Course Description
Focuses on mobility in the early modern world (1500-1800), including the circulation of people, knowledge, and capital. Looking at the edges of empire demonstrates the limits of empire building and state authority. As circulation increased, cosmopolitanism emerged. At least one-half of the course concentrates on the Caribbean.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will complete additional requirements in
three areas. Graduate students will engage in two additional
research projects. The first involves mastering the existing
scholarship in a chosen topic in the transnational history of
mobility, in order to compare the varying perspectives that
modern historians have brought to questions such as the limits
of imperial authority, the nature of subjugation, and cross-
cultural encounters. The second is a research project on a
primary source or primary sources, to develop the students'
ability to work with the raw materials of history. These
research projects will lead to two additional writing
requirements, a study of the 'state of the question' of modern
historical research on the chosen topic, and an extensive
research paper analyzing primary sources. Graduate students
will develop these projects in conjunction with the professor
through additional meetings.
Athena Title
Pirates of the Caribbean
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course has two sets of learning objectives. First, both graduate and undergraduate students will become familiar with politics of mobility in the early modern world (1500-1800) by closely considering the activities of those who circulated from one place to another, particularly across the boundaries of empire. A topical focus on how such mobility affected politics, the economy, culture, and gender roles will allow students to question the limits of state authority and will draw attention to the subjectivity of individual historical actors. Second, undergraduate students will improve their analytical thinking, reading, writing, and verbal expression. They will develop and strengthen their abilities to analyze, verbally articulate their viewpoints on, compare, and write about history. They will consider what they can learn from primary and secondary sources, and they will work toward developing their own interpretations and arguments. They will express and defend their analyses and interpretations through written assignments, which will include primary and secondary source evidence, and will make an original argument. Graduate students will apply course themes in primary source research. They will focus on one or more of the themes in an original research paper that draws on sources read in class as well as research that they will conduct in addition to required class readings.
Topical Outline
1. Pirates and Politics 2. Pirates and the Economy 3. Pirates and Culture 4. Pirates and Gender 5. Captives and Politics 6. Captives and the Economy 7. Captives and Culture 8. Captives and Gender 9. Travelers and Politics 10. Travelers and the Economy 11. Travelers and Culture 12. Captives and Gender 13. Popular Representations of Pirates, Captives, and Travelers