Port Cities in the Maritime World, 1500-1800

Catalog description

This course examines port cities’ role in making the maritime world in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Oceans structured human experiences of space and time, and port cities functioned as sites where people mitigated the vastness and uncertainty of oceanic travel and trade. Five themes are central to this course: 1) material exchange, 2) movement of people, 3) knowledge production, 4) contests for power, and 5) cultural imaginings. While the course will primarily focus on the Atlantic world, we will also learn how goods, ideas, and people moved across the Indian and Pacific oceans. We will also discuss coasts, harbors, and islands that performed functions similar to port cities. The course is divided into two parts. Part I will focus on the role port cities played in the development of the maritime world. Part II will focus on how port cities shaped the everyday lives of the people involved. This course is of particular relevance to students interested in how economics, technology, migration, and geopolitics shaped the currents of early modern globalization. Satisfies History major and minor. Satisfies Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement. Satisfies Cultural Diversity Requirement.