Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Where can graduate work in MEMS take you? Explore worlds of experience and material culture.

MEMS faculty work in many disciplines and regions of the world. Literature, history, art and architecture, religion, technology, and environmental studies, 500 to 1800CE.

Summer Research Nuremberg, London, Pune, and Kyoto all offer MEMS scholars archival and arts resources for PhD research.

The Diane Owen Hughes Scholarship MEMS has long provided premodernists with support for research travel and skills training.

Slide 0
Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3

Click here to join our mailing list and stay up to date with what's going on in MEMS!

MEMS Certificate Program: Community, Research, and Funding

Why join the MEMS Certificate Program? Current PhD Candidate Julia LaPlaca writes: "I am pursuing a MEMS certificate in order to enrich my scholarship through more global approaches to the period and to network with scholars outside of my content area and discipline. Participating in the MEMS community has been one of the highlights of my graduate education. The classes I took for the certificate exposed me to a diverse range of scholarship on the medieval and early modern world, which has greatly enriched the work I do in my area of specialization. The professors and students I met in these classes--many of them outside of my discipline of art history-- have become important friends and mentors. I've also appreciated the financial support I've received through the MEMS summer funding grants, which prioritizes certificate holders. MEMS has supported my research and/or language training three out of my four summers here at UM."

To learn more about the certificate and how to apply, click here.

Welcome to another academic year!

Medieval and Early Modern Studies is an interdisciplinary program with students and faculty from departments and degree programs across the university. Among similar programs nationally and internationally, MEMS is distinctive for its global conception—embracing work on the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Americas as well as Europe, the traditional focus of MEMS scholarship.

Erin L. Brightwell
Associate Professor of Premodern Japanese Literature
Director, Medieval and Early Modern Studies

New Faculty Books

We are pleased to once again feature new books by our esteemed faculty members. This is what keeps Medieval and Early Modern Studies relevant and intriguing. I hope you will enjoy further exploring our Recent Faculty Books.

Digital Resources: A Work in Progress

111820 Premodern Women Artists and Patrons: A Global Bibliography. Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance/Early Modern

Race and Visual Representation in European Culture c.1300-1700

Mapping Eastern Europe

To access content, users can choose to navigate a map of Eastern Europe, discovering the variety of materials on the website, or they can delve into the individual pages related to historical overviews, object and monument case studies, short notices about ongoing projects, and reviews of books and exhibitions. Our content is intended for students, teachers, scholars, and non-specialists! This project - part of our North of Byzantium (NoB) initiative - was developed and launched with generous support from the “Rapid Response Magic Project of the Princeton University Humanities Council.”

Archaeology on Inca and Pre-Inca Peru

Curator Joyce Marcus of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology (UMMAA) directed several seasons of excavation at Cerro Azul. The first was devoted to exposing structures built during the Inca era (AD 1470-1530), while subsequent field seasons were spent excavating residences, storage units, middens, and burials of the Late Intermediate period (AD 1000-1470). See the findings here.

Angkor Complex Exhibition (2024)

LSA is the place for foundational knowledge where creative thinkers engage with a complex, diverse, and changing world. We need your support to fuel our innovative environment, invest in the brightest people, and advance tomorrow’s breakthroughs.

Learn More Give Online