- 450 Level: Advanced (ADV)
- English
Grade: 12
Fall
PREREQ: Teacher recommendation advised
This course introduces students to art and literature from and about the Middle Ages. The semester’s work begins with medieval literature (in translation!), asking students to identify and articulate literary tropes in stories about King Arthur and Camelot. From there, students will consider the medievalist fantasies of nineteenth-century literary and visual arts. Finally, the course will cover 20th and 21st century reimaginings of the Middle Ages, especially considering gender, race, and magic in literature, video games, plays, and movies. Secondary sources including The Black Middle Ages, The Public Medievalist, and Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past will provide historical overviews and theoretical lenses on our work. Students will have one test at the beginning of the year and a final exam; between these two, they will submit short papers through which they develop formal analyses, comparative frameworks, and research methods according to collegiate standards. Students will be evaluated on how critically they articulate the ways myths about the past have shaped our present, and how they might be used to imagine a better future for us all.
- Grade 12