Harvard University to officially offer Game of Thrones themed history class

As if we needed anymore evidence that Game of Thrones was one of the world’s most popular shows (if not the most), this fall Harvard University will be offering a Game of Thrones themed medieval history class. That’s right, Harvard, one of the world’s most prestigious universities, will use Game of Thrones to entice students to take an interest in history.

Per Time, the course will be titled “The Real Game of Thrones: From Modern Myths to Medieval Models.” The class will jointly consider both the Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin, as well as the HBO adaption of the novels and the ways in which both “echoes and adapts, as well as distorts the history and culture of the ‘medieval world’ of Eurasia from c. 400 to 1500 CE” as they pertain to “a set of archetypal characters at the heart of Game of Thrones — the king, the good wife, the second son, the adventurer, and so on — with distinct analogues in medieval history, literature, religion, and legend.” Sign us up please.

The course will be taught by professors Sean Gilsdorf, a medieval historian, and Racha Kirakosian, an assistant professor of German and the Study of Religion. Gilsdorf told Time that the course will depend largely upon the biographies of medieval queens, “Game of Thrones does dramatize nicely some fundamental things going on in medieval courts. Tensions between a queen and the younger women who marry their sons are some ‘Real Housewives of 10th-century Germany’ kind of stuff, where you see these women going after each other.”

As an example, Cersei Lannister shares many similarities with medieval German queen Kriemhild according to Kirakosian, as well as general similarities to the overall Game of Thrones narrative such as “both stories involve female rulers whose husbands were killed in a hunt and competition with foreign queens at court.” No word on whether or not any of those queens blew up a church full of people with wildfire.

Former students “made” Kirakosian watch the HBO adaption, and she was quick to notice the real world similarities. Kirakosian was already teaching many of the real world scenarios that form the the basis of Game of Thrones, and believed those were the portions that were most resonating with students who were fans of the show. Furhter adapting her curriculum proved easy for Kirakosian.

There is hope that the class will serve as “recruitment tool” in order to drive attention towards medieval studies, as well as humanities, departments that are struggling to attract new students. We know it would work on us. We already Googles “how hard is it to get into Harvard?”

 

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Via http://winteriscoming.net/2017/06/04/harvard-university-to-officially-offer-game-of-thrones-themed-history-class/