An interdisciplinary introduction to the Renaissance as it spread beyond Italy, both as it took root in Northern Europe and made an impact around the globe. This class will examine how the cultural forms of the Renaissance – art, architecture, philosophy, politics, music, drama, and literature – developed through engagement with ancient Roman and Greek models and expanded across Europe (in such places as the Iberian Peninsula, France, England, Scotland, Germany, the Low Countries, and Poland). It will also explore how Renaissance culture shaped and was shaped by interactions between Europeans and peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Taking into account the contexts of religious conflict, technological change, colonization, gender dynamics, and cross-cultural exchanges brought about by warfare and global networks of trade, this class will use a variety of disciplinary frameworks to examine the Renaissance as an expansive cultural phenomenon. Students investigate the intellectual frameworks through which early modern Europeans made sense of human diversity, with a focus on the enduring influence of these ideologies in the perception and representation of difference today. Course materials may include such examples as portraits of a Black duke in Renaissance Florence, trial records of falsely accused Jewish men, clothes to disguise oneself as an Ottoman princess, and plays featuring Roma fortune-tellers.
An interdisciplinary introduction to the Renaissance as it spread beyond Italy, both as it took root in Northern Europe and made an impact around the globe. This class will examine how the cultural forms of the Renaissance – art, architecture, philosophy, politics, music, drama, and literature – developed through engagement with ancient Roman and Greek models and expanded across Europe (in such places as the Iberian Peninsula, France, England, Scotland, Germany, the Low Countries, and Poland). It will also explore how Renaissance culture shaped and was shaped by interactions between Europeans and peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Taking into account the contexts of religious conflict, technological change, colonization, gender dynamics, and cross-cultural exchanges brought about by warfare and global networks of trade, this class will use a variety of disciplinary frameworks to examine the Renaissance as an expansive cultural phenomenon. Students investigate the intellectual frameworks through which early modern Europeans made sense of human diversity, with a focus on the enduring influence of these ideologies in the perception and representation of difference today. Course materials may include such examples as portraits of a Black duke in Renaissance Florence, trial records of falsely accused Jewish men, clothes to disguise oneself as an Ottoman princess, and plays featuring Roma fortune-tellers.
