History 3000: Paper ideas for students

Arts and architecture:

Art: Purpose and function in various cultures (considered separately or comparatively)

Painting (murals, frescoes, books, canvas)

Medieval book art

Sculpture (free-standing, architectural, portable)

“Secular” (i.e., “non-religious”) architecture (palaces, castles, etc.)

Religious architecture (temples, cathedrals, monasteries, mosques)

Monumental architecture (large buildings, religious or non-religious; individual buildings or groups of buildings, e.g., Roman forum, Akropolis of Athens)

Music

Purpose and function in various cultures (considered separately or comparatively)

Types of music within a culture (e.g., medieval music, religious and popular)

Literature

Epic literature (e.g., Gilgamesh, Iliad, Aeneid): purpose and function in various cultures

Religious literature

Drama: purpose and function in various cultures

Oral and written literature

Religion, Philosophy, Sciences, and other ideas

Greek philosophy—individual philosophers or schools, or comparisons between them

Influence of Plato/Aristotle on western history

Islamic preservation of Greek philosophy and science

Relationship between religious ideas and philosophies

Comparison of “official” and “popular” religion (e.g., within medieval Europe)

Relationship between science and other cultural institutions (religious, artistic, literary, etc.)

Other topics

How the Irish saved civilization

How Islam saved civilization

How one civilization influences another (e.g., Greek-Roman; Roman-German)

Medieval book culture