Cogut Institute for the Humanities
Center for the Study of the Early Modern World

Early Modern World

The center brings together a range of expertise to focus on the multiple historical traditions of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe — and on potent connections between them.

The term "Early Modern" designates the historical period of globalization, during which sustained interaction between different regions of the world occurred as a result of exploration or conquest and colonization. Transfers and exchanges of ideas, arts, technologies, and human populations between those regions are an important object of study: material and visual culture, performance, languages and literatures, systems of belief, and narratives of the past can all be viewed from diverse vantage points.

Recent News

A range of book history and related events at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, April-May 2022. Short courses are fee-paying. All other events are free to attend with advance booking. Events marked * will take place in person; otherwise, events are online.
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Long considered sacred, during the medieval era the mountain evolved from a venue for solitary ascetics into a well-regulated pilgrimage site. In Faith in Mount Fuji Janine Sawada asserts that the rise of the Fuji movement epitomizes a broad transformation in popular religion that took place in early modern Japan.
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The project surveys the work of the first known European poet on the American continent, who wrote in Latin. Profoundly influenced by Erasmus of Rotterdam, Cabrera addressed contemporary concerns: his invectives against the corruption of the Spaniards in the Indies anticipated the stance that would be adopted later in the 1540s by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas.
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For those of you who are interested in the history of the book/history of print/history of readership, Brown University has joined with Harvard and Yale in promoting a graduate conference in the history of the book, scheduled this year for Monday, May 2, 2022 (virtually, with Yale as the "host" institution).

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News from the Center

CFP (due 3-1-22): Intersectionality in the Early Global World

Research on the premodern intersection of race, gender, and sexuality has steadily increased as a result of the efforts of a diverse group of scholars working across traditional periodization and geographic limits. Nevertheless, a great deal of work remains to be done to understand the many varieties of ways such aspects of identities intersected and were mobilized or challenged in the marking of difference.
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We are delighted to announce that this year's Chair's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities from the Rhode Island Humanities Council is Professor Onésimo Almeida!

The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities’ annual Celebration of the Humanities event recognizes leadership, creative achievement, innovation, and scholarship. Each fall they host a Celebration of the Humanities to celebrate the people and projects that make Rhode Island a vital place to live and recognize the work of extraordinary members of Rhode Island’s public humanities community.
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