MEDIEVAL LIVES
Saturday 5 February, 2011
Location: The Bob Wright Centre (Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Science Building), Room B150, UVic Campus
Faculty Coordinator: Dr. Marcus Milwright, Director, Medieval Studies Program
It has been estimated that the average life expectancy for men and women in Medieval Britain was only about 30 years. In the Middle East and North Africa the average lifespan may have been as long as 35. While such figures should be viewed with considerable scepticism, there seems little doubt that factors such as disease, war, economic inequality and poor diet and hygiene combined to make life for most people (to borrow the words of Thomas Hobbes) “nasty, brutish, and short.”Perhaps because life was so precarious, medieval readers in Europe and the Islamic world were avid consumers of the biographies of saints, political and religious leaders, poets, warriors, criminals and madmen. This workshop will explore the many ways in which the lives of medieval men and women were represented in words and images, and will ask what these representations can tell us about the societies for which they were made.
Course Code: ASMS006 2011S W01 Fee: $56; current UVic students $11 (prices include HST and refreshments)
You may register:
- at the Continuing Studies building (on the UVic campus at the corner of Ring and Gabriola Roads), 2nd floor reception (cash, cheque or credit card accepted)
- by calling the registration office at 250-472-4747—credit card only
- online at http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/aspnet/Course/Detail/?code=ASMS006—credit card only
Parking: There is a flat fee of $2 in all campus lots evenings and all day Saturday.
This workshop is sponsored by the Division of Continuing Studies and the Medieval Studies Program, UVic.
