About Us

What is Global Medieval Studies?

The term “Middle Ages” prompts the question “the middle of what?” European Enlightenment thinkers gave that name to the thousand-year range of ca. 500-1500 because they saw it as bridging the Classical and their own “modern” (to us, Early Modern) periods, starting with alleged “rebirth” (Renaissance) of Greco-Roman civilization. Current medieval studies have burst the bounds of Eurocentrism to involve all of Asia and much of Africa and to highlight interconnections from Ireland to Byzantium, Rome to Kyoto, Paris to Baghdad, Beijing to Cairo, and Delhi to Timbuktu.

The Global Medieval Studies Program at Georgetown University offers an interdisciplinary undergraduate major and minor in the College as well as minors in the School of Foreign Service and Business Schools. For more information on our academic programs, click here.

The Global Medieval Studies Program empowers students to be culturally literate global citizens through an interdisciplinary study of cultures removed in time and space. They develop strong skills in research, analysis, critical inquiry, rhetoric, and writing, elements shared by many other fields that make up our interdisciplinary range. Our program graduates have gone on to a variety of successful post-graduate experiences including law, medical, and graduate schools, as well as jobs in the corporate and data management worlds.

The program’s faculty and courses draw from more than fifteen different disciplines within the University. Our faculty offer courses in history, law, art history, archaeology, manuscript study, theology, and philosophy, as well as classical and vernacular languages and works of literature. Students can expect to acquire expertise in how varied methodologies interact and intersect, creating a genuine interdisciplinary experience. Our flexibility and range are strong incentives, as is the centrality of medieval institutions to our modern world and its core issues in religion, warfare, class, gender, education, labor, trade, and finance. This impressive interdisciplinary range and ready access to faculty make Global Medieval Studies a rich and rewarding experience for our community of students. Summer, semester, or year abroad study can greatly enrich one’s program.

Off-campus, Washington’s Dumbarton Oaks, Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Freer and Sackler Galleries offer a wealth of teaching, research, and internship opportunities. Further afield, students may wish to advantage of Baltimore’s Walters Art Gallery and library, and in New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, The Cloisters, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.