Studies in Renaissance Literature

This course offers an introduction to Renaissance and early modern studies, focusing on debates about secularism as they pertain to four topics: the state, the human, literature, and society. We will read works by Dante, Luther, and Savonarola, Las Casas, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Milton, Lucy Hutchinson, Ann Halkett, and Giambattista Vico. The course will be co-taught by a historian and literary scholar and the methodological differences between these approaches will be one of the main topics of the seminar. The course satisfies the Intellectual History requirement of the Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies.