Kaveh Hemmat and Oliver Cussen will lead a discussion on “Empire and Early Modernity.” Instead of our usual format where a paper is circulated and discussed at the workshop, we are devoting this session to a discussion of a theme that cuts across the territorial divides that make up the early modern world.

Professor Cornell Fleischer, a founding member of the workshop, will say a few words about the workshop’s history, after which Oliver and Kaveh will get us started. We are circulating Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s article “Connected Histories” (see attachment) as a starting point for our discussion.

The idea for this workshop came as a result of conversations that workshop participants and coordinators had at the end of last year about the identity of our workshop. While our discussion will center around the concept of empire in the early modern world, we are also answering the question of why the Early Modern Workshop exists and why its scope is not limited to a specific region or period. We do not expect to answer all of these questions, but the idea is to start conversations that are interdisciplinary and that cross territorial divides.

Please find attached Subrahmanyam’s article, Oliver and Kaveh’s introduction to the workshop, and our fall schedule which you can also find online at http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/earlymodern