In the wake of the extremely successful 2021 collaboration between the National Humanities Center and the Medieval Academy of America to design and launch an online curriculum-development course on “Medieval Africa and Africans“, we are very pleased to announce the launch of a follow-up NHC course, “Islam in the Middle Ages.”
On August 28, the NHC announced that the fall 2023 sessions of both courses would be offered free of charge in order to enable the participation of as many educators as possible. Registration opened at noon that day, and both courses were full in less three hours. Both will run again in the spring, however, so if you were unable to register for the fall session, you will have another opportunity in a few months.
This collaboration, and these courses, are a critical component of the Medieval Academy’s goal of broadening how we all think, research, write, and teach about the period. At a moment when the humanities, DEI initiatives, and Critical Theories of all types are under threat in many parts of the United States, this grass-roots work is even more important. The “Medieval Africa and Africans” course has run fifteen six-week sessions since January 2021, training nearly 400 K-16 educators. Across all levels, the course has helped these educators bring medieval Africa into their curricula. We hope that the new course on “Islam in the Middle Ages” will have a similar impact.
– Lisa
