HIST107 CM - Reading Ancient and Medieval Historians

Works surviving from the great historians of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean populate the imagination with impressions of distant worlds. But to what extent do these impressions depend on how authors chose to tailor past events to a contemporary political and social background? To what extent did the “great histories” interact with competing versions of the past? This course will address these and other questions by unpacking the famous Greek, Roman, and early-medieval historians and by considering how contemporary contexts shaped the writing of the past. This course offers a comparative cultural and literary approach to reading Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Procopius, Gregory of Tours, and Bede. Continuities and differences in the historical portrayal of such themes as politics, violence, gender, and religion will receive particular attention.

Offered: Occasionally

Credit: 1

Course Number: HIST107 CM