HISTORY 733 / Self and Society in the Early Middle Ages

3 unit(s)

B. Kaczynski

The seminar will explore some key aspects of the complex and problematic transition from late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Topics will include the movement from paganism to Christianity, the practice of asceticism, shifting notions of the body and its place in society, changing definitions of gender, the social constructions of sanctity and sinfulness. The class will consider current debates about these issues and will give particular attention to what one historian describes as the “strategies involved in the recovery of a distant age.”