Università Roma Tre

***2020 timetable, Semester II, First Class 2 marzo: The cultural History of Early Modern Europe, M-STO/02, Lunedì e mercoledì 16-18.00***

Lectures are held on Mondays (2 hours) and Seminars are held on Wednesdays (2 hours). Classes are scheduled over 9 weeks of the semester. Site Visits around central Rome are scheduled in the 3 final weeks of the course in the place of Lectures. There is at least one scheduled Independent Reading Week during term time, i.e. no classes in that week.

Taking as its focus the early modern period in Europe (1450–1750), this course is structured around one of the field’s most important areas of research in recent decades, cultural history. Applied in its broadest sense, it will provide not only the lens through which we view the period itself, but also our starting point for a critical analysis of its historiography, with a particular focus on classic studies from the Anglophone world that formed the foundations of the field. Our study will be grouped around three key themes that lend themselves best to a cultural-historical analysis: the so-called Renaissance, Reformations, and Age of Discovery. Case studies, primary documents, site visits in Rome, and critical readings of select secondary studies will help us explore the cultural history of the early-modern past, as well as problematize it through assessing the interpretations that have been the most influential in shaping the discipline.
The course will be relevant, not just to those students who are undertaking studies in the pre-modern period, but also to those who wish to broaden their understanding of key historical approaches and methodologies that underpin historical research in any field, especially from the Anglophone world.

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Readings from a variety of primary and secondary sources are set for this course.

All readings are available at the beginning of the course, or on request. They are downloadable in pdf format. For further details and access to the readings, please contact the Lecturer.

A recommended key text that provides useful background to the period (and serves as required reading in a number of classes), is: Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).