Harvard University has announced that it will offer a medieval history course inspired by the epic fantasy drama "Game of Thrones".
To be introduced in autumn, the course will be titled "The Real Game of Thrones: From Modern Myths to Medieval Models", reported TIME magazine.
The folklore and mythology course will study the HBO TV show based on George R R Martin's 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".
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Along with Gilsdorf, Racha Kirakosian, who is an assistant professor of German and the Study of Religion, will also teach the newly-designed paper at Harvard.
Talking about the course, Kirakosian said, "'Game of Thrones' does dramatise 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."
The course is being offered at the introductory 100-level and she hopes it will be a "recruitment tool" for medieval studies and humanities courses in general, at a time when students are less interested in majoring in those fields.
"When I read medieval verse epics with my students, they'd say, 'Oh, that's like in 'Game of Thrones'. No, if anything at all, it's the other way around.