Medieval-Renaissance Studies

The Medieval-Renaissance Studies major is an interdepartmental major that will focus your attention on the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and their classical antecedents. This major will give you the structure of discipline-specific courses (including history, literature and art history) and the flexibility of working across scholarly disciplines.

If you want to declare this major, you must have your major programs approved by the Medieval-Renaissance Committee before entering your junior year; subsequent changes in major programs must also be approved by the Committee.

Hanover graduates with this major pursue positions as:

College professors
Librarian
Playwright
Museum curator
Scenic Designer
Theatre Director

"My Medieval-Renassance major fed directly into my work as a graduate student, though the benefits extended far beyond the surface material. Working with that major at Hanover was incredibly rewarding, as it taught me not only about the concepts of the eras but also about the ways in which an interdepartmental major works — the interdisciplinary nature of the program helped immensely in my being able to work with scholars from all across the board in terms of interests, as well as being able to look at any task from several viewpoints. It doesn't hurt that the professors pulled in to teach were fantastic, diverse and always entertaining."
Jenaba Waggy '09

Here’s a sampling of the graduate programs recent Medieval-Renaissance students have entered:

University of St. Andrews, Scotland
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo

Courses

History
HIS 215 The West: Ancient to Medieval
HIS 241 Tsarist Russia
HIS 243 Tudor and Stuart England
HIS 244 Studies in Early Modern Europe
HIS 252 Roman History
HIS 344 The High Middle Ages
HIS 345 The Renaissance
HIS 350 Florence in the Age of Dante and Petrarch (taught in Florence and Rome)

Literature
ENG 218 Viking Myths and Legends
ENG 243 Early Literature
ENG 244 Survey of Medieval English Literature
ENG 254 Survey of Renaissance and Restoration Literature
ENG 327 Arthurian Literature
ENG 334 Shakespeare
ENG 347 Chaucer Seminar
ENG 348 Shakespeare in England (taught in Stratford, U.K.)
ENG 350 Florence in the Age of Dante and Petrarch (taught in
Florence and Rome)
SPA 438 Medieval and Golden Age Literature of Spain
GER 431 The German Middle Ages and the Renaissance
FRE 423 French Middle Ages and 16th-Century Literature

Classics
CLA 252 Roman History
LAT 320 Medieval Latin

Philosophy
PHI 226 Medieval Philosophy
PHI 225 Classical Greek Philosophy

Art History
ART 341 Medieval Art and Architecture
ART 324 Renaissance Art and Architecture

Theology
THS Early Christianity in Italy (taught in Italy)