070120 PS BA-Proseminar - Ritual and Society: Mortuary Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2025S)

Course description
The profound impact of mortality on the human experience created some of the most distinctive cultural traits in contemporary and past societies alike. Indeed, studying the past often involves direct engagement with various individual and social notions of death and dying. The course will facilitate a cross-cultural overview of medieval and early modern Europe by examining this universal condition through archaeological, written, and visual sources. The course primarily focuses on Christian practice from the age of Childeric I to the early modern period. Other contemporary religions and beliefs and the diverse social classes at the time are also represented. Delivered through a series of thematically organised lectures and seminars, case studies focus on the nature and interpretation of the burial record across Europe. The different classes survey the interdisciplinary methodologies, theoretical underpinnings and material residues of funerary rituals, helping the student to develop a broad knowledge of continental-wide burial rites and a nuanced understanding of the social dimensions of death.

Learning outcomes:
This course aims to:
• Provide an advanced introduction to interdisciplinary historical analysis, on a complex and diversified topic such as death and society in medieval and early modern Europe
• Integrate a variety of archaeological and historical evidence in a theoretically informed and critical manner
• Explore a range of current themes in interdisciplinary mortuary studies, patterns of human behaviour in the funerary context and the relationship between material culture and funerary practices
• Develop students’ abilities to judge between relevant academic arguments
• Encourage students to contribute to current research debates, and develop innovative critical perspectives and evidence-based arguments
• Foster students’ skills in presenting complex ideas, arguments and critical analysis during seminars and presentations and in written contributions

Course Objectives
By the end of this class, students should
• Demonstrate detailed, advanced knowledge of the evidence, chronological frameworks, key debates and theoretical approaches relevant to the study of death
• Critically evaluate competing interpretations of the archaeology of death and burial, and situate these within the broader context of changing perspectives in historical disciplines generally
• Develop fresh critical perspectives and contribute to current research debates concerning funerary archaeology
• Present cogent, evidence-based arguments in seminars and written contributions

The course finishes with a hybrid mini-workshop, where they should present their own mini-papers on the subject.
The course also features two optional outdoor, on-the-field seminars, where attendance is noncompulsory and does not count in the grading (Zentralfriedhof Wien, + 1 more location).