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About the MEMS Concentration

Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) is an interdisciplinary Honors concentration administered by the History Department. MEMS offers cross-listed courses at all levels in history, philosophy, religion, history of art and architecture, archaeology, literature, law, music, anthropology, and sociology pertinent to the period from late Antiquity through early modern times in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. MEMS develops awareness of cultural connections among the diverse cultural zones of the pre-industrial world.

The MEMS concentration is a liberal arts concentration that allows students to exploit the extraordinary richness of courses about this time period at the University of Michigan. MEMS fosters geographic and cross-cultural breadth of its concentrators, but also allows them to specialize their learning, especially through the senior thesis. By focusing on a defined historical period, but requiring interdisciplinary study of it, the MEMS concentration has both the coherency and the breadth necessary to advance students in the humanities and social sciences.

The MEMS concentration will often be selected as part of a double concentration. It is designed to accommodate study abroad, either at University of Michigan programs or elsewhere; one of this program's goals is to provide an education that will make study abroad an especially rewarding experience.

The required courses are intended to deepen familiarity with pre-modern history, art, and literature, while leaving to concentrators the ability to focus on the discipline they prefer (literary studies, archaeology, etc.). The requirement includes the obligation to reach beyond a single geographical zone, and to develop understanding of the medieval and early modern period in three cultural areas. Students will be induced to see connections between major cultures of this time period, as well as singling out original developments. The required courses will contribute to the breadth of their comprehension and to the subtlety of the understanding of individual cultures. The requirement that students take a course each in history and art history, combined with the literature prerequisite, will encourage organic visions of past cultures as wholes, rather than the fragmentary vision which ensues from isolating a single aspect of past cultures for study (only art, or only literature).

Prerequisites

1. Successful completion of two three- or four-credit introductory courses from a long, interdisciplinary list (for example, AAPTIS 262, 296, 473; Anthropology 222; Asian Studies 220, 221, 222, 223, 224; Classical Archaeology 221, 222; Classical Civilization 101, 102; English 267, 350, 367, 370; Great Books 191, 192, 201; History 204, 206, 207, 210, 211, 213, 220, 225, 250, 263, 286, 287; History of Art 101, 102, 103, 240, 250, 251, 284; Near Eastern Studies 100; Judaic Studies 270; MHM 239; Philosophy 230, 263; Residential College Humanities 310, 311; Studies in Religion 308).

2. Language proficiency (4th term college-level) in a language directly pertinent to the geographic area on which students choose to focus (for example, Latin, French, Arabic, Hebrew for Europe and the Middle East; Chinese, Sanskrit, or Japanese for Asia) by the beginning of the senior year, plus two upper-level literature courses in that same language or a related one.