Category Archives: Early Modern World

Symposium on English and Dutch in the Early Modern World

The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago is holding a Symposium on English and Dutch in the Early Modern World. The symposium will be held on Friday, October 19, 2012, 9 am – 3 pm, in the … Continue reading

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Lee Palmer Wandel Lecture at the Newberry Library

The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago hosts an annual Lecture in Early Modern History. This year’s lecture is being delivered by Lee Palmer Wandel, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, on … Continue reading

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Port Cities and the Slave Trade

In the early modern period, many port cities were intimately connected with the slave trade. Ports ringing the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, and other bodies of water acted as harbors for slave ships and resale markets for human … Continue reading

Posted in Early Modern Europe, Early Modern World, European History, Globalization, History in the Media, History of Violence, Human Rights, Maritime History | Leave a comment

Samurai Boys in Italy

Italian archives continue to offer up wonderful evidence for historians of the early modern world. The rich records of Italian principalities, republics, merchants, and religious organizations offer some of the best sources for using World History approaches in the early … Continue reading

Posted in Archival Research, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern World, Globalization, Italian History, Noble Culture and History of Elites, Reformation History, Renaissance Art and History | Leave a comment

NEH Summer Institute on Mediterranean History

I am currently in Barcelona participating in a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute on Networks and Knowledge: Synthesis and Innovation in the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Medieval Mediterranean. This month-long faculty seminar provides an opportunity for university and college professors … Continue reading

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Kuhn’s Paradigm Shift at 50

This year is the 50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, with its influential concept of the “paradigm shift.” The book has reportedly sold over 1.4 million copies and is still on science and history of science … Continue reading

Posted in Academic Publishing, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern World, European History, Historiography and Social Theory, History of Medicine, History of Science | Leave a comment

Renaissance Society of America Conference 2012

The Renaissance Society of America Conference 2012 has now concluded.  The conference, which is the premier conference on interdisciplinary Renaissance studies in North America, was held from 21-24 March at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington, DC. This annual conference … Continue reading

Posted in Academic Publishing, Conferences, Current Research, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern World, Italian History, Mediterranean World, Renaissance Art and History | Leave a comment

Denying Communion in DC

The Washington Postreports on a Christian woman who was denied Communion in Washington, D.C.:Deep in grief, Barbara Johnson stood first in the line for Communion at her mother’s funeral Saturday morning. But the priest in front of her immediately made … Continue reading

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Renaissance Art and Modern Banking

Italian Renaissance bankers arguably invented the concepts and tools of modern banking, including bills of exchange, letters of credit, deposit banking, branch banks, and double-entry bookkeeping. A recent exhibition on Money and Beauty: Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities … Continue reading

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Coffee in the Early Modern Mediterranean

We take coffee shops for granted today. From global chain like Starbucks to classic Parisian cafés and local American diners, coffee shops deliver caffeine to people around the world. Coffee consumption became global in the seventeenth century, when a coffee … Continue reading

Posted in Early Modern Europe, Early Modern World, European History, Food and Cuisine History, Mediterranean World, Renaissance Art and History | Leave a comment