The Mediterranean Syllabi Index

The Mediterranean Syllabi Index is an open-access resource for instructors developing or teaching undergraduate and graduate courses relating to Mediterranean Studies topics in disciplines including History, Art History, Material Culture, Archaeology, Literature and Language, Music, Culture and the Social Sciences. from Antiquity to the present.

Please contribute via this form.
For queries or questions, please contact the MSI curator, Harry Anderson (University of Colorado Boulder).
The Mediterranean Seminar is not responsible for the content of items posted here.
Have you used a syllabus here? Do you have suggestions or comments? If so, open a thread on the Mediterranean Seminar List-server.

Undergraduate Syllabi

The Age of Romanticism Across the Adriatic [GU W 4021; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2018]
Konstantina Zanou [Department of Italian, Columbia University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Art history; Language; Mediterranean Romanticisms; Modern
• Studies Romanticism as a literary trend, as much as a historical phenomenon and a life attitude. from the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The Black Mediterranean [FRIT 3035; Upper-level undergraduate; Small lecture; In-person; Offered 2021]
Harry Kashdan [French and Italian, The Ohio State University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Religion; Anthropology; Ethnic Studies; Black Studies; Antiquity; Late Antiquity; Early Medieval; Late Medieval; Early Medieval; Early Modern; Modern; Contemporary
• A broad survey of the Black Mediterranean, from the Ancient World through the present, including literary texts, films, and academic treatments of the Black Mediterranean.

Bodies, Science, and Goods: Exchanges in the Mediterranean [HIST 3200, Upper-level undergraduate, Seminar, Remote/In-person, 2019]
Barbara Di Gennaro Splendore [Department of History, Yale University]
Keywords: History, History of Science, Medicine, The Body, Early Modern,
In conversation with histories of geography and medicine, politics and science, trade and religion, gender and social groups, this course explores boundaries, identities, and exchanges that characterized the Mediterranean in the Early Modern period.

The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives [NMC277H1S, Lower-level undergraduate/Upper-level undergraduate, Small Lecture, Remote/In-person, 2020]
Fadi Ragheb [Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto]
Keywords: History, Crusades, Crusaders and Muslims, History of the Islamic World, Medieval Islamic History, Early Medieval, Late Medieval
This course provides an overview of the Muslims’ politico-military reactions to the crusades as well as exploring other major themes and long-lasting consequences.

Diasporas in Italian and Transnational History [CLIA GU W 4022; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2018]
Konstantina Zanou [Department of Italian, Columbia University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Anthropology; Diasporas in and from the Mediterranea; Modern; Contemporary
• Treats diasporas not as an emblem of national unity but as an expression of diversity, of a multiplicity of loyalties and belongings, combining history, literature, film, and cultural studies, and by approaching the topic through the lens of transnationalism.

Early Modern Hispanic World Minorities [SPAN 400, Upper-level undergraduate, Small lecture, Remote, 2020]
Lisette Balabarca [Department of Modern Languages and Classics, Siena College]
Keywords: History, Literature, Religion, Language, Early Modern
• This course will focus on literary texts (poetry, prose and drama) produced during the 16th and 17th centuries in both Peninsular Spain and its Spanish American colonies (the Viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru). Examines ideas of being “the other” in Early Modern Spain

The Early Modern Mediterranean, 1500-1800 [HISB62H3F, Lower-level undergraduate/Upper-level undergraduate, Seminar, In-person, 2018]
Bogdan C. Smarandache [Independent Scholar, Formerly Department of History, University of Toronto]
Keywords: History, Early Modern
This course focuses on the encounters between faiths and empires in the Mediterranean region between c. 1500 and c. 1800 CE.

Games in Cultural History [HIST 49A.01, Upper-level undergraduate/Combined, Small lecture, Remote, 2020]
Fatih Parlak [Department of History, Boğaziçi University]
Keywords: History, Art History, Anthropology, Game Studies, Antiquity, Late Antiquity, Early Medieval, Late Medieval, Early Modern, Modern, Contemporary
This course is an introduction to the long history of games covering a period from the earliest known games and game tools to the Modern Age. It aims to demonstrate the importance of games for the study of cultural history.

Global History to 1500 [HIST 100; Lower-level undergraduate; Large lecture; Remote; Offered in 2019]
Monica H. Green [Independent Scholar (History); formerly Arizona State University]
Keywords: History; Global History; Antiquity; Late Antiquity; Early Medieval; Late Medieval
• The course covers the history of the human species from its origins in Africa up until the regularization of global contact ca. 1500. The Mediterranean is one among multiple geographic/cultural foci.

The History of The Early Modern Mediterranean (1450-1789) [HUM 108, Lower-level Undergraduate/Upper-level Undergraduate, Remote/In-person, 2020]
Huseyin Gungor Sahin [Department of Social Sciences, Atilim University]
Keywords: History, Early Modern Mediterranean
• This course covers the description of the early modern Mediterranean in general terms from the geographical discoveries to the French Revolution; Political, social, historical and economic developments and transformations in the early modern Mediterranean; Wars and trade in the axis of Ottoman-Spanish hegemony struggle in the Mediterranean basin.

Literature of Multicultural Iberia [SPAN 401, Upper-level undergraduate, Seminar, Remote]
Elizabeth L. Spragins [Department of Spanish, College of the Holy Cross]
Keywords: Literature, Late Medieval, Early Modern
• This course seeks to examine themes of identity, conversion, faith, exclusion, and tolerance in Spain from the Late Medieval and Early Modern period, connecting the literature examined to modern day issues.

Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History [JDST 212; Lower-level undergraduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2015]
David Wacks [Romance Languages, University of Oregon]
Keywords: History; Literature; Religion; Late Medieval; Early Modern
• A broad introduction to Jewish history in the medieval and early modern periods. Examines some of the central themes and patterns in Jewish history as we will focus on the development of the major Jewish communities both in Christian Europe and the Arab Muslim world.

The Medieval Mediterranean [HIST 327, Upper-level undergraduate/Combined, Small lecture, In-person, 2019]
Fred Astren [Department of Jewish Studies, San Francisco State]
Keywords: History, Food History, Late Antiquity, Early Medieval, Late Medieval, Early Modern
This course examines the Mediterranean as a blending of cultures, where people were often bi-cultural or multicultural rather than as a place of cultural influence. Food and beverage is a reoccurring theme throughout the course.

The Medieval Mediterranean [HIST 11; Lower-level undergraduate; Large lecture; In-Person; Offered 2018-2019]
Kenneth Baxter Wolf [History Department, Pomona College]
Keywords: History; Religion; Late Antiquity; Early Medieval; Late Medieval; Abrahamic Traditions; Political Theory; Empire
• Provides a history of the greater Mediterranean world from the first to the fourteenth centuries with particular attention to 1) the competition between its Greek, Latin, and Arabic sectors for hegemony in the region, and 2) the interplay between the Abrahamic and Socratic legacies that shaped the writings of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims who inhabited the region

Medieval Romance [RL 407/507; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2015]
David Wacks [Romance Languages, University of Oregon]
Keywords: Literature; Late Medieval; Early Modern
• Reading aseries of French, Italian, and Iberian romances (in full or in part) to examine how the romance genre: emerged and developed as the Romance vernaculars were entering written form.

Mediterranean Adventures [SPAN 407; Upper-level undergraduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2015]
David Wacks [Romance Languages, University of Oregon]
Keywords: Literature; Late Medieval; Early Modern
• Reads selections from a series of medieval adventure novels in order to determine how they became a space in which authors dealt with local culture, politics, and religious strife during the period leading up to the conquest of the New World.

The Mediterranean City: Conflict and Coexistence in the Long Twentieth Century [HIST 1978K, Combined undergraduate/graduate, Seminar, In-person, 2013]
Paris Papamichos Chronakis [Department of History, Royal Holloway University of London]
Keywords: History, Urban Studies, Modern
Focusing on specific urban centers, this course will examine the cities as shaped by the imperial state, the western traveler, the colonial urbanist, the nationalist visionary, the uprooted refugee, the Holocaust survivor, and the fighting soldier, in a kaleidoscopic attempt to understand the dramatic and traumatic experience of modernity in the streets and piazzas of the Mediterranean.

Mediterranean Food Culture [Italian 2061; Lower-level undergraduate; Small lecture; In-person; Offered 2021]
Harry Kashdan [French and Italian, The Ohio State University]
Keywords: Literature; Religion; Anthropology; Good Studies; Modern; Contemporary
• Studies the popular image of the “Mediterranean Diet” and the associated Mediterranean lifestyle as the jumping off point for an inquiry into the role of food in Mediterranean culture.

The Mediterranean in History and Anthropology [CLIA GU 4700; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2017]
Konstantina Zanou [Department of Italian, Columbia University]
Keywords: History; Anthropology; Modern; Contemporary
• Overview of historical and anthropological writing on the Mediterranean from Braudelto the present day

The Mediterranean in the Modern Era, 1492-1942 [History 102 C, Upper-level undergraduate, Large lecture, In-person, 2012]
Edmond Burke, III [Department of History, University of California Santa Cruz]
Keywords: History, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, Early Modern, Modern Contemporary
This course covers the full sweep of modern Mediterranean history from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

Mediterranean Voyages [Italian/Comparative Studies 3052; Upper-level undergraduate; Small lecture; In-Person; Offered 2020]
Harry Kashdan [French and Italian, The Ohio State University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Early Modern; Modern; Contemporary
• Surveys the historical varieties of travel in the Mediterranean, and examine contemporary written and filmed narratives of migration in the Mediterranean zone.

The Mediterranean World, 1450-1750 [HIST 458, Combined Graduate/Undergraduate, Small lecture, In-person 2020]
Brian Sandberg [Department of History, Northern Illinois University]
Keywords: History, Early Modern Mediterranean
• This course explores the Mediterranean world in the early modern period, examining the historical patterns of state development, economic growth, cultural change, and imperial conflict that shaped Mediterranean societies during the Renaissance.

Travel Literature in and from the Mediterranean, 18th - 19th Centuries [CLIA 4023 GU W; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; Remote; Offered 2020]
Konstantina Zanou [Department of Italian, Columbia University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Travel Literature; Archeology; Modern
• Studies various forms of travel writing within, from, and to the Mediterranean in the long nineteenth century.

Une mer d’empires : une histoire de la frontière vénéto-ottomane en Méditerranée modern
[Upper-level undergraduate, Large lecture, Remote/In-person, 2021]
Mathieu Grenet [Department of History/Social Studies, INU Champollion, Albi].
Keywords: Early Modern, Modern, Venice, Ottomans, Frontier Studies
• A review of Ventian-Ottoman relations from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

The View from the Mediterranean [ITAL 189X, Upper-level undergraduate, Small lecture, In-person, 2020]
Claudio Fogu [French and Italian, University of California Santa Barbara]
Keywords: History, Literature, Art History, Anthropology, Antiquity, Early Medieval, Modern, Contemporary
Using Southern Italy as the focus, this course presents the Mediterranean as a belonging to a fluid history of exchanges and conflicts.

Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean from Troy to Iraq
[HS 324, Upper-level undergraduate, Small lecture, Remote/In-person, 2021]
Kelly DeVries [Department of History and Global Studies, Loyola University Maryland]
Keywords: Military History, Antiquity, Late Antiquity, Early Medieval, Late Medieval, Early Modern, Modern, Contemporary
• An overview of warfare focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean from Antiquity to the Present.

The Western Mediterranean: The World’s Deadliest Border for Migrants and Refugees [HNR 350-01, Upper-level undergraduate, Seminar, Remote, 2021]
David Álvarez [Department of English, Grand Valley State University]
Keywords: History, Literature, Anthropology, Mediterranean Crossings, Migration Studies, Refugee Studies, Contemporary
• This course explores the causes, character, and consequences of undocumented seaborne migration across today’s Mediterranean Sea

Graduate Syllabi

The Age of Romanticism Across the Adriatic [GU W 4021; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2018]
Konstantina Zanou [Department of Italian, Columbia University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Art history; Language; Mediterranean Romanticisms; Modern
• StudiesRomanticism as a literary trend, as much as a historical phenomenon and a life attitude. fromthe end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Diasporas in Italian and Transnational History [CLIA GU W 4022; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2018] Konstantina Zanou [Department of Italian, Columbia University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Anthropology; Diasporas in and from the Mediterranea; Modern; Contemporary
• Treats diasporas not as an emblem of national unity but as an expression of diversity, of a multiplicity of loyalties and belongings, combining history, literature, film, and cultural studies, and by approaching the topic through the lens of transnationalism.

Histories of a Sea: Commerce, Culture and Material [HIST 59D, Graduate, Seminar, In-person, 2018-2019]
Antonis Hadjikyriacou [Department of History, Boğaziçi (Bosporus) University]
Keywords: History, Late Antiquity, Early Medieval, Late Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
• This course aims to familiarize students with the long debates and different conceptualizations of the Mediterranean as a historical space.

History of Mediterranean Islands (from Byzantium to the Ottomans)
[HIST 5521, Graduate, Seminar, Remote/In-person, 2021]
Luca Zavagno [Department of History, Bilkent University]
Keywords: Archaeology, Late Antiquity, Early Medieval, Late Medieval, Early Modern
• Presents a broad understanding of the history of the Mediterranean and the Byzantine as well as the Ottoman period.

Medieval Sephardic Studies [SPAN 607; Graduate; Seminar; In-person; Taught in Spanish; Offered 2017]
David Wacks [Romance Languages, University of Oregon]
Keywords: History; Literature; Language; Late Medieval; Early Modern
• Reads a variety of narrative and poetic texts written by Sephardic (Spanish) Jews during the middle ages (1200-1500) alongside more canonical works by Christian Iberian authors working in the same time period.

Mediterranean Affairs [Graduate, Seminar, Remote, 2020]
Iván Martín [Faculté de Gouvernance, Sciences Économiques et Sociales, Université Mohamed VI Polytechnique]
Keywords: History, International Relations, Geopolitics, Contemporary
Interdisciplinary course on current affairs in the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean in History [HIST 319; Upper-level graduate; Small lecture; In-person; Offered 2019]
Alexis Rappas [Koç University]
Keywords: History; Anthropology; Early Modern; Modern; Contemporary
• Addresses the relations and interconnectedness between the different Mediterranean cultures from the Early Modern period (16th-century) to nowadays

The Middle Sea: Theories of the Mediterranean [French/Italian 8602; Graduate; Seminar; In-person; Offered 2019]
Harry Kashdan [French and Italian, The Ohio State University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Religion; Art History; Language; Anthropology; Theory; Antiquity; Late Antiquity; Early Medieval; Late Medieval; Early Modern; Modern; Contemporary
• Survey of Mediterranean theory from Braudel through recent work by historians, classicists, artists and writers, anthropologists, and scholars of literature.

Travel Literature in and from the Mediterranean, 18th - 19th Centuries [CLIA 4023 GU W; Combined undergraduate/graduate; Seminar; Remote; Offered 2020]
Konstantina Zanou [Department of Italian, Columbia University]
Keywords: History; Literature; Travel Literature; Archeology; Modern
• Studiesvarious forms of travel writing within, from, and to the Mediterranean in the long nineteenth century.