Monsters and Marvels: Explaining the Unknown in the Early Modern World.

3 units

Historians recently have seized upon the idea of a Global Renaissance, suggesting that the radical changes we associate with Europe from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries were the actual results of a first wave of global exchange between Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. This courses traces the ways Europeans made sense of these new contacts, from inventing monsters and eating mummies, to amassing unicorn horns and using indigenous maize in religious rites. It asks students to reflect on how habits for collecting and verifying knowledge have changed across time and how we still deal (fake news!) with stories that seem too marvelous or unfamiliar to be true.