2020-21 Academic Catalog

The Mediterranean was a dynamic hub of cultural exchange in the Middle Ages. We will draw on Jewish, Muslim, and Latin Christian sources to explore this contact from 1050-1492 and the role of the sea itself in joining and separating the peoples who surrounded it. What did it mean to be a Muslim pilgrim in Christian-held Palestine? A Jewish vizier serving a Muslim ruler in Spain? A Christian courtier courting martyrdom in North Africa? We will explore lives led between coexistence and violence, intellectual and legal structures that helped to negotiate differences, and the textures of daily life.