HIST 6560 - [Topics in Medieval Historiography]

Fall. 4 credits.

Next offered 2015-2016. Permission of instructor required. Co-meets with HIST 4560.

O. Falk.

This seminar explores issues of historical theory and methodology, emphasizing their specific iterations in medieval European history. Historians of the Middle Ages must wrestle with all of the challenges familiar to our modern counterparts, and then some: documents are more scarce, languages more dead, categories more elusive than in recent historical context. We will examine medieval historians’ contributions to broad debates in the discipline, sample historiographical chestnuts that have occupied medievalists, and enquire into ways of expanding our conceptual tool kits further in the future.