Discover the Middle Ages: A Week of Exploration, Connection, and Insight

Discover the Middle Ages: A Week of Exploration, Connection, and Insight

Summer Explorations I

Discover the Middle Ages: A Week of Exploration, Connection, and Insight 

July 6-11, 2025 

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Step into a world of political intrigue, cultural transformation, and intellectual innovation in our immersive program on the Middle Ages. From ca. 500 CE to the dawn of the early modern world a thousand years later, this period was one of profound change that reshaped the global landscape. Across Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia, empires rose and fell, religious movements emerged, collided, and coexisted, and a network of trade routes connected distant regions in ways that would forever alter history.

This program invites you to journey through the vibrant heart of the Middle Ages, where city-states in Italy flourished, national monarchies consolidated power, and the Caliphates emerged in the Muslim world. Explore the dynamics of religious and cultural exchange between Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, and learn how these interactions, often contentious, fueled lasting conflicts—and enduring legacies.

We will take you on a tour of the ancient Silk Road, a vast network of trade routes that linked East and West, bringing not only goods like spices, silk, and precious metals but also exchanging ideas, art, architecture, literature, and scientific knowledge. Discover how India became a global trade hub, how Byzantine scholars preserved and shared classical knowledge, and how Islamic thinkers ignited revolutions in medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. This interconnected world of ideas and commerce gave rise to masterpieces of art and architecture across regions, from the cathedrals of Italy to the mosques of Iran, and the temples of India.

Throughout the week, you will delve into the political and cultural transformations that shaped Europe, Byzantium, the Middle East, and South Asia; the global trade networks that connected civilizations and their far-reaching impacts; the monumental art and architecture of this era and their cross-cultural influences; the exchange of texts and ideas that fostered intellectual revolutions, from Scholasticism in the West to the Golden Age of Islam; and the rise of Islam in India, the Crusades, and the religious pilgrimages that defined the age.

Join us for a deep dive into this fascinating and dynamic period, where intellectual curiosity, cultural diversity, politics, and global connections converge. This program will leave you with new insights and a deeper appreciation of the lasting impact of the Middle Ages on our world today.

Program Cost: $900 per person
On-Campus Housing (Private Room in Dormitory setting): $125 per person

Faculty

George Bent

George Bent

George Bent, Sidney Gause Childress Professor in the Arts

Melissa Kerin

Melissa Kerin, Director of the Mudd Center for Ethics and Professor of Art History

Melissa Kerin

Nathaniel Goldberg

Nathaniel Goldberg

Nathaniel Goldberg, Professor of Philosophy

Theodore van Loan

Theodore van Loan, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History

Theodore van Loan

Matthew Chalmers

Matthew Chalmers

Matthew Chalmers, Visiting Assistant Professor of History

Special Guest

Lorenzo Vigotti

Lorenzo Vigotti

Lorenzo Vigotti, Research Fellow, University of Bologna; overseas study faculty, Stanford University, and past visiting lecturer at W&L. Holds a Master of Architecture degree from University of Florence and Ph.D. in architectural history from Columbia University.