Admission requirements
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Description
Religion is one of the major markers, if not the most important marker of identity during the Early Modern period. Religious differences were at the core of identity definitions and they influenced every aspect of human life, including social and economic behavior.
At a time when religion was paramount to define identity, trade was vital as means of circulation of goods, knowledge and information across colonial and imperial borders. Exchanges forced men of different religions, ethnic groups, origins and colors to congregate, negotiate and make profit, putting a high premium on cross-cultural relationships and making trust perhaps the most valuable commodity in social and economic terms.
In this course we will understand the value of religion for cross-cultural trade and analyze how cross-cultural trade was heavily dependent upon trust across and beyond religious groups in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. We will also look into the role legal institutions and violence played in the development of cross-cultural trade relationships as well as how these relationships were expressed in material culture and contributed to redefine concepts and definitions of racism during the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period.
Course objectives
Objectives of the course are that students acquire:
The ability to independently identify and select sources
The ability to independently formulate a clear and well-argued research question
The ability to analyze and evaluate literature and sources for the purpose of producing an original scholarly argument
The ability to interpret a corpus of sources
Knowledge and comprehension of the sub-trackt Economic History and the specialisations Migration and Global Interdependence and Colonial and Global history and its historiography specifically:
- the origin and outcomes of the Great Divergence, developments in political economy since ca 1600, increasing global interdependence throughout the centuries
- the manner in which migrations (of people, goods and ideas) between and within states have led to shifts (in cohesion, ethnic composition, policies, imaging, culture, and power relations) in the period 1600-1800, with a focus on (urban) networks (within and across borders)
- insight in cross-cultural processes (including the infrastructure of shipping and other modes of communication) that affect regions across the world such as imperialism, colonisation, islamisation, modernisation and globalization (in particular during the period 1500-1800);
Specific objectives:
this course will underline the comprehension of how global (political, socio-economic, and cultural) connections interact with regional processes of identity and state formation; hence insight in cross-cultural processes (including the infrastructure of shipping and other modes of communication) that affect regions across the world such as imperialism, colonisation, islamisation, modernisation and globalization (in particular during the period 1200-1940)
empirical research from a comparative and connective perspective;
The ability to identify new approaches within existing academic debates and take a personal position in those debates based on the study of primary sources
Extra course objectives for Res Master Students:
The ability to interpret a potentially complex corpus of sources
The ability to identify new approaches within existing academic debates
Knowledge of the interdisciplinary aspects of the specialisation
Timetable
Mode of instruction
- Seminar
Course Load
Total: 280 hours
13 sessions (2 hours weekly) = 26 hours
Compulsory Literature = 70 hours
Specific Literature (including oral presentation) = 50 hours
Research and Reading Literature for Essay = 100 hours
Essay = 35 hours
Assessment method
A paper (8500 words) demonstrating the following skills:
The ability to independently identify and select sources
The ability to independently formulate a clear and well-argued research question
The ability to analyze and evaluate literature and sources for the purpose of producing an original scholarly argument
The ability to interpret a corpus of sources
The ability to give a clear written report on the research results in English or Dutch,
The ability to independently identify and select literature
The paper has to be based on extensive research on primary sources. The paper needs to reflect innovative insights.
A presentation and participiation in class discussions, demonstrating the following skills:
The ability to give a clear oral report on the research results in English or Dutch
The ability to provide constructive academic feedback
The ability to engage actively with other students (participation)
The ability to engage with constructive academic feedback (participation)
Feedback (peer review) to fellow students:
The ability to provide constructive and positive feedback to the work by fellow students in a peer review pool system
The ability to receive and incorporate feedback from fellow students and teacher
Overall Evaluation:
Essay/paper (8500 words) = 70% final mark
Oral Presentation = 10% final mark
Feedback session = 20% final mark
The final grade for the course is established by determining the weighted average combined with the additional requirement that the essay has to be sufficient.
Resit
Students have the chance to revise papers that have been deemed unsatisfactory (marks bellow 6) within two weeks after tutor’s feedback, at a date to be discussed between student and tutor.
Blackboard
No
Reading list
Francesca Trivellato, Leor Halevi and Catia Antunes (eds.), Religion and Trade in World History, 1000-1900, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014
Francisco Bethencourt, Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014
Linda Gregerson and Susan Juster (eds.), Empires of God. Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
The reading list (mentioned above) is compulsory and should be known before week 2 of the course. The specific weekly literature (made of articles, book chapters and primary sources) will be provided in the introductory session of the course
Registration
via uSis
Contact
Remarks
The compulsory literature needs to be read before week 2 of the course