Where are the Middle Ages?

Goals for this week (September 29, 2020)

By the end of this week, what should students know, be able to do and understand?

• understand the fluidity to the geographic component of historical analysis

• learn how to access resources through the library

Overview:

This week we will move from examing the Middle Ages as a temporal phenomenon (a historical period) to exploring its geographic definition. By understanding how medievalists are redefining the geographic extent of the "Medieval World", we will be able to nuance our idea of the Middle Ages.

• we will try to understand why academics write the way they do (and why it is important for scholars to sometimes be obstuse)

• we will read about the historiography of the "Global Middle Ages"

• we will seek to understand how the modern concept of the "National State" impacts how we view the past (including the Middle Ages)

• we will seek to understand how new research on economic, social, religious and cultural exchange binds together a much wider geographic area than is traditionally considered "Medieval"

• Presentation from Susan Tudin, History subject specialist at MacOdrum Library

Online Time

From 11h30 until 13h00, the professor will speak about the traditional geographic definition of the "Medieval World" and how this has changed in the last decades. Students will be asked to consider their own inherited ideas about the Middle Ages to see where they place borders (and why?).

From 13h15 until 14h00, Susan Tudin, the History subject specialist, will lead a presentation on doing research in the library (well, through the library, since it's all online these days...)

From 14h00 until 14h30, I'll answer questions (historical or otherwise) that you/we might have about the class.

Read/Watch/Listen

Students will need to read and annotate:

• An article entitled, "Where are the Middle Ages" on a scholarly blog, the Public Medievalist, a copy of which is located on Perusall.

• (optional) The article contains images taken from the "Catalan Atlas" which has been digitized and put online. Consult it here if you want to see more images and more details.

• In week 4, we will annotate an article together written by Holmes & Standen entitled, "Introduction. Towards a Global Middle Ages". The content is relevent for this week, so you might want to read it earlier than later. Annotations on this article are not due until October 11, however.

Practice

• explore how to use library resources with Susan Tudin (History librarian) - in class.

• sign up for hypothesis, join our group and get the plugin installed on your browser. Vanessa will be providing feedback on your cuPortfolio profiles by providing "comments" in cuPortfolio and leaving annotations to identify typos, syntax etc. with hypothesis.

Discuss

What questions should students be discussing with each other on Perusall this week?

• when reading and annotating the texts for this week, think about when and where you think the Middle Ages are located. Do the categories the academics use fit with how YOU see the time period?

Do

• just everything else, I think...

Assess

This week you will receive feedback on the Profiles you created on cuPortfolio last week.

Going Further

If students want to prepare more they can sign up for zotero. For joining the Medieval Europe Group Zotero group, you need to get approval which can take a few days.

Next week we will try to start using Polls Everywhere (fingers crossed!) so please sign up for an account if you haven't yet.