Medieval Studies Graduate Courses

The wide variety of research interests among the faculty participating in the Center for Medieval Studies results in an array of courses available to graduate students in the program. Find out more about current course offerings below as well as upcoming and past courses from the links on the left.
 
Notice: The Languages and Cultures Department administers Foreign Language Proficiency Assessments for enrolled, degree-seeking graduate students who have a foreign language proficiency requirement as part of their degree program. The assessments are offered as an alternative to coursework (5090 and 5001-5002 reading courses) for those students who have reading proficiency in a language but may not have a documented means of showing it.
 
Assessments are offered in French, German, Italian, and Spanish (they may also be offered in Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Russian, depending on availability). Assessments are offered twice each semester and once in the summer. Please contact Ms. Maria Totino at [email protected] or 718-817-2651 for further information.

Fall 2025 | Upcoming Courses | Past Courses

MVST 5077 R01 (4) Editing Medieval Texts | Reilly
F 11:30 - 2:15 | 
This is a course in the theory and practice of editing, especially as it relates to medieval texts, with most of the examples coming from Middle English. We'll give attention to documentary, historical, and aesthetic approaches, and we will spend some time exploring digital methods and concerns. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

THEO 6192 R00 (3) The Greco-Roman Context of Christianity | McGowan
R 9:00 - 11:30 | CRN 51544 
This course creates a context for understanding the encounter of early Christianity with Greco-Roman culture by exploring Hellenistic and Roman history, politics, religion, social relations, economics, education, rhetoric, philosophy, literature, and the theatre.

HIST 7110 R01 (4) Proseminar: Medieval Political Cultures | Paul
T 2:30 - 5:00 | CRN 51538 
This course, the first part of a two-semester proseminar/seminar sequence, will introduce students to recent debates and different approaches to cultures of power and political processes in Western Europe in the central Middle Ages. Among the many topics we might consider are lordship, status and authority, political assembly and consultation, courtliness and persuasion, rulership and sanctity, and the rise of accountability. Students will become familiar with a wide range of source material, from diplomatic and documentary collections to historical narratives and courtly literature. With this solid foundation in the current historiography and available research tools, students will be expected to identify a suitable topic for a sustained research project. Completing this project will be the objective of the seminar course to be offered in the Spring. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

HIST 5203 R01 (4) Medieval Hagiography| Bruce
F 2:30 - 5:00 | CRN 51537 
This research seminar introduces students to the challenges and pitfalls of using saints' lives and other hagiographical writings (miracula, furta sacra, etc.) as sources for medieval history. It aims to familiarize students with competing historical approaches to these genres and to provide a practical guide to the scholarly resources necessary to exploit them as historical sources. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

PHIL 5012 R01 (3) Introduction to St. Augustine | Pini
R 1:00 - 3:00 | CRN 48104 
This seminar provides a systematic survey of the main themes of St. Augustine's philosophy and theology. Topics will include faith and reason, divine ideas, time, eternity, and creations, the theology of the Holy Trinity, the nature of the soul, the freedom of the will and divine predestination, good and evil, original sin and divine grace, and the human history as the history of salvation. The unifying theme of the discussion will be a synthetic account of St. Augustine's Neoplatonic Christian anthropology, occasionally contrasted with St. Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelian Christian anthropology. The discussion will be organized around student presentations and two term papers on topics other than one's presentation topics. 

PHIL 6114 R01 (3) Neo-platonism in the Middle Ages | Cullen
M 1:00 - 3:00 | CRN 48104 
This seminar provides a systematic survey of the main themes of St. Augustine's philosophy and theology. Topics will include faith and reason, divine ideas, time, eternity, and creations, the theology of the Holy Trinity, the nature of the soul, the freedom of the will and divine predestination, good and evil, original sin and divine grace, and the human history as the history of salvation. The unifying theme of the discussion will be a synthetic account of St. Augustine's Neoplatonic Christian anthropology, occasionally contrasted with St. Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelian Christian anthropology. The discussion will be organized around student presentations and two term papers on topics other than one's presentation topics.

ENGL 6235 R01 (3) Embodies Research in Medieval Drama | Albin
T 11:30 - 2:00 | CRN 52098

What did it feel like to hammer nails into Jesus’s hands or to intone judgements at doomsday or to dance with the deadly sins on an open-air stage in the late Middle Ages? How far can we go in reconstructing, practicing, and sharing medieval performance styles today? What kind of knowledge might the evidence of our own bodies afford us in support of our study of the medieval past? In this course, we will tug at this knot of questions through careful reading, writing, discussion, and experimentation across an uncommon collection of sources, including medieval English playtexts and documents; scholarship on medieval drama and its reenactment; theoretical texts in performance studies, theater-making, and embodied technique; and the witness of our own embodied and reflective experience. Relevant research areas include medieval drama, history of the body, history of experience, history of spirituality, critical temporality studies, non-discursive epistemology, affect studies. Primary source readings will include much of the corpus of surviving Middle English drama supplemented by the Records of Early English Drama project; further readings include Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, Augusto Boal, Rob Boddice, Jerzy Grotowski, Andre Lepecki, Lauren Mancia, Mary Overlie, Rebecca Schneider, Matthew Sergi, Mark Smith, Ben Spatz, and others. Course assignments will center close reading, scholarly research, and academic writing, with options for digital humanities and performance-driven research, undertaken independently or collaboratively. Students may also opt into a parallel laboratory in Mary Overlie’s Six Viewpoints and/or a public performance of medieval drama at the Cloisters Museum in spring 2026. While helpful, no prior knowledge of Middle English or Latin is expected or required.