Professor Barbara Fuchs is teaching the next CMRS LAMAR Seminar in the fall. This class receives funding from CMRS to bring distinguished scholars to UCLA to lecture, participate, and discuss their work with students and faculty, giving UCLA students a chance to meet with prominent authorities in the field of Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
The course is numbered English 246 and titled “Early Modern Empire and the Cultures of Encounter.” This interdisciplinary seminar will consider theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary questions. The class will read together a corpus of historiographic and literary texts (Columbus, More, Ercilla, Garcilaso de la Vega, Poma, Behn) and also host visits from specialists at UCLA and beyond in a range of related disciplines (History/History of Science/History of Art/ Classics). How have various fields negotiatied the specificities of the European encounter with the New Word vs. larger questions of indigeneity and sovereignty around the globe? How has recent work on empire in a global context impacted the various fields? How do scholars in these fields move between the specificities of the local and the broader theorization of culture in imperial contexts? All readings will be available in English.