Early Modern Europe

Curriculum guideline

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Course
HIST 2201
Discontinued
No
Course code
HIST 2201
Descriptive
Early Modern Europe
Department
History
Faculty
Humanities & Social Sciences
Credits
3.00
Start date
End term
202220
PLAR
No
Semester length
15
Max class size
35
Contact hours
Lecture: 2 hrs. per week / semester Seminar: 2 hrs. per week / semester
Method(s) of instruction
Lecture
Seminar
Learning activities

Classroom instruction will include both lectures and seminar discussions. Lectures will provide instruction on weekly topics with opportunities for student inquiry and discussion. Seminars will encourage active class participation in the analysis of assigned primary and secondary readings. Classroom instruction may also include student presentations on specific readings and/or topics, and other types of student-led activities. Classroom instruction may also include tutorials and workshops on transferrable skills, including research methods, academic citation practice, and presentation skills.

Course description
HIST 2201, Early Modern Europe, explores the social, political, and cultural developments that shaped Europe from the mid-fifteenth century to the French Revolution. Major themes include: conflict and cooperation between Church and State; the cultural and intellectual worlds of the Renaissance; religious and political conflict from the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation to the Thirty Years’ War; absolute monarchies and republics; commerce and long-distance trade; global travel and the creation of overseas empires; the Scientific Revolution and technological change; the role of reason in the age of Enlightenment; ideas of political order and social change.
Course content
A sample course outline may include the following topics.
Note: Content may vary according to the instructor’s selection of topics.
  1. Introduction: Early Modern Europe?
  2. Vitality and Renewal: Towns, States and Trade
  3. Medieval World Views: On Church and Reason
  4. The Renaissance: Humanism, Political Thought, and Cultural Transformation
  5. The Reformation: Origins and Consequences
  6. Exploration, Trade, and Overseas Imperialism
  7. The Elizabethan Era and the Golden Age of Spain
  8. The Rise and Decline of Sovereignty: France and England
  9. Attacks on Popular Culture: Witchcraft and Carnival
  10. Constitutionalism in the Making: The English Revolution
  11. Contested Empires: Ottoman, Austrian, and Russian
  12. The Scientific Revolution: The World Transformed
  13. The Enlightenment: Triumph of Reason?
  14. Enlightened Absolutism: The Promises and Limits of Reform
Learning outcomes
At the conclusion of the course, successful students will be able to demonstrate historical thinking skills, research skills, critical thinking skills and communication skills appropriate to the level of the course by:
  1. Locating, examining, assessing, and evaluating a range of primary sources and secondary scholarly literature critically and analytically (reading history).
  2. Constructing historical arguments, taking historical perspectives, and interpreting historical problems through different types of writing assignments of varying lengths (writing history).
  3. Participating in active and informed historical debate independently and cooperatively through classroom discussion and presentation (discussing history).
  4. Independently and cooperatively investigating the ways that history is created, preserved and disseminated through public memory and commemoration, oral history, community engagement, and other forms of popular visual and written expressions about the past (applying history).
Means of assessment

Assessment will be in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. Students may conduct research with human participants as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans.

Students will have opportunities to build and refine their research capacity and historical thinking skills through assessments appropriate to the level of the course. There will be at least three separate assessments, which may include a combination of midterm and final exams; research essays; primary document analysis assignments and essays; quizzes; map tests; in-class and online written assignments; seminar presentations; student assignment portfolios; group projects; creative projects; class participation.

The value of each assessment and evaluation, expressed as a percentage of the final grade, will be listed in the course outline distributed to students at the beginning of the term. Specific evaluation criteria will vary according to the instructor’s assessment of appropriate evaluation methods.

An example of one evaluation scheme:
Class Participation 10%
Student Presentation Project 15%
Primary Document Analyses 15%
Research essay 25%
Midterm exam 15%
Final exam 20%

Textbook materials

Textbooks and Course Readers may be chosen from the following list, to be updated periodically.

An instructor’s custom Course Reader may be required. Additional online resources may also be assigned. Additional reading lists and links to specific resources also may be provided online or in the instructor’s course outline.

Cameron, Euan, ed. Early Modern Europe. An Oxford History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Kagan, Donald, Steven Ozment, Frank M. Turner, and Alison Frank. The Western Heritage. Vol. 1, To 1740. 12th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2020.

Konnert, Mark. Medieval to Modern: Early Modern Europe. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Kumin, Bëat, The European World 1500–1800: An Introduction to Early Modern History. 3rd. ed. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. Vol. I, From the Renaissance to the Age of Napoleon. 4th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2019.

Slack, Paul. Plague: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Spielvogel, Jackson. Western Civilization: A Brief History. Vol. 1, To 1715. 10th ed. Boston: Cengage, 2020.

Terpstra, Nicolas, ed. Lives Uncovered: A Sourcebook of Early Modern Europe. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019.

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Early Modern Europe 1450-1789. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Winks, Robin W., and Lee Palmer Wandel. Europe in a Wider World, 1350-1650. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Winks, Robin W., and Thomas E. Kaiser. Europe, 1648-1815: From the Old Regime to the Age of Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

In addition, monographs or memoirs may be assigned.
Examples include:
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government.
Montaigne, Michel de. Essays.
More, Thomas. Utopia.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Émile.
Voltaire. Candide.

Prerequisites

One 1000-level History course, or permission of the instructor.