HIST 642B Interreligious Encounters in the Medieval Mediterranean
This course surveys major themes in the ongoing encounter between the religious groups of the Mediterranean world from the coming of Islam to the rise of the Ottomans. Focusing chiefly on Muslims, Christians, and Jews from Spain to Iran, the course revolves around a series of major historiographical questions related to the dynamics of social interaction and intellectual exchange between different religious communities. Topics of focus include martyrdom, conversion, Christian and Jewish responses to the coming of Islam, the construction of heresy, and the reception of Islamic learning in the Latin West, among others. Course readings include a mix of historiography and primary sources in translation.