Professor Bastress-Dukehart
Office: 324 TLC
Office Hours: Mon, 10-11, Wed, 10-12, Thu, 10-11
Phone: 580-5265
bastress@skidmore.edu
Shaping Early Modern Identities
Europe from 1300 to 1789
This course explores the social, religious, economic, and cultural forces that individually and collectively transformed the lives of the European communities between the years 1300 and 1789. It addresses the major cultural themes that have long characterized the transition from medieval-to-modern Europe: The Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment. It also covers the attitudes and values of those peoples who may not be represented in these classifications. These include women, non-Christians, and non-elite social groups.
This course aims to introduce you to 1) leading themes of current research in the field of early modern Europe, 2) types of argumentation employed in the different genres of history, and 3) ways of conceptualizing history, that is, of constructing historical analyses and narratives.
Our Monday class meetings will be lectures. Each week I will introduce a new theme that we will discuss during our Tuesday and Thursday classes. Thursday classes will be student led. Your participation in this course is essential; your classmates will depend on you to be prepared to discuss the materials under consideration.
Required Reading
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of
Worlds
Erasmus/Luther, Discourse on Free Will
Margaret C. Jacob, The Enlightenment
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Margurite de Navarre, The Heptameron
Jonathan Spence, The Question of Hu
Voltaire, Candide
Schedule
Weeks I & II
5 Sept
Introduction: The problems of Early Modern Europe
9 Sept
The Waning of the Middle Ages
Read: The Violent Tenor of Life (Handout)
10 Sept
The Horrors of the Plague
Read: Marchione di Coppo Stefani, The Florentine Chronicle http://www.iath.virginia.edu/osheim/marchione.html
Read: Pistoia, "Ordinances for Sanitation in a Time of Mortality"
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/osheim/pistoia.html
12 Sept
The Horror Spreads
Read: The Black Death **
First Paper due
The Age of Renaissance
Weeks III & IV
16 Sept
No Class (Yom Kippur)
17 Sept
The Perfectibility of Man
Read: Oration on the Dignity of Man http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REN/ORATION.HTM
19 Sept
The state as a Work of Art
Read: Petrarch, Preface to his Familiar Letters,http://www.towson.edu/~tinkler/reader/petrarch.html
23 Sept
Seeking Earlier Models of the Perfect State
Read: Machiavelli, The Prince
24 Sept
The Politics of the Renaissance Italian State
Read: The Prince
26 Sept
The State of the State
Read: The Prince
The Age of Reformation
Weeks V & VI
30 Sept
Martin Luther's Theology of Reform
Read: Martin Luther, The Tower Experience http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1519luther-tower.html
1 Oct.
The Debate is set
Read: Discourse on Free Will, part one
3 Oct
The Debate continues
Read: Discourse on Free Will, part one
7 Oct
Luther's Response to Erasmus
Read: Discourse on Free Will, part two
Second Paper due
8 Oct
More Radical Reform
Read: John Calvin: On Predestination http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/calvin-predest.html
10 Oct
The Politics of Reform
Read: The Theatre of Martyrdom in the French Reformation 1527 http://www.tasc.ac.uk/histcourse/reformat/maincore/past8128.htm
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1572stbarts.html
The Age of Rebellion
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Weeks VII & VIII
14 Oct
Responses to Reformation: Peasants
Read: The Communal Basis of Pre-1800 Peasant Uprisings (handout)
15 Oct
The Peasants' War of 1525
Read: The Twelve Articles http://www.tasc.ac.uk/histcourse/reformat/germpeas/bay1018.htm#title
Read: Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes http://www.tasc.ac.uk/histcourse/reformat/maincore/rupp6213.htm#title
17 Oct
Midterm exam
21 Oct
Responses to Reformation: The Clergy and the nobility
Read: The Heptameron
22 Oct
Responses to Reformation: Women
Read: The Heptameron
24 Oct
Responses to Reformation: Sex and Violence
Read: The Heptameron
Exogenous and Endogenous
Identity Crises
Weeks IX & X
28 Oct
Crossing the Seas: The Age of Discovery
Read: Christopher Columbus, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html
Ferdinand Magellan's Voyage, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1519magellan.html
29 Oct
Settlement and Conquest
Read: Hernan Cortés, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1520cortes.html
31 Oct
Justification for Man's Cruelty to Man?
Read: An Aztec Account, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/aztecs1.html
Read: Bartolomé de las Casas, The Black Legend, http://classweb.uchicago.edu/Civilization/American/Supp135/LasCasas.html
Third Paper Due
4 Nov
Crises of Governments
Read: The Second Treatise on Civil Government
5 Nov
Monarchy vs. Civil Government
Read: The Second Treatise on Civil Government
7 Nov
Looking Ahead
Read: The Second Treatise on Civil Government
Superstition and Science
Collide in the 17th Century
Weeks XI & XII
11 Nov
Witchcraft: The Beginning
Read: Richard Kieckhefer, Witch Trials in Medieval Europe;
The Witch of Berkeley; The Inquisition of Toulouse **
12 Nov
The Craze
Read: Brian Levack, State-Building and Witch Hunting in Early Modern Europe;
The Persecutions at Bamberg **
14 Nov
The Decline
Read: Brian Levack, The End of Witch Trials;
Michel de Montaigne, Ignorance and Witchcraft **
18 Nov
The New Science
Read: Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
Fourth Paper Due
19 Nov Read: Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
21 Nov Read: Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
The Enlightenment
Weeks XIII, XIV & XV
25 Nov
Expanding Intellectual Horizons
Read: The Enlightenment: Introduction
26 Nov
Read: The Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
28 Nov
No Class (Thanksgiving)
2 Dec
Expanding Cultural Horizons?
Read: The Question of Hu
3 Dec
Read: The Question of Hu
5 Dec
Read: The Question of Hu
9 Dec
Voltaire has the Final Word
Read: Candide
10 Dec Review
Fifth Paper due
Writing Assignments
There will be five short (3-4 page) papers, a discussion presentation,
and mid-term and final.exams
Paper #1 10%
Paper #2 10%
Paper #3 10%
Paper #4 10%
Paper #5 10%
Midterm Exam 15%
Class Participation 10%
Discussion Presentation 10%
Final Exam 15%
Web Resources
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/crrs/Databases/WWW/Bookmarks.html Reformation Texts
http://orb.rhodes.edu/media.html A different way to look at the Middle Ages
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html Medieval Texts
http://www.msu.edu/~georgem1/history/medieval.htm Medieval texts
http://www.arca.net/uffizi/index.htm Images of the paintings at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy
http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/medren.html Medieval and Early Modern primary sources
http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/ The Columbus Navigation Homepage
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTH16thcentury.html Renaissance Art
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/n/northernrenaissance.html Northern Renaissance Art
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-home.html Catholic and Protestant Reformation Texts
http://www.jstor.org/jstor/ On-line journal articles