070544 VO Transformations of the Roman World (2006S)

This course will cover a wide range of aspects of the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: power and politics, economy and new forms of social integration, Christianization and cultural change, gender roles and different ways to style the self. It will explore methods to approach a period that is at the same time strangely familiar in many respects, and remote and puzzling in others. It is thus both an exemplary course in historical methodology and the contemporary uses of history, and intended to provide in-depth information on one of the key periods in European history. Grading will mainly be done on the basis of a written test at the end of the course.