Undergraduate Concentration

At Columbia College, Medieval and Renaissance Studies is an interdisciplinary program in which a student combines a concentration in medieval or Renaissance civilization with a major or concentration in one of several possible departments. .

Students enrolled at Barnard please see the Barnard Medieval & Renaissance Studies Page 

Requirements

This concentration is available to students majoring or concentrating in one of the following departments:

Art History and Archaeology; Classics; East Asian Languages and Cultures; English and Comparative Literature; French and Romance Philology; Germanic Languages; History; Italian; Latin American and Iberian Cultures; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; Music; Philosophy; Religion; or Slavic Languages.

In addition to fulfilling the requirements for a departmental major/concentration, students with this special concentration should plan on taking an additional four (4) courses in other departments of the program, to be chosen in consultation with an appropriate member of the committee. Courses taken Pass/Fail may not be counted toward the special concentration.

Students considering the special concentration in Medieval and Renaissance Studies should consult with the director in advance of course registration to ensure that their selection of courses will count towards the special concentration. Transferred courses may not be counted toward the special concentration.

Students must also demonstrate an ability to work with original language sources (other than in Early Modern English) from the medieval and/or Early Modern periods, either through coursework focusing on the historical language (e.g., LATN UN3033 Medieval Latin, MDES GU4214 Fourth Year Classical Arabic I) or through research (e.g., a senior thesis or seminar paper with substantial use of original language sources). Any courses outside the major used to demonstrate the language requirement may also count toward the course requirement for the special concentration. Students should gain approval of the director of the program in advance of plans to fulfill this language requirement.

Once all requirements have been completed and the concentration form has been approved by the Director, the student must indicate Medieval & Renaissance Studies as the concentration when they complete the degree application.