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Cultural Exchange and Conflict, 1492-1800
Professor Erica Bastress-Dukehart
Robert D. Clark Honors College
University of Oregon
This upper-division course is devoted to the European seaborne empire-building
at the beginning of the early modern period, the consequence of which lasted,
in the form of the European colonial empires, until well into our own century.
We will begin by learning about the economic, cultural, and political preconditions
for expansion, looking first at what new technologies and ideas from the Middle
Ages made exploration of the sea possible. At every landfall, however, we
will examine the cultures that the European
explorers encountered. Through close readings of primary source materials
from China, the Americas, and Africa, we will assess the circumstances surrounding
these encounters as we also study the intellectual responses to cultural exchange
and conflict. Throughout the term we will try to make sense of the consequences
of Europe's age of discovery as we discuss how that period transformed the
world.
READINGS
Urs Bitterli, Cultures in Conflict
J .H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance
Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man
Jan De Vries, The Econorny of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600-1750
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, ed., The European Opportunity (selections)
Bernal Diaz Del Castillo. The Conquest of New Spain
Jonathan Spence, The Question of Hu
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
A packet of primary sources
ASSIGNMENTS
This class will consist primarily of discussions about the materials we will
be reading.
Each week two or three students will lead a discussion and submit a collaborative
essay on. that week's subject and its significance. ln addition there will
be a 15-20 page research paper.
© 2001 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Created November 2002.