or presentation at professional conferences.


The Senior Program

The Senior Program serves as an integrating and culminating experience for Medieval and Renaissance Studies by requiring students to use the methodology and knowledge gained in their first three years of study. Each student works closely with at least one faculty member during the course of the program.


RESOURCES

The College's Burke Library offers a strong collection of texts and periodicals on many aspects of the medieval and Renaissance epochs. The library also houses a rare copy of The Nuremburg Chronicle, one of the monumental works of early European book publishing. Printed in 1493 in Germany and illustrated with 1,600 woodcuts, this remarkable precursor of the encyclopedia depicts a medieval world on the threshold of the Renaissance. It is joined in the Burke collection by several other important early German volumes as well as the Beinecke Lesser Antilles Collection, regarded as the world’s finest collection of 16th- to 19th- century materials on this region of the West Indies.