This assignment has two parts. Please complete them separately as required.

Part I: This is a standard question, which is to reflect on the combined materials of this unit and tell us what you consider to be the most important or interesting thing you learned, and why: I ask you to do this to provide the opportunity to reflect on course materials, to be reflexive (i.e. did the materials challenge any of your previously-held assumptions?), and to share your thoughts with the class as we all bring something different to the course–what may be obvious or interesting to one person will not be to someone else, and we can take this opportunity to draw attention to those details that we otherwise might not notice or think about. Again, what you choose to discuss doesn’t need to be THE most important (that is, this is NOT a test–there is no ONE, objective thing that qualifies as the most important or interesting), but only the most important or interesting for you–e.g. what intrigued you, sparked your interest, captured your imagination, made you think differently about the Middle Ages and/or the visual culture of the era, seemed odd or obvious but you hadn’t known it before, etc. This is to promote the value of shared learning, and I encourage you also to post by replying to your classmates (i.e. you can make your contribution by building on a point that someone else has already posted). 

 Part II: Please choose one image, object, or aspect of visual culture covered in the material above (or from elsewhere, but representative of the global medieval from ca. 500 – 1500) that is from outside our previous course material (i.e. representative of a place or culture not covered in units 1 through 8) that piqued your interest and tell us why you chose it, why it might be important or enlightening in relation to the global Middles Ages, and how it has expanded your view of medieval culture. 

 For both parts, please be sure to include images (as appropriate), identified and with source of image acknowledged (via a link or other method of citation); if you use other sources of information outside of course materials, please also be sure to cite those (again, a link is fine if your source is digital). 

Reading: Peter Frankopan, “Why We Need to Think about the Global Middle Ages”; Christina Normore, “Editor’s Introduction: A World Within Worlds? Reassessing the Global Turn in Medieval Art History”; Pamela A. Patton, “Blackness, Whiteness, and the Idea of Race in Medieval European Art”; a selection of short web articles from Smarthistory and the British Library.

Listening: Larisa Grollemond and Bryan C. Keene, “Curating Global Medievalisms” (podcast)

Reading content is in the uploaded files. No Sources and Citations are needed.