Course Offerings

The University of New Mexico offers undergraduate and graduate courses focused on the medieval period in History, English, Art History, the Honors College, Anthropology, Music, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and more! Like the Institute itself, the courses offered range by theme, geography, and time period, and are often taught through an interdisciplinary lens. To enroll, search for the courses listed below within My UNM and the registration portal.

Course Offerings for Spring 2025:

History Department

History 304-001: High and Late Middle Ages [undergraduate]

History 504-001: High and Late Middle Ages [graduate]

Dr. Michael Ryan, Face-to-face, TTH 9:30-10:45, CRN 79361

In this class, we will reevaluate the traditional narrative that depicts the High Middle Ages (ca. 1000-1300 C.E.) as a “golden” era of medieval civilization, whereas the Later Middle Ages and early modern era (ca. 1300-1550 C.E.) represent the death or waning of that civilization. The reality is far more complex. We will question that narrative and invert it by studying the events that took place during the High Middle Ages that tarnished this “golden” era. We will analyze the crises of the Later Middle Ages and early modern eras and contextualize them within a larger atmosphere of political, cultural, and social change. By encountering the many manifestations of what constitutes the European high and late Middle Ages, students will come away with a more nuanced understanding of the history of that period.

History 326-001: History of Christianity to 1517 [undergraduate]

History 500-003: History of Christianity to 1517 [graduate]

Dr. Timothy Graham, Face-to-face, TTh 11:00-12:15, CRN 79393

This course will survey the history of the Christian religion from its origins in first-century Palestine up until the eve of the Reformation. These fifteen centuries witnessed momentous growth, development, and change, as Christianity progressed from being the creed of a dedicated few followers to the official religion of the Roman empire to the way of life around which the whole of medieval society was structured. The course will offer the opportunity to study the major developments and also focus on the lives and writings of specific individuals. Key topics covered will include: the growth of the early Church; the writings of the Church Fathers; the origins of monasticism; the conversion of northern countries; the struggles between the Papacy and the Empire; the Crusades; the rise of the friars; and the background of the Reformation. Individuals whose lives and written works we will study will include St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Benedict, the Venerable Bede, Peter Abelard, Hildegard of Bingen, and St. Francis. We will also consider the ways in which Christianity expressed itself through art, particularly in the form of illuminated manuscripts. There will be in-class quizzes, two papers, and a final examination.

History 395-002: Genders and Borders in Premodern Europe

Jess Cochran, Face-to-face, TTh 14:00-14:50, CRN 80945

Medieval Europe was a vibrant and diverse space where issues of gender, race, language, culture, politics, and society interacted across multiple modes of communication. The borders of medieval Europe were not simply geographic boundaries but took a variety of forms: some were cultural, some legal, and still others spiritual. This course introduces students to these different types of border spaces, questioning the very notion of a border and how this term applies to premodern European contexts. The course also considers the importance of gender and agency. We will discuss how gender allowed people to cross various borders, and how medieval figures (both real and fictional) defied gender norms. The course draws on primary sources including saint’s lives, inscribed objects, maps, saga literature, and medical texts. Towards the end of term, we will discuss sources that show how the Middle Ages helped to develop later ideas of border spaces and gender roles. Primary sources and secondary scholarship will help us better understand the medieval mindset and the borders that shaped premodern mentalities across genders. This course encourages students to think critically about gender in sources that demonstrate the various borders medieval people faced and invites conversation on the roles that these borders played in premodern life.

History 668: Graduate Seminar: Bede and the Northumbrian Renaissance

Dr. Timothy Graham, Face-to-face, M 16:00-18:30, CRN 52478

The Venerable Bede (673-735) is a towering figure in medieval historiography, hagiography, exegesis, and computistics. His massive achievements are the more impressive in that he lived and worked in a part of England that had only recently converted to Christianity and developed a literate population. In this seminar we will first immerse ourselves in the historical context of the Northumbrian Renaissance, a cultural movement that witnessed the production of such extraordinary artifacts as the Franks Casket, the Ruthwell Cross, the Codex Amiatinus, and the Lindisfarne Gospels, not to mention such landmark literary productions as Cædmon’s Hymn. We will study the specific environment within which Bede worked: the monastic complex of Wearmouth-Jarrow, founded in the late seventh century by Benedict Biscop. Bede has himself left a detailed record of the early history of the twin monasteries in his Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, a work that is supplemented by the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith, Bede’s first abbot at Jarrow. We will then focus especially on the detailed study and analysis of Bede’s most famous work, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, before moving on to consider his key hagiographical, exegetical, and computistical writings, including (but not limited to) his Life of St. Cuthbert, his On the Temple, and his The Reckoning of Time. During the semester we will read several of Bede’s major works in translation and will also familiarize ourselves in depth with the rich scholarly literature that has grown up around this most important author and teacher who is justly reckoned the greatest historian of the early Middle Ages.

English Department

English 2120-003: Intermediate Composition: Brewing Her Rebellion: Witchcraft from 500 to 1600

Asa Holcombe, Face-to-face, MWF 13:00-13:50

From the early Middle Ages to the early modern the understanding of magic developed from a force of nature to a conceptualization of the demonic which lends itself to the persecution of minority groups, many of which were labeled as witches. This course explores the literary history and rhetoric used to persecute people labeled as a witch and the rhetoric of those who resisted the witch hunters. Students will explore folklore, brewing, alchemy, hagiography, esoteric philosophy and the impact of religiosity on perceptions of the world and how those perceptions shaped narratives of persecution and resistance.

English 2630-001: British Literature I

Dr. Lisa Myers, Face-to-face, MWF 12:00-12:50

This course is a survey of literary works produced in Britain from the early Middle Ages to the close of the 18^th century. Readings include the epic Beowulf, the romance Sir Orfeo, medieval and Renaissance drama, the poetry of John Donne, Eliza Haywood’s novel Fantomina and the memoir of Olaudah Equiano. The goal of the course is both to gain an understanding of the development of literary forms and traditions as well as to put texts into conversation with each other in order to gain a sense of both the history and the variety of human experience.

English 2650-001: World Literature I: Community Building and Restorative Justice

Dr. Nahir Otaño Gracia, MWF 13:00-13:50, Face-to-face

In this course, students will read representative world masterpieces from ancient, medieval, and renaissance literature. Students will broaden their understanding of literature and their knowledge of other cultures through exploration of how literature represents individuals, ideas and customs of world cultures. The course focuses strongly on examining the ways literature and culture intersect and define each other. Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area V: Humanities and Fine Arts.

A general overview of early world literature and culture with a focus on the themes of hate and restorative justice. Readings will include all or parts of such works as the Epic of Gilgamesh; selections from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and Qur’an; a play by Euripides; poetry by Sappho, Li Bai, Ono no Komachi, and Farid ud-dun Attar, among others. Our ambitious goal is to investigate texts from China, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Japan, Persia, Arabia, India, and the Americas by exploring how we can read texts through a restorative justice model. Through this mode of study, we will gain a sense of the differences and similarities that shape the varieties of human experience across time and cultures. We will also explore how the globalization of colonization affects our understanding of early world literature and how to decenter a Western gaze in the study of the past.

English 305-001: Mythology

Dr. Nicholas Schwartz, MWF 13:00-13:50, Face-to-face

There are no more important texts for understanding the world of the past and of today than cultures’ earliest: myths. The texts covered in this course—some thousands and others hundreds of years old—provide a lens through which one can glimpse the development of ideas, cultural mores, and traditions which continue to exert great influence in the Western world today. While these stories are often remembered and retold because they include accounts of perseverance, the miraculous, superhuman accomplishment, love, devotion, success, justice, and other fodder for inspiration, many of those same texts betray darker motifs like heteropatriarchal dominance, cultural chauvinism, misogyny, intolerance, and the victimization of the young, the powerless, the poor, and the other, amongst other themes. This course invites students to grapple with this duality present in so much of mythology. It encourages critical examination of these texts that have been so fundamental, for better and for worse, to the development of what has traditionally been called “Western Civilization.” No previous knowledge of mythology is required, and all are welcome to sign up for this course.

English 347-001: Viking Mythology

Dr. Nicholas Schwartz, TTH 9:30-10:45, Face-to-face

This course is designed to comprehensively introduce students to Viking Mythology. It will cover Norse ideas about the creation of the world, the end of the world, and pretty much everything in between. Students should expect to read about Odin, Thor, Loki, and a host of other characters not so well-known today in addition to accounts of important events like the conversion to Christianity. Texts include, but are not limited to, The Elder/Poetic Edda, Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, and The Saga of the Volsungs. Moreover, students will learn about the culture(s) that produced these wonderful stories and their literary conventions. This course will foster a valuable familiarity with this important mythological tradition and expose students to a variety of methods of reading them. Assignments include a midterm, final, written assignments, and discussion board posts.

English 348-001: Radical Women: Medieval and Now

Dr. Nahir Otaño Gracia, MWF 11:00-11:50, Face-to-face

This course explores the connections between gender and literary expression with a focus on medieval women writers from late antiquity to the fifteenth century. We will examine the social, cultural, and literary patterns linking the lives of medieval women writers with their works. Medieval women writers tend to express different attitudes and concerns than those associated with medieval European literature and culture, nevertheless, their attitudes and concerns parallel ideologies expressed by modern women writers. Some of these themes are: art and freedom, importance of community building, and body politics. We will discuss the ways these themes have changed from medieval times to the present and the ways in which women continue to face similar struggles. The course aims to introduce medieval women writers by juxtaposing their medieval texts with modern texts written by women of color that express paralleled themes in a more contemporary setting. The medieval women writers include Hildegard of Bingen and Marie de France, Christine of Markyate and the modern writers include Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent), Leslie Malmon Silko, and Ana Castillo. Ana Castillo in particular uses the stories of medieval women writers and rewrites them for a contemporary US Latin(e)x audience.

English 450-001: Middle English Heroes, Saints, and Lovers

Dr. Anita Obermeier, TTh 14:00-15:50, Face-to-face

In this class, we will return to the earliest recorded form of English and read some of the oldest literature ever written in the language. This semester will cover Old English poetry, including canonical short works, neglected gems, and selections from Beowulf. All readings will be done in the original Old English, and the course will focus on mastering Old English grammar and style while also learning the historical contexts of the readings. Prerequisite: basic knowledge of Old English.

Art History Department

Art History 322-001: Medieval Art 1000-1400 C.E.: Reliquaries and Cathedrals

Dr. Justine Andrews, Face-to-face, CRN 79095

Survey of the visual cultures (architecture, luxury objects, book illumination and illustration) of the Medieval World, including northern and Mediterranean Europe and the Islamic World, from 1000 to 1200 CE.

Art History 432-001: Islamic Art and Architecture [undergraduate]

Art History 532-001: Islamic Art and Architecture [graduate]

Dr. Justine Andrews, MW 13:00-14:15, Face-to-face, CRN 79121

An introduction to the visual culture of the Islamic world from its foundations in the seventh century on the Arabian Peninsula to its flowering under Ottoman and Mughal rule in the seventeenth century.

Music Department

Colleen Sheinberg, Medieval and Renaissance, Early Music Ensembles, Music History

For information about medieval music, email Colleen Sheinberg! Click here for her contact information!

Religious Studies Department

Religion 1110: Introduction to World Religions

Various Faculty, Virual and Face-to-face

To see specific times, dates, and professors, click here for more information!

Religion 2110-001: Eastern Religions

Dr. Katherine Ulrich, TTh 9:30-10:45, Face-to-face

Religion 2110-003: Eastern Religions

Dr. Vibha Shetiya, Virtual

Eastern Religions is a thematic introduction to the religious life of peoples of Asia (mainly in India, Southeast Asia, China, Tibet, and Japan, with cameo appearances by Korea, Nepal, Mongolia, and/or Siberia). We examine the deities, practices, discourses, religious 3 specialists, and subdivisions of the adherents of Asia’s major indigenous religious traditions while examining two broad themes. The first is death: we consider practices and beliefs involving bodies, (no) soul(s), and various options for the afterlife (or immortality, in the case of Daoism). The second broad theme for the course is that of pilgrimage, the environment, and sacred space. How do religious beliefs and practices shape people’s understandings of, movement to and through, and interactions with the environment around them? The religious traditions covered are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Shinto, Shamanism, and the folk, popular, or new religions of India, China, and Japan

Religion 2120-001: Western Religions

Dr. Hilary Lipka, Virtual

This is a survey course that will cover major religious traditions of the West, including the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and other religious systems. The course will focus on how each tradition has developed historically and how it exists in the world today. Meets New Mexico General Education Curriculum Area 5: Humanities.

Course Offerings