2020-21 Academic Catalog

We will examine the development of regional states in fourteenth-century Italy.  We will explore the social, religious, political, environmental, and cultural aspects of a changing world between the medieval and the modern. The Black Death, a triad of literary greats (Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio), maps, humanism, political theory, water rights, saints, business, and travelers to and from Italy are some of the themes we will engage with as we try to understand how contemporaries conceptualized the political, spatial, and cultural boundaries of their world.  Students will conduct original research relating to the seminar topics culminating in a substantial research paper.