Identity Theft? 1500-1800

Catalog description

Religious persecution during the early modern period (16th-18th centuries) compelled Jews to attend Mass, Muslims to baptize their children and Protestants to count Hail Marys on a rosary. European exploration of Asia, Africa and the Americas may have inspired an Englishman to present himself as Taiwanese. During this period, a Basque nun transformed into a conquistador in Peru and courtiers changed to suit the social conventions of court. In crossing lines of religion, gender, race and class, were these individuals posing, passing and pretending? Today we might call some of them impostors and others self-actualized human beings. What was the difference between lying and "self-fashioning" in sixteenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe? What forces and phenomena compelled people to remake themselves? Was the early modern period the age of identity theft? Counts as a Communication Intensive course.