Università Roma Tre

Objectives and Program.

This course is taught in English.
Europe before the modern era produced one of the most dynamic, transformative, and violent epochs in world history. The study of early-modern Europe also has generated some of the most exciting and important scholarship in the discipline of History: key approaches and methodologies – often borrowed from other disciplines – have evolved and been adapted to historical research, in turn influencing many fields beyond Historical Studies.

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.

Please note that the content and assessment of this course is designed to accommodate students who do not have English as a first language, or who are studying Early-Modern History for the first time.

Readings from a variety of primary and secondary sources are provided at the beginning of the course. They are made available to students online. 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).