Harvard University has recently announced to introduce a new Mythology course which will examine George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, as well as HBO’s TV adaptation.
The class will compare real historical figures with show archetypes including “the king, the good wife, the second son, and the adventurer.”
Racha Kirakosian, one of the professors who will teach the course, explained:
“When I read medieval verse epics with my students, they’d say, ‘Oh, that’s like in Game of Thrones’. But if anything at all, it’s the other way around. Isn’t it partly our job as professors to use that interest and go deeper?”
According to reports, the course is being offered at the introductory 100-level.
The course, titled as the Real Game of Thrones: From Modern Myths to Medieval Models, the folklore and mythology course will study the HBO TV show based on George R R Martins’ books that “echoes and adapts, as well as distorts the history and culture of the medieval world of Eurasia from c. 400 to 1500 CE”.
With the number of undergraduates who choose to major in humanities plummeting, Harvard will be hoping the course can give the discipline a much-needed shot in the arm, providing tge students by the $40,000 study fee.
As per a leading international tabloid, Sean Gilsdorf, a medieval historian and Administrative Director and Lecturer in Medieval Studies at the varsity saying, “the course will study 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”.
Are you interested? If yes then get yourself registered before the time runs out! Good luck.
