Spring 2005

HIS 397L • Geog of Imaginatn: Mdvl Worlds

Course Description

This graduate seminar looks at how the European, Islamic, and Asian worlds fits together in the Middle Ages in the eyes and understanding of those who traveled and imagined cities, geographies, peoples and routes. We'll consider how the world was expereinces in travel narratives, biographies of sojourners, romances, historical documents, maps, ethnographies and other literary, historical, and cultural materials. We'll also as how the imagination itself is mapped an how places that transcend the known world are conceptualized, spatialized, and articulate in known geography. We'll also consider how the imagination of the other is mapped.

Grading Policy

Active participation, 2 presentations, and a twenty-five page paper. Texts will be read in English, though the possession of other languages, medieval and modern, will be an advantage.

Texts

Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354 Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela al-Biruni, Alberuni's India. Ibn Jubayr, Travels of Ibn Jubayr. S.D. Goitein, Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Amitav Ghosh, In An Antique Land: History in the Guise of A Traveler's Tale Michael Wolfe, One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travellers Writing About The Muslim Pilgrimage

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