Interdepartmental 106 - MAPPING THE RENAISSANCE
Fall
2013
01
2.00
William Oram; Douglas Patey; Marjorie Senechal
T 03:00-04:50
Smith College
20048-F13
FORD 240
woram@smith.edu; dpatey@smith.edu; senechal@smith.edu
What was the Renaissance? The word is literally "rebirth" but, capitalized, it usually means European rediscovery of Greek and Roman cultures (mediated by translations from the Arabic) between 14th and 16th
centuries. However faithfully or fancifully the classics were revived (opinions vary), the period of the "Renaissance" reached far beyond literary and artistic cultures to new technologies, new sciences and new worlds: the invention of printing, the start of modern physics and astronomy, the "discovery" of the Americas; the enormous expansion of trade with all parts of the world and the beginnings of capitalist economics; the rise of Protestantism; the development of the nation state. In this 13-week course we?ll explore the explosion that was the Renaissance, from kings to sunspots, from mathematics to maps, from printing to painting to royal progresses. This is a course in which various disciplines will rub shoulders with one another in order to suggest the variety of this extraordinary moment. (E)
centuries. However faithfully or fancifully the classics were revived (opinions vary), the period of the "Renaissance" reached far beyond literary and artistic cultures to new technologies, new sciences and new worlds: the invention of printing, the start of modern physics and astronomy, the "discovery" of the Americas; the enormous expansion of trade with all parts of the world and the beginnings of capitalist economics; the rise of Protestantism; the development of the nation state. In this 13-week course we?ll explore the explosion that was the Renaissance, from kings to sunspots, from mathematics to maps, from printing to painting to royal progresses. This is a course in which various disciplines will rub shoulders with one another in order to suggest the variety of this extraordinary moment. (E)