Early Modern Europe

The Department of History welcomes applicants interested in studying European history from 1350-1700. With faculty specializing in Italian, Iberian, German, and French history, graduate students are trained broadly in the history of continental Europe, including its Eurasian, Mediterranean, and Atlantic connections, as well as in the area of their research specialization. Thematic areas of emphasis include religion and society; political thought and practice; women and gender; regional and imperial identities; and culture and power.

We welcome transregional research and offer supporting fields in medieval and modern Europe, the medieval/early modern Mediterranean and Islamic worlds, early modern China, colonial North and Latin America, and the Atlantic World, making early modern Europe a key link in our departmental strength in the global early modern. Interdisciplinary training may include Art History, English, Romance Languages and Literatures, Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. 

Dissertation topics studied by current and recent students include local religion, gender, and power in Northern Iberia, 1550-1800; the Anglophone merchants of Livorno, Italy and the sociability of commerce in early modernity; sacred economies and local identities in the March of Ancona, 1348-1453; and feigned sanctity in Spanish Italy.

Please visit the faculty pages – and contact the relevant faculty – to learn more about their research. 

Core Faculty:

Daniel Bornstein
Alexandre Dubé
Christine Johnson
Christina Ramos