The Early Modern and Mediterranean Worlds Workshops brings together a diverse group of students and faculty who work in the Early Modern period in a variety of languages, topics, geographies and disciplines. Our focus on the Mediterranean means that our discussions emphasize the cross and inter-cultural relations between Europe, Asia, Africa, and even the Americas, a fundamental aspect of the Early Modern period. Furthermore, we work within a broad historical scope (1200-1800), a necessary condition to think critically about the historical and cultural particularities of Early Modernity. Such a broad time frame allows for the discussion of a wide range of topics, while also encouraging a critical understanding of the workings of historical periodization and the development of historical processes. Focusing on the Mediterranean, moreover, moves the focus from imperial histories to a history based on contact, exchange and negotiation. The complexity of the Early Modern era demands that scholars have a strong interdisciplinary approach and a broad understanding of the diverse cultural relations that shaped the period; both of these traits characterize our workshop.

This workshop is designed for graduate students and other presenters to receive feedback from the professors and students who attend the workshop, and to help generate interdisciplinary discussion for the benefit of presenters and workshop attendees alike. We intend the workshop to be broadly inclusive in terms of time, discipline, methodology, and geography. We hope that this growing discussion will be facilitated by the inclusion of panels and roundtable discussions in the workshop schedule throughout the year alongside the traditional presentations of graduate student and faculty research. We focus on every aspect of early modernity, broadly defined as ca. 1200-1800, and we welcome projects that push the workshop’s boundaries, from longue-durée studies looking backwards or forwards from the Early Modern period, to Mediterranean and European cultures’ interactions with distant regions, including Asia and the Americas.