In addition to the interdisciplinary and archival courses offered by our institute, a full schedule of medieval courses is offered in other participating academic departments. Approximately 65 medieval courses are offered here each year, not including the many courses in language instruction and independent research that student medievalists frequently take. Many students participate in medieval studies courses without enrolling in our formal degree programs. Courses that can count toward the medieval studies minor or certificate may not be listed below, reach out to mest@iu.edu with questions.
Courses
Fall 2025 Courses
Introduction to Old English: Reading Literary Landscapes (Medieval Languages)
ENG-G 601 with Joey McMullen
This course is a basic introduction to Old English organized around theme of reading early English landscapes and seascapes. Much attention will be given to the teaching of Old English grammar in the first third of the course. We will begin translating by the second week (starting with basic prose texts but progressing to some of the most important Old English poems). By the end of the semester, students will have translated excerpts from The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, The Phoenix, Beowulf, The Seafarer, The Wanderer, The Ruin, and The Wife¿s Lament, among other works. While our main goal is to learn Old English, we will also be concerned with how the landscape is represented in the texts we are translating. Landscapes, which often become important cultural "places," are an irreducible aspect of human existence and experience, and can teach us a great deal about how medieval peoples connected with the natural world. (4 credits)
Introduction to Medieval Latin/Readings in Medieval Latin
CLAS-L 409/ CLAS-L 532 with Bridget Balint
Survey of the secular and religious literature of the Middle Ages; discussion of the later development of the Latin language; selections from such authors as Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, Paul the Deacon, Matthew Paris, and Bernard of Cluny. (3 credits)
Literary Magic: Speculation, Science, and Medieval Writing (Readings in Medieval Literature and Culture)
ENG-L 610/ ENG-L 769 with Patricia Ingham
This course will examine the powerful intimacies between literary accounts of medieval magic and the response to innovations in science and technology. Our work will include resisting some of the common assumptions about “advanced technology,” as well as those about the Middle Ages as a period of "pseudo science." We will survey the ways that medieval authors understood innovation to be an explicitly ethical problem, and why they turned to romance and fable to sort out some of those vicissitudes. We will assess how and when representations of things technical and scientific in writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Guillaume de Machaut, Marie de France, or Roger Bacon (or in the work of illustrators and artists) point to problems of creativity, ingenuity, or originality; or, alternatively, to the problems of determinism, fatedness, and fraud. This means that, as we go, we will keep an eye on both the status of newness in late-medieval literature and culture, and (accordingly) the stories that historians of literature or of science tend to tell about the Middle Ages on these topics. (4 credits)
Old Icelandic
GER-G 635 with Christopher Sapp
Descriptive grammar. Survey of literature and extensive reading of prose and poetry. History of Scandinavian in comparison with other Germanic Languages.
Readings: Medieval Philosophy Sources
PHIL-P 596 with Adam Leite
Substantive philosophical topics investigated directly from Latin or Hebrew texts. Reading knowledge of medieval Latin or Hebrew required. (1-4 credits)
Readings in Chinese Literature
EALC-C 521 with Manling Luo
This course explores the various forms of Tang narrative literature. By surveying the extant Tang stories, we will carefully examine established critical assumptions about this body of diverse materials and consider new grounds of interpretation. Special attention will be paid to the issues of orality and writing, text and textual variation, bibliographic classification and genre formation, the relationship between prose narrative and poetry, popular storytelling and elite storytelling, and storytelling and the development of medieval literati culture. (3 credits).
Studies in Christian History
REL-R 531 with Jeremy Schott
Study of primary and secondary sources in select eras of western Christina history, such as the medieval, renaissance, reformation and early modern periods. (3 credits)
The Crusades in Music, Medieval to Modern (Topics in Music Literature)
MUS-M 510 with Jennifer Saltzstein
Aspects of music history, literature, and context related to specific repertories, genres, styles, analysis of characteristic works, performance practices/traditions, historiography, or criticism. May be repeated for different topics. (3 credits)
The College of Arts