‘Circa 1000’ course is topic of In the Company of Scholars talk

The first In the Company of Scholars lecture of the academic year will feature three faculty members discussing “Circa 1000,” a graduate course that looks at happenings worldwide at the turn of the 10th century.

Members of the Yale community are invited to attend the talk, which will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. in Rm. 119 of the Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St. A reception will follow. 

The lecture will also be livestreamed on Yale YouTube.

Valerie Hansen, Mary Miller, and Anders Winroth are team teaching “Circa 1000.” Hansen, professor of history, is an expert on China; Miller, Sterling Professor of the History of Art, specializes in the art of the ancient New World; and Winroth, the Forst Family Professor of History, studies the history of medieval Europe.  

The course description for “Circa 1000” reads:

“The world in the year 1000, when the different regions of the world participated in complex networks. Archaeological excavations reveal that the Vikings reached L’Anse aux Meadows, Canada, at roughly the same time that the Kitan people defeated China’s Song dynasty and established a powerful empire stretching across the grasslands of Eurasia. Viking chieftains donned Chinese silks while Chinese princesses treasured Baltic amber among their jewelry. In what is now the American Southwest, the people of Chaco Canyon feasted on tropical chocolate, while the lords of Chichen Itza wore New Mexican turquoise—yet never knew the Huari lords of the central Andes. Islamic armies conquered territory in western China (modern Xinjiang). “

In the Company of Scholars is sponsored by Lynn Cooley, dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.