Topics: Travels, Discoveries, Translations: The Global Renaissance

Catalog description

This course explores the Renaissance as the first important period of globalization that saw the discovery of the New World and the rise of modern states and national languages. What links can we establish between the Renaissance period and the globalization of the 21st Century? How did people think of communication, travels, and languages several hundreds of years ago? How does the Renaissance worldview differ from our own? What is similar, and what can we learn from the past? Texts include Francis Petrarch’s Itinerary to the Holy Land, Christopher Columbus’ Four Voyages, Ibn Battuta’s Travels, Aztec poems in Nahuatl; Michel de Montaigne’s selected Essays, Sor Juana’s Divine Narciso, and Amerigo Vespucci’s Letters. This course is Writing Enhanced.