The Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean: Methods of Material Culture in the Twentieth Century

The Mediterranean was not only the center of European civilization for a very long time, it has been at the center of the revolution in twentieth-century historiography that put material evidence and the forms of its narration at the core of the historian’s practice. From Pirenne’s Mohammed and Charlemagne (1935) at the birth of Annales history through Braudel’s Mediterranean in the Age of Phillip II (1949) to Goitein’s Mediterranean Society (1966-88) and Wickham’s Reframing the Middle Ages (2005), historians interested in things have been attracted to the Mediterranean. In this course we study this revolution in which advances in knowledge are linked to advances in method; improved answers to better, more interesting questions. In terms of content we explore the history of the sea’s civilizations from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries. Especial attention will be paid to the way in which the Mediterranean has served as a crossroads of commerce and communication, as well as a laboratory for cultural historians of the material world. 3 credits. Satisfies the pre-1800 requirement.