FORMS OF UNFREEDOM IN MEDIEVAL IBERIA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

Credit Hours: 3 · Graduate

Graduate reading seminar focuses on the forms of unfreedom in the Middle Ages, 500-1500 CE, with a focus on Islamic and Christian Mediterranean, especially Iberia. Topics will include transition from slavery to serfdom, persistence of domestic slavery, religion as the ideological basis of slavery, sexual exploitation of enslaved women, piracy and human trafficking, and the similarities/differences between the medieval and modern forms of unfreedom.