Medieval France at the End of the World

3 units

Students of the European Middle Ages are used to thinking of France and French language as having been central to medieval history and culture. Yet France was also, in many ways, peripheral: situated at the far end of global trade networks and near the edge of the era's world maps. In this seminar we will explore ways that medieval French and Francophone people understood their situation in the wider world, and particularly, the tensions between center and periphery that manifest in these representations. In tandem with our study of medieval French perspectives on France's place in the world, we will engage with recent scholarship in global history and literature to flesh out our understanding of medieval African and Asian economic and cultural networks to which Northwestern Europe was peripheral. This course satisfies the seminar requirement for the major in French. All texts available in modern French; no prior study of medieval language or literature is necessary.