Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Minor
The undergraduate minor in medieval and early modern studies provides students with a broad, humanities-based approach to the rich and fascinating cultures that flourished globally from around 500 CE to 1800 CE.
Requirements
In addition to the program requirements listed below, students must:
- take at least nine hours of their minor "core" requirements at UNC–Chapel Hill
- earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.000 in the minor core requirements. Some programs may require higher standards for minor or specific courses.
For more information, please consult the degree requirements section of the catalog.
This interdisciplinary minor requires students to take five classes representing at least three different subject codes.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Core Requirements | ||
| One core course chosen from: | 3 | |
| Medieval Art in Western Europe | ||
 History of the Indian Subcontinent to 1750 | ||
| Great Books I: Epic and Lyric Traditions | ||
| British Literature, Medieval to 18th Century H | ||
| Central Europe, Medieval to Modern | ||
| Medieval History | ||
| History of Muslim Societies to 1500 | ||
| Early Modern European History, 1450-1815 | ||
| Medieval Frauds: Fake News, Counterfeits, and Forgeries | ||
| Ancient and Medieval Japanese History and Culture | ||
| Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Music | ||
| Islam and Muslim Life before 1500 | ||
| At least one course at the 300 level or above | 3 | |
| No more than three courses at the 100 level (including the core course) | 9 | |
| Total Hours | 15 | |
| H | Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply. |
The following courses are approved for the MEMS minor. With the prior approval of the MEMS minor supervisor up to two courses can be applied to the minor as transfer credits from other institutions.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Medieval and Early Modern Studies Course List | ||
| AMST/ANTH 54 | First-Year Seminar: The Indians' New Worlds: Southeastern Histories from 1200 to 1800 1 | 3 |
| AMST/HIST 110 | Introduction to the Cultures and Histories of Native North America | 3 |
| ANTH 121 | Ancient Cities of the Americas | 3 |
| ANTH 231 | The Inca and Their Ancestors: The Archaeology of Andean South America | 3 |
| ANTH 232 | Ancestral Maya Civilizations H | 3 |
| ANTH 250 | Archaeology of North America H | 3 |
| ARAB 151 | Arabic Literature through the Ages | 3 |
| ARTH 51 | First-Year Seminar: Cathedrals, Abbeys, Castles: Gothic Art and Architecture (c. 1130-1450) | 3 |
| ARTH 54 | First-Year Seminar: Art, War, and Revolution H | 3 |
| ARTH 55 | First-Year Seminar: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe H | 3 |
| ARTH 151 | History of Western Art I H | 3 |
| ARTH/ASIA 158 | Introduction to East Asian Art and Architecture | 3 |
| ARTH 160 | Introduction to the Art and Architecture of Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica H | 3 |
| ARTH 258 | Chinese Art and Culture: From Song to Qing | 3 |
| ARTH 264 | Medieval Art in Western Europe | 3 |
| ARTH 265 | Medieval Iconography H | 3 |
| ARTH 272 | Northern European Art: Van Eyck to Bruegel | 3 |
| ARTH 274 | European Baroque Art | 3 |
| ARTH 277 | Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America | 3 |
| ARTH 279 | The Arts in England, 1450-1650 H | 3 |
| ARTH/ASIA 320 | Chinese Landscape Representation in the Second Millennium | 3 |
| ARTH 365 | Late Medieval Art | 3 |
| ARTH 368 | The Renaissance Portrait | 3 |
| ARTH/ASIA 420 | Constructing Femininity: Women in Chinese Painting | 3 |
| ARTH 450 | The City as Monument H | 3 |
| ARTH 469 | Art of the Aztec Empire | 3 |
| ARTH 471 | Northern European Art of the 14th and 15th Centuries | 3 |
| ARTH 472 | Early Modern Art, 1400-1750 H | 3 |
| ASIA 50 | First-Year Seminar: The Samurai: Gender and Power in Japanese History | 3 |
| ASIA 55 | First-Year Seminar: Kung-Fu: The Concept of Heroism in Chinese Culture | 3 |
| ASIA 65 | First-Year Seminar: Philosophy on Bamboo: Rethinking Early Chinese Thought | 3 |
| ASIA 76 | First-Year Seminar: Traveling to China and Traveling from China in the Premodern World | 3 |
| ASIA 126 | Introduction to Persian Literature | 3 |
| ASIA 163 | Hindi-Urdu Poetry in Performance | 3 |
| ASIA 211 | The Silk Road: Markets, Metaphysics, and Music | 3 |
| ASIA/MUSC 240 | Performance in Southeast Asia: Gongs, Punks, and Shadow Plays | 3 |
| ASIA/CMPL 256 | Love in Classical Persian Poetry | 3 |
| ASIA 332/RELI 378 | The Story of Rama in India | 3 |
| ASIA 333/RELI 379 | The Mahabharata: Remembered and Reimagined | 3 |
| ASIA/RELI 382 | The Story of Rama in Indian Culture–High Impact | 3 |
| ASIA/RELI 383 | The Mahabharata: Remembered and Reimagined–High Impact | 3 |
| ASIA/HIST/WGST 418 | Family and Gender in Early Modern China and Korea | 3 |
| ASIA 522 | Beauty and Power in the Classical Indian World | 3 |
| ASIA/ARAB/RELI 681 | Readings in Islamicate Literatures | 3 |
| ASIA 740 | Chinese Civilization: A Conceptual History | 3 |
| ASIA 741 | Honglou Meng: The Story of the Stone | 3 |
| CHIN 150 | Introduction to Chinese Civilization | 3 |
| CHIN 252 | Introduction to Chinese Culture through Narrative | 3 |
| CHIN 255 | Bandit or Hero: Outlawry in Chinese Literature and Films | 3 |
| CHIN/HIST 265 | Imperial China in Global Objects | 3 |
| CHIN 361 | Chinese Traditional Theater | 3 |
| CHIN/HIST 439 | Environmental China: Premodern Political Ecology | 3 |
| CHIN 475 | Confucianism: Origin, History, and Contemporary Relevance | 3 |
| CHIN 476 | Daoism: Origin, History, and Contemporary Relevance | 3 |
| CHIN 551 | Chinese Poetry in Translation | 3 |
| CHIN 552 | Chinese Prose in Translation | 3 |
| CLAS 259 | Pagans and Christians H | 3 |
| CLAS 260 | Ancient Medicine H | 3 |
| CLAS 261 | Ancient Magic & Religion | 3 |
| CLAS 300 | Classical Rhetoric: The Science of Persuasive Speech in Classical Antiquity and Beyond | 3 |
| CLAS/CMPL 364 | Classical Backgrounds of Literature in English H | 3 |
| CLAS 380 | Emperors, Tyrants, Kings, and Rulers in Ancient Greece and Rome | 3 |
| CLAS 415 | Roman Law H | 3 |
| CLAR/ARTH 464 | Greek Architecture | 3 |
| CLAR/ARTH 465 | Roman Architecture | 3 |
| CLAR/ARTH 474 | Roman Sculpture | 3 |
| CLAR 475 | Provinces and Frontiers of the Roman Empire | 3 |
| CLAR/JWST 512 | Ancient Synagogues | 3 |
| CMPL 120 | Great Books I: Epic and Lyric Traditions | 3 |
| CMPL 121 | Great Books I: Romancing the World H | 3 |
| CMPL 122 | Great Books I: Visual Arts and Literature from Antiquity to 1750 H | 3 |
| CMPL 123 | Great Books I: Politics and Literature from Antiquity to 1750 | 3 |
| CMPL 124 | Great Books I: Science and Literature from Antiquity to 1750 | 3 |
| CMPL 220 | Global Authors: Jane Austen H | 3 |
| CMPL 223 | Global Authors: Cervantes | 3 |
| CMPL 225 | Global Authors: The Worlds of Shakespeare | 3 |
| CMPL 227 | Global Authors: The Middle Ages in World Cinema | 3 |
| CMPL 275 | Literature of Pilgrimage | 3 |
| CMPL 317 | Myth, Fable, Novella: The Long History of the Short Story H | 3 |
| CMPL 452 | The Middle Ages | 3 |
| CMPL 453 | The Erotic Middle Ages | 3 |
| CMPL 454 | Literature of the Continental Renaissance in Translation H | 3 |
| CMPL 456 | The 18th-Century Novel | 3 |
| CMPL 470 | Concepts and Perspectives of the Tragic | 3 |
| CMPL 473 | Drama, Pageantry, and Spectacle in Medieval Europe | 3 |
| CMPL 487 | Literature and the Arts of Love | 3 |
| CMPL 558 | The Lives and Times of Medieval Corpses | 3 |
| CMPL/FREN 563 | Studies in the Anglo-French Renaissance | 3 |
| CMPL/ENGL 621 | Arthurian Romance | 3 |
| CMPL 622 | Medieval Cosmopolitanisms | 3 |
| CMPL 624 | The Baroque | 3 |
| ENGL 115 | History of the English Language | 3 |
| ENGL 120 | British Literature, Medieval to 18th Century H | 3 |
| ENGL 153 | Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in the Premodern World | 3 |
| ENGL 154 | Race and Racism in the Premodern World | 3 |
| ENGL 223 | Chaucer H | 3 |
| ENGL 224 | Survey of Medieval English Literature, excluding Chaucer H | 3 |
| ENGL 225 | Shakespeare H | 3 |
| ENGL 226 | Renaissance Drama H | 3 |
| ENGL 227 | Literature of the Earlier Renaissance H | 3 |
| ENGL 228 | Literature of the Later Renaissance H | 3 |
| ENGL 230 | Milton H | 3 |
| ENGL 325 | Shakespeare and His Contemporaries H | 3 |
| ENGL 327 | Renaissance Literature and Its Intellectual Contexts | 3 |
| ENGL 329 | Medieval Feminisms | 3 |
| ENGL 330 | Perspectives on the Renaissance | 3 |
| ENGL 331 | 18th-Century Literature H | 3 |
| ENGL 430 | Renaissance Literature--Contemporary Issues | 3 |
| ENGL 619 | Survey of Old and Middle English Literature | 3 |
| ENGL 620 | Introduction to Old English Language and Literature | 3 |
| ENGL 630 | Shakespeare and His Contemporaries | 3 |
| ENGL/PWAD 660 | War in Shakespeare's Plays | 3 |
| FREN 315 | Imposteur!: Faking and False Identities in French and Francophone Drama and Film | 3 |
| FREN 342 | The Art and Power of Conversation: The Enlightenment Salon | 3 |
| FREN 370 | French and Francophone Studies to 1789 | 3 |
| FREN 387 | Paris/Versailles: The Court and the City in the 17th Century | 3 |
| FREN 421 | Old French | 3 |
| FREN 522 | French Middle Ages | 3 |
| FREN 562 | Poetry of the French Renaissance | 3 |
| FREN 583 | 18th-Century French Literature and Culture | 3 |
| FREN 670 | 17th-Century French Literature and Culture | 3 |
| FREN 675 | Literature and Enlightenment, 17th - 18th Centuries | 3 |
| GERM/RELI 227 | Luther and the Bible | 3 |
| GERM 410 | Getting Medieval. Or: What Makes Us Modern? | 3 |
| GERM 416I | The Viking Age | 3 |
| GERM 426 | Play Time: Theater in the Medieval and Early Modern World | 3 |
| GERM 500 | History of the German Language | 3 |
| GSLL 212 | "Game of Thrones" and the Worlds of the European Middle Ages | 3 |
| HIST 107 | Medieval History | 3 |
| HIST 108 | Introduction to Early Medieval History 500-1050 | 3 |
| HIST 127 | American History to 1865 | 3 |
| HIST/ASIA 135 | History of the Indian Subcontinent to 1750 | 3 |
| HIST 151 | European History to 1650 | 3 |
| HIST 221 | Under Crescent and Cross: Jews in the Medieval World | 3 |
| HIST 228 | Medieval Science | 3 |
| HIST 229 | The History of London 43 - 1666 H | 3 |
| HIST 237 | Colonial American History to 1763 | 3 |
| HIST/PWAD 251 | The Thirty Years War (1618-1648): Europe in an Age of Crisis | 3 |
| HIST/PWAD 254 | War and Society in Early Modern Europe | 3 |
| HIST 255 | Manor to Machine: The Economic Shaping of Europe | 3 |
| HIST 303 | Medieval Spain | 3 |
| HIST 304H | Conquest and Colonization in the English Atlantic World | 3 |
| HIST 305 | Elizabeth I and her World: Gender, Power, and the Beginnings of the Global | 3 |
| HIST 306 | Princes and Reformations in Germany, 1400-1600 | 3 |
| HIST 307 | Religion, Statecraft, and Enlightenment in Germany, 1600-1815 | 3 |
| HIST/JWST 308 | The Renaissance and the Jews | 3 |
| HIST 309 | Old Regime France, 1661-1787 | 3 |
| HIST 310 | The French Revolution | 3 |
| HIST 339 | Asia and the Birth of Global Capitalism, 1400-1850 | 3 |
| HIST 431 | The Medieval Church | 3 |
| HIST/PWAD 432 | The Crusades | 3 |
| HIST 434 | Medieval England | 3 |
| HIST 435 | The Medieval University | 3 |
| HIST 437 | Aristocratic Culture in the Central Middle Ages | 3 |
| HIST 438 | Medieval Masculinities, 500-1200 H | 3 |
| ITAL 51 | First-Year Seminar: Contagion and Culture: Lessons from Italy | 3 |
| ITAL 130 | Dante's Divine Comedy | 3 |
| ITAL 241 | The Renaissance Mind and Body | 3 |
| ITAL 330 | Italian History and Culture I | 3 |
| ITAL 346 | Gender, Sexuality, and Representation in Early Modern Italy and Europe | 3 |
| ITAL 357 | Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in English | 3 |
| ITAL 359 | Medieval Frauds: Fake News, Counterfeits, and Forgeries | 3 |
| ITAL 372 | Poetry, Parchment, Polis | 3 |
| JAPN 160 | Introduction to Japanese Literature in Translation | 3 |
| JAPN 231/HIST 271 | Ancient and Medieval Japanese History and Culture | 3 |
| JAPN 246/HIST 247 | Early Modern Japanese History and Culture | 3 |
| KOR 152 | Audiovisual Korea: Music, Art, and Performance from Calligraphy to K-pop | 3 |
| LATN 205 | Medieval Latin | 3 |
| MUSC 214 | Chamber Music H | 1 |
| MUSC 251 | Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Music | 3 |
| PHIL 215 | Medieval Philosophy | 3 |
| PHIL 220 | 17th and 18th Century Western Philosophy H | 3 |
| PHIL 415 | Medieval Philosophy | 3 |
| PHIL 421 | Rationalism | 3 |
| PHIL 422 | Empiricism | 3 |
| PHIL 470 | Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Rousseau | 3 |
| PWAD/HIST 266 | Global History of Warfare | 3 |
| RELI 108 | Classic Jewish Texts: From Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls to Kabbalah and Hassidism | 3 |
| RELI 161 | Introduction to the History of Christian Traditions H | 3 |
| RELI 164 | Heresy and Inquisition: Religion, Ethics, Marginalization | 3 |
| RELI/ASIA 183 | Asian Religions | 3 |
| RELI 184 | East Asian Religions | 3 |
| RELI/HIST 263 | Gender and Religion in Premodern Europe H | 3 |
| RELI 266 | Medieval and Renaissance Christian Cultures | 3 |
| RELI/EURO 270 | Religion in Western Europe H | 3 |
| RELI 283/ASIA 300 | The Buddhist Tradition: India, Nepal, and Tibet | 3 |
| RELI/ASIA 284 | The Buddhist Tradition: East Asia | 3 |
| RELI/ASIA 285 | Monks, Magic, & Meditation: Theravada Buddhism Across Space and Time | 3 |
| RELI/ASIA 286 | Premodern Japanese Religions | 3 |
| RELI 288/ASIA 303 | Chinese Religions | 3 |
| RELI 289 | Muhammad and the Qur'an | 3 |
| RELI/WGST 362 | Mary in the Christian Tradition H | 3 |
| RELI 441 | Religion in Early America H | 3 |
| RELI 448 | Native and Christian: Indigenous Engagements with Christianity | 3 |
| RELI/WGST 450 | Sexuality in Jewish Tradition and History | 3 |
| RELI/HIST 454 | The Reformation | 3 |
| RELI/ASIA 488 | Shinto in Japanese History | 3 |
| RELI/ASIA 489 | Animals in Japanese Religion | 3 |
| RELI/HIST 564 | Religion, Race, and Inquisition in the Spanish Empire | 3 |
| RELI/ASIA 581 | Sufism | 3 |
| RELI 586 | Women and Gender in Japanese Religions | 3 |
| ROML/LING 578 | Comparative History of the Romance Languages | 3 |
| SPAN 383 | Medieval Spanish Literature | 3 |
| SPAN 384 | Spanish Renaissance | 3 |
| SPAN 617 | Cervantes and the Quijote | 3 |
| SPAN 650 | The Spanish Comedia of the Golden Age | 3 |
| H | Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply. |
- 1
Restricted to first-year students only.
See the program page here for special opportunities.
Department Programs
Majors
Minors
- Comparative Literature Minor
- Creative Writing Minor
- English Minor
- Global Cinema Minor
- Latina/o Studies Minor
- Medicine, Literature, and Culture Minor
- Medieval and Early Modern Studies Minor
- Writing, Editing, and Digital Publishing Minor
Graduate Programs
- Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature
- M.A. in English with a Concentration in Literature, Medicine, and Culture
Courses
Department of English and Comparative Literature
Greenlaw Hall, CB# 3520
(919) 962-5481
Chair
Marsha Collins
