Medieval Studies is a graduate program at the University of Texas that draws upon the strengths of distinguished faculty in fifteen academic units in the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Fine Arts.
Medievalist faculty offer a wide range of seminars in English and Comparative Literature, History, French and Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, Germanic Studies, Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, South Asian Studies, East Asian Studies, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Art and Art History, Classics, and Music. Additionally, faculty members in Law, Linguistics, Architecture, Government, and Theater and Dance strengthen our course offerings and thesis and dissertation direction.
Seminars range from foundational core courses that feature traditional methods and materials, to courses that introduce innovative, experimental, and theoretical work. In 2004, Medieval Studies at the University of Texas was the first graduate program nationally to integrate the teaching of an interconnected medieval world spanning Europe, Islamic civilizations, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, China, East Asia, and Eurasia through the collaborative efforts of a seven-faculty instructional team. A course description, with sample texts, of Global Interconnections: Imagining the World 500-1500 can be found at: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/progs/medievalstudies/symposium/
A brief report of this teaching experiment is on the website of the Medieval Academy of America. A more detailed description appeared in the ADFL Bulletin of the Modern Language Association of America.
Today, Medieval Studies at the University of Texas is one of the partners spearheading three multi-institutional collaborations of scholars, universities, centers, and institutes that aim to study, teach, and research an interconnected world from 500 to 1500 CE: the Global Middle Ages Project (GMAP), the Mappamundi online learning community, and the Scholarly Community for the Globalization of the Middle Ages (SCGMA).
In support of our research and teaching, the University of Texas libraries hold some eight million volumes, feature many special collections, and offer digital access through several online databases to articles, books, manuscripts, and visual images. The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center holds a significant collection of medieval manuscripts and visual images, including the Cardigan Chaucer, and substantial collections of early scholarly editions. A copy of the Gutenberg Bible is on permanent exhibition at the Ransom Center.
