Medievalism: The Medieval Past in Modern Imagination
About the course
Why are we still fascinated by knights, castles, dragons, and Vikings? How is the Middle Ages used in contemporary culture, politics, and public debate? This course explores how the medieval past has been interpreted, reinterpreted, and mobilised from the nineteenth century to the present day.
Students examine how different societies have imagined the Middle Ages and what these representations reveal about their own historical contexts.
Through the study of films, television series, video games, fantasy literature, role-playing games, and other forms of popular culture, the course investigates how ideas of “the medieval” are created and circulated today. It also analyses how the Middle Ages is used in political ideologies, social movements, and identity formation.
Drawing on cultural studies, memory studies, reception studies, and theories of historical culture, students develop critical tools for analysing how the past is used to shape the present.
The course is offered as a standalone course, a thematic course at the master’s level in history, or a thematic course at the doctoral level.
The course includes online sessions via Zoom at set times.
Course content
The course enables students to deepen their understanding of the relationship between the medieval past and contemporary society by analysing how the Middle Ages has been interpreted, reinterpreted and utilised from the 19th century to the present day. Central to the course is the study of the changing perceptions that different eras, societies and cultural contexts have attributed to the Middle Ages, and how these perceptions have reflected their respective historical contexts. The course examines how the Middle Ages has served as a point of reference in popular culture as well as in political ideologies, social movements and identity-forming practices. Emphasis is placed on the presence of the Middle Ages in modern media such as film, television series, computer games, role-playing games and fantasy, where students analyse how aesthetic, narrative and value-based constructions of ‘the medieval’ are shaped and circulated in the present day. The course also examines how historical timeframes – the past, present and future – are utilised and negotiated in cultural and political contexts. Through theoretical perspectives drawn from cultural studies, the use of history, reception studies and memory studies, students are given the opportunity to develop their skills in critically analysing how the past is mobilised for various social, cultural, religious and political purposes. The course includes an advanced analysis of historical narratives and the use of history, and students practise identifying the ideological, aesthetic and discursive dimensions of how the Middle Ages is conceived and represented in both academic and non-academic contexts. Through independent projects, students are also given the opportunity to develop their ability to apply relevant theoretical and methodological approaches to empirical material from various media and areas of society.
Entry requirements and selection
Entry requirements
A Bachelor’s degree equivalent to 180 credits with a major (90 credits) in a subject relevant to Historical Studies, such as Ethnology, Archaeology, Comparative Literature, History of Ideas, or Religious Studies.
Selection
100% University credits completed
Course literature
Current literature list is available in the syllabus for the course
Course evaluation
Malmö University provides students who participate in, or who have completed a course, with the opportunity to express their opinions and describe their experiences of the course by completing a course evaluation administered by the University. The University will compile and summarise the results of course evaluations. The University will also inform participants of the results and any decisions relating to measures taken in response to the course evaluations. The results will be made available to the students (HF 1:14).
