Once the historical-cultural process is understood (see the course "Culture in Its Historical Dimension"), it is essential to provide students with the appropriate analytical tools to critically study the conditions of cultural production, its formalization as a changing ideological foundation, and the mechanisms of selection, transmission, and reception throughout the various historical periods (particularly, as is the case in this course, the medieval millennium). In the Western world, classical culture has become the essential repository of knowledge for the training of elites. Thus, the cultural history of the West becomes a sequence of reinterpretations of the classical world that adapt to the aesthetic and political needs of each era, in a permanent dialectical relationship between past and present. The case of the Middle Ages is particularly interesting due to the always original nature of these reinterpretations, depending on the era and geographical latitude. Consequently, a degree in Cultural Studies requires not so much scholarly knowledge of the contents of a history of culture, but rather the foundations of the relationship between the past and the present to reveal the mechanisms of justification and legitimation of all types of authority (political, religious, and cultural).
1 - Transmission and reception of classical culture in medieval Europe: geopolitical aspects and worldview.
2 - Gender as a determining factor in political action.
3 - The encyclopedia as a mirror of the mental structure of the Middle Ages.
4 - The role of cathedral schools in cultural creation.
5 - The origin of universities.
6 - Metamorphosis of cultural education between the Middle Ages and Humanism.
7 - The Renaissance reinterpretation of the classical past. The case of the city.
8 - The material supports of culture: production, agents, media, promotion, dissemination, and consumption. Organic intellectuality, cultural referents, and power.