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Medieval Studies is an interdisciplinary program that explores the many cultures of the European and Middle Eastern Middle Ages from the viewpoints of history, literature, religious studies, drama, art, and music.
Undergraduate Program
Students build individual programs drawing on several different subject fields. In addition, cross-listed courses in the Medieval Studies Program put students in touch with medievalists both at UCSB and in the larger scholarly community. Each year one upper-division course from a participating department that fulfills the requirements of the medieval studies major is cross-listed as Medieval Studies 100 (A-Z). The instructor from that course invites faculty from other UCSB departments to guest teach classes. The students in the Medieval Studies 100 (A-Z) are also invited to attend the medieval Colloquium Series.
Graduate Program
The program offers a Ph.D. emphasis in European Medieval Studies, which all Ph.D. and M.A. candidates in the humanities are eligible to pursue. The emphasis has been developed primarily for Ph.D. candidates whose dissertations focus on medieval studies, but in keeping with our interdisciplinary interests, we also welcome graduate students specializing in Early Modern Studies, Classics, and other related fields.
To earn a Graduate Certificate in Medieval Studies the candidate must (1) be admitted into one of the participating departments by the Graduate Division, and (2) receive a passing grade in each of the following:
Students may petition to substitute appropriate courses from other institutions for these requirements.
Colloquia
Each year, the program sponsors a series of mini-conferences open to all UCSB undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. The colloquium series puts interdisciplinarity in motion by bringing together distinguished medievalists and modernists, anthropologists and literary theorists, film scholars and art historians. The series explores the role of medievalism in the contemporary world and the nature of the questions our contemporary world asks about the past. The colloquia include lectures by visiting medievalists, responses from UCSB faculty in other fields, panel and audience discussion and many opportunities for more informal conversation.
Graduate Student Conference
Medieval Studies hosts a graduate student conference in the spring, which features a distinguished plenary speaker and a series of interdisciplinary panels.
Related Organizations
The Medieval Studies Program works in close cooperation with the UCSB Comparative Literature Program, the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the Early Modern Center, the UCSB Transcriptions Project, the Public Humanities Initiative of the English Department, the Medieval Academy of America, the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center at UCLA, the International Congress on Medieval Studies, and the Renaissance Society of America.
Medieval Studies Advisory Committee
© 2006 Edward D. English