"Decolonizing" the Age of “Discovery"

Catalog description

This course interrogates how and why "Western" or "Eurocentric" perspectives dominate the ways the "Age of Discovery and Exploration" are taught and understood. As a crucial part of this project, we will explore alternatives to these narratives. Most of us educated in the "West" (and many of its former or current colonies) have been taught that the era beginning with Columbus and extending for the next two centuries, has been marked by the agency of "Europeans" whose discoveries led to globalization and modernity. Two not often asked questions in courses on this era will motivate our discussions: what kinds of travel, knowledge production, and artistic creation were people in other parts of the world involved in at the time of these well studied events and why are they excluded from the dominant narrative we are taught? Some additional questions include: in what ways did "European" "adventures," knowledge production and accumulation of profits derive from, or depend on that of other regions ? What impact socially, economically, and environmentally--did the events of this age have both on the peoples and places that were colonized and enslaved and on our contemporary world? To explore how our understanding of the "Age of Discovery" impacts what counts today as "modern," vs. "underdeveloped" or "backwards," we will study works that place our contemporary world in conversation with the "early modern." Materials for this course written, visual, and oral-- will be wide ranging and, at times, innovative in both genre and discipline.