Admission requirements
Not applicable.
Description
Some historians have argued that the “integration of global space” is a defining feature of early modernity.
This course will synthesize scholarship on trade, migration, biological exchange, and cultural encounters.
This synthesis will be achieved by the weekly study of literature, which will be discussed intensively in every class session. The students will also work towards such a synthesis by writing an essay of +/- 7,000 words in which they can chose their own topic, within the overarching subject matter of encounters and the chronology of the early modern period. This paper must include (printed) primary sources that help the student to build his/her argument and upon which the analysis of the paper must be (partially) based.
Course objectives
General learning objectives
The student has acquired:
- The ability to independently identify and select literature, using traditional and modern techniques;
- The ability to independently identify and select sources, using traditional and modern techniques;
- The ability to analyse and evaluate a corpus of sources with a view to addressing a particular historical problem;
- The ability to analyse and evaluate literature with a view to addressing a particular historical problem;
- The ability to independently formulate a clear and well-argued research question, taking into account the theory and method of the field and to reduce this question to accessible and manageable sub-questions;
- The ability to independently set up and carry out an original research project that can make a contribution to existing scholarly debates;
- The ability to give a clear and well-founded oral and written report on research results in correct English, when required, or Dutch, meeting the criteria of the discipline;
- The ability to participate in current debates in the specialisation;
- (ResMA only:) The ability to participate in a discussion of the theoretical foundations of the discipline.
Learning objectives, pertaining to the specialisation
- Thorough knowledge and comprehension of one of the specialisations or subspecialisations as well as of the historiography of the specialisation, focusing particularly on the following:
- in the specialisation Colonial and Global History: 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);
- in the subspecialisation Maritime History also: the development of maritime history from the 16th century onwards; insight into recent issues in the field.
- in the specialisation Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence: 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 1600-2000, with a focus on (urban) networks (within and across borders);
- Thorough knowledge and comprehension of the theoretical, conceptual and methodological aspects of the specialisation or subspecialisation in question, with a particular focus on the following:
- in the specialisation Colonial and Global History: empirical research from a comparative and connective perspective;
- in the subspecialisation Maritime History also: comparative research; archive research.
- in the specialisation Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence: the interdisciplinary approach (application of theories and methods from social sciences), the comparative perspective (diachronic and synchronic) and working with a large variety of primary sources;
Learning objectives, pertaining to this Research Seminar
The student:
- gains knowledge of, and insight into, the process of early modern encounters, with an emphasis on the role of biological, economic, and social factors in shaping and creating these encounters.
- gains knowledge of, and insight into, the major historiographical debates surrounding the ways in which early moderns people encountered one another.
- Explores the use of key concepts such as globalization, institutions, networks for the development of a hypothesis to be explored in a research paper.
- Knowledge of and comprehension of developments in political economy since ca 1600, increasing global interdependence throughout the centuries
- (ResMA only): gains 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 specialization.
Timetable
See Timetable and deadlines History
Mode of instruction
- Seminar
Course Load
Total course load for the course: 280
Hours spent on attending lectures and seminars: 28 hours
Time for studying the compulsory literature: 135 hours
Time for completing assignments (presentations and weekly assignments): 37 hours
Time to write a paper: 80 hours
Assessment method
Assessment
Written paper (ca. 7500 words, based on research in primary sources, including footnotes and bibliography)
Measured learning objectives: 1-8, 10-16 (ResMA: 1-9, 10-17)Oral presentations
Measured learning objectives: 3-7Weekly Assignments: 1 (students read +/- 100 pages and write an approximately one-page paper in which they outline the unifying theme of the readings, their response to the readings, based in part on their previous course work and the discussions in class as the class proceeds, and any questions for discussion that they may have).
Measured learning objectives: 4, 7, 8, 11, 13-16Participation
Measured learning objectives: 7, 8, 10
Weighing
Written paper: 60%
Oral presentation 1: 5%
Oral presentation 2: 5%
Weekly assignments: 10 %
Class participation: 20%
The final grade for the course is established by determining the weighted average with the additional requirement that the written paper must always be sufficient.
Deadlines
Written papers should be handed in within the given deadline.
Resit
Should the overall mark be unsatisfactory, the paper is to be revised after consultation with the instructor.
Blackboard
Blackboard will be used for turning in all assignments, announcements and extra informatio. To make certain course materials are available (syllabus, etc.) and, if there is demand from the students, for a discussion forum.
Reading list
- Charles Parker, Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
This book should be purchased and read before the first class
Registration
Via uSis
Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs
Not applicable.
Contact
Remarks
None