The Medieval Studies Program at Loyola
The Medieval Studies Program was founded as an interdisciplinary minor in the former College of Arts and Sciences (now the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences) by the late Julian Wasserman, a holder of a Provost Distinguished Professorship and a teacher of medieval literature in the Department of English at Loyola. From the beginning, however, medieval studies at Loyola have always been as much of a presence outside undergraduate classrooms as within their walls. Professor Wasserman sought to bring the Middle Ages to life for willing students in a variety of settings, including the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Lusher Elementary School, and a Summer Teachers Institute sponsored by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
The recent arrival of several medievalists in a number of departments across the University introduced a new phase in the development of the Program, with the creation of new courses, the implementation of a revised curriculum, the institution of the Venerable Bede Award to recognize the outstanding achievements of Medieval Studies students, and, most recently, the inauguration of two new extracurricular activities: Pizza and Movie Nights and the New Orleans Medieval Scholars' Discussion Group. And the Program continues to grow and develop in exciting new directions.
Why study medieval history and culture?
The thousand-year period known as the Middle Ages produced countless monuments of culture worthy of study in their own right: the incomparably massive body of literature about King Arthur and his knights; the Icelandic Althing, the first European parliamentary system of government; the Gothic cathedrals of France, marvels of engineering and faith that reached toward God and Heaven itself. An equally impressive number of modern institutions have their roots in the Middle Ages. Dating etiquette, popular love songs, the American jury system, the standards by which we measure the justness of war, and the cap and gown worn at Commencement all originated in medieval ideas and practices.
Medieval studies offers the opportunity to address a variety of questions about the Middle Ages as well as about our own time: Why did thousands of Christian soldiers march off to uncertain wars against the "infidels" in the Crusades? How does an understanding of these holy wars enable us to think about conflicts fought over competing religious ideologies today?
What were women's lives like during the Middle Ages? How does an understanding of medieval antifeminism assist our analysis of modern sexual inequality and discrimination?
What conditions paved the way for the rise of voluntary poverty as a means of imitating Christ in the urban centers of thirteenth-century Europe? How does the language used to describe the impoverished of New Orleans nowadays contribute to the creation of a major social dilemma as well as to its possible resolution?
Whether you study the past for the sake of its own triumphs and failures, or as a distant mirror reflecting our own, the academic pursuit of medieval culture opens up innumerable opportunities to explore the human condition in its many varied forms.